I’m having a hard time choosing between different php-forums. I’m looking for a lightweight, secure and easily customizable forum.

Googling gives me dozens of “simple php-forums” made by inviduals, but I’m looking for a community-based one. Because of, you know, the help and plugins.

I think that SMF and PhpBB are too solid packages and include too much features. It would be better to have only the basic lightweight base, which can be expanded via custom code (plugins). This is the main reason for me asking you guys. I’m trying to find some not-so-popular php-forums, as the most popular seem to be SMF, PhpBB and vBulletin.

I’ve been looking into bbPress. Is it any good? Looks light, and it’s made by WordPress’ devs, so it must have a solid development. Does it have a good community to rely on? How’s the plugin-system done?

Any other suggestion? I would love to have some options.

Martti Laine

PS. I already started creating my own system, but then realized that it’s just plain stupid to invent the wheel, when there probably are better solutions to rely on.