Best FREE Forum Alternative to XenForo

Yeah, it isn't free! It's still an ok forum choice if you go paid but since OP is asking for free then yeah it isn't a good choice for them.
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dragons' den bad answer GIF by CBC
 
There is a lot of providers including Xooit, and also MyWebForum, and Wix site. Also there is a possibility to mix a forum and a blog for some site providers like e mon site.
 
Free is good, but all of them that is lacking is being updated and being fast and having the greatest and latest you know.

SMF is good but nothing like Xenforo. Does not hurt to try them all ;P
 
You can try Forumotion or Proboards.

I would recommend Zetaboards but they were bought out by Tap-a-talk and now I'll no longer suggest that.
It's a shame, although Zetaboards didn't have as much time to develop and flesh itself out, it was among the best available free forum software.
 
Out of all of them regards free then I would go with phpBB or even MyB. In fact I go with Vanilla as they are cool and good 😉 Also, vBulletin is another free good one to pick 🙂
VBulletin is free?
 
Forumotion, Proboards and Jcink aren't bad if you are looking for free forum software. They are pretty easy to use when it comes to the admin control panel. And if you get stuck, they each have a community to help you if you have questions.
 
I would say Jcink for this one, especially when it uses the exact same spambot protection as it, at least what I've been told anyway. Even if Jcink itself doesn't have the bells and whistles of Xenforo...
 
Jcink and Forumspark are the best free hosts IMO. Forum Spark is similar to Zetaboards and it's still being actively developed. It will eventually allow admins to download a database backup, I think it's really promising.
 
I'd go with SMF. It still receives updates unlike MyBB. I believe SMF is mobile friendly too.
SMF is definitely the best free script and it's mobile friendly out of the box so you don't need to install a responsive theme like you do on MyBB. There are even free forum hosts that host SMF too btw.
 
NodeBB if you can do your own hosting (or your shared host will allow node.js).
SMF if you need a PHP based script.

For those "free script/hosting" options, never used them so cannot comment on them.
 
SMF is definitely the best free script and it's mobile friendly out of the box so you don't need to install a responsive theme like you do on MyBB. There are even free forum hosts that host SMF too btw.
I hate free forum hosts. I think all forum owners should avoid using them.
 
phpBB is working good for me and I was even able to get a 3.2 version math mod over to 3.3.
 
NodeBB if you can do your own hosting (or your shared host will allow node.js).
SMF if you need a PHP based script.

For those "free script/hosting" options, never used them so cannot comment on them.
Nodebb and discourse are starting to look good!

I like that they’re both connected to the fediverse.
 
I currently use PHPBB. Is it possible to add Adsense to SMF?
 
Nodebb and discourse are starting to look good!

I like that they’re both connected to the fediverse.
I'm running sites on both now.
In some ways, I prefer NodeBB. Discourse is a real PITA when it comes to installing any plug-ins that you may need. You have to manually add the GIT repository into your app.yml and then rebuild the app... and hope to hell it does not shit all over itself like I've been having issues with on my Edge & Steel site.
In some ways, I do like Discourse over nodeBB from an end user aspect (mainly the editor aspect). But from the admin POV... it's more problematic as installing plugins are cryptic and when you do add the GIT repository in and it decides to take a dump on itself, you get no real errors about it.
 
Had moved our forum over to using NodeBB as I've been using it more and found it to be a bit more enjoyable.
 
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