Which forum software to choose?

[biosurf]

Any thoughts on which forum software to use?
The charity I started recently needs a forum for members on its website. The website geeks have recommended that we use a Joomla plug in which is free and works with the rest of the site (i.e. a log in to the site will log in to the forum too)

See an example of this forum here http://jvitals.com/index.php?option=com_agora&Itemid=2

Now, its free and includes some support which as a charity is a consideration.

The main things I wanted are:
Easy to use
Ability to post pics, links and use avatars
A search function that works well.
Easy to PM
Easy to administrate (the admins are unlikely to have much IT and little forum experience and won’t be putting huge amounts of time in. This also means that the more protection against spam to clean up the better and that support is a godsend)


My thoughts
The search is a concern of mine as it seems that you can search by keyword and author but not subject which to my mind (unless I'm missing something) is a big problem. One of the main aims of the charity is to help the members share information and best practice and then easily be able to refer back to past threads. Missing a subject search could make this tricky to my mind.

According to the feedback on the site about this particular forum there are a 'lack of admin tools, such as would be used to clear spam posts, junk messages or undesirable or offensive posts.
In general a culling or review tool to keep the forum clean and in conformance to the stated rules.'
Again without seeing the admins log in its difficulty to know how far this goes.


I find the Surf forum one of the best to use as though not especially pretty as it just works. However, it does cost (not sure how much total – the vbulletin site says $200 for the forum licence but I’m not sure that’s all you need to run the forum as the surf forum runs?)
I don’t know how much back end admin time is needed to maintain it though – the agora example above seems to be fairly low maintenance.


Any thoughts from those with more experience than me. We do have funds to spend but not too much and as I say anything that takes a lot of admin will fail before its begun.


Sure you’re suitably bored now but thanks for reading

[Chainsawdude]

Free:
http://www.yabbforum.com/ Fairly Easy to instal, setup and maintain, has more features than phpbb and better security from spam bots.
http://www.phpbb.com/ Very easy to instal, setup and maintain, simple features but can be customised a lot of you know a little php, but tends to attract a lot of spam bots.

Pay:
http://www.invisionpower.com/ Fairly easy to instal and maintain, lots of features, one of the better ones.
http://www.vbulletin.com/ The daddy of all forums, difficult instal if you are a newb at html/php, quite easy to setup and maintain.

There are a few others but this is just the most popular ones.

[biosurf]

Thanks. Thats probably decided me about vbulletin. The time I have to put into it is minimal and our coordinator only works 2 days a week and has to juggle a lot of different tasks to make the organisation work. I know as much about HTML as GWH knows about bladder control and my coordinator knows even less. At the moment we don't have the buy-in to have 'voluntary admins' who know their stuff.

[yoshie]

Simple, very simple, functional and free

lefroa forums. SMC started life on that platform before moving on.

[biosurf]

Thankin' you for the input gentlemen

[Ploddit]

If you want pretty and loads of functions that you probably don't need

Xenforo example here


Ooops necro thread didn't notice the date.