What was your first forum software?

[Azareal]

Mine was incidentally IPB which was a fairly nice software, at-least at the time. IPB > vB3 / 4 / 5.
It was the first forum software I ever saw in-fact.

The second forum software I saw was phpBB and that was right in the middle of a site getting hacked. Not mine however.

Needless to say, I've only really used it once for a site and only because I wanted to integrate the forum with Wordpress, and even then, I ended up tossing it out the window as it's all sorts of dated and installed MyBB instead lol

 

[Mozzie]

My first established board was InvisionFree, all those years ago

 

[Page]

Used allot but my first was SMF, It was free and easy to deal with and I just waited something simple to get started with as I grow. Then I moved to paid since then.

 

[Gh0st4unt3r]

I used too many scripts in the world, my first forum i used on my first website was the free invision power board when it was free and open then moved to vbulletin.

 

[Elli]

I started using ProBoards when I was 13 or 14, and never stopped. I got really good at making themes for that particular software, which created a nice little niche that I settled into as a hobby.

I've used Vanilla Forums, vBulletin, MyBB, phpBB, XenForo, and others, but something about ProBoards is "comfy" to me—nostalgic, most likely—so I always come back to it.

 

[Gabnovatron]

My very first forum software was a raw PHP template I downloaded from somewhere, and then spent a couple months messing with the code to add more functionality. Way too much work.

I moved to MyBB shortly after that. I've tried many more since then.

 

[Oblivion Knight]

ezboard

They were all the rage back in 2001/2, and you could make decent little communities with them.

 

[Deleted member 8254]

I started with MyBB and most of my webmaster time i used MyBB.

 

[Deleted member 44219]

I started with a modified version of SimpleMachinesForum(SMF) called CreateAForum. It was just SMF but you couldn't do a lot such as install modifications, themes or have access to a bunch of other features. But there were a few nifty features like Badges, Menubar Icons and Pre-Installed themes.

After that, I moved onto real, SMF(2.0.15). I tried migrating one of my forums into phpBB but I logged out and couldn't even get back in. So I technically did use phpBB but not for long(About half-an-hour I used it for). Never using phpBB again.

 

[edenwax]

My first hosted solution was Proboards (RIP) and then I started hosting my own with MyBB.

Had that puppy hosted on my personal HP Pavilion P4 Celeron with 0.5mbps upload speed.

It was wonderfully terrible.

 

[Azareal]

HP Pavilion P4 Celeron with 0.5mbps upload speed

That's not actually that bad. It's a website not a physics simulator.
You can probably get away with running one on a literal toaster.

It really depends on the software, theme, etc. though. If it's a bloated / fancy theme, you might have a bit of trouble.

 

[edenwax]

HP Pavilion P4 Celeron with 0.5mbps upload speed

That's not actually that bad. It's a website not a physics simulator.
You can probably get away with running one on a literal toaster.

It really depends on the software, theme, etc. though. If it's a bloated / fancy theme, you might have a bit of trouble.

In an ideal situation you're right, but I neglected to mention it was over 2.4Ghz Wireless G WiFi at about 35-40ft range with multiple walls in between. Not the worst by 2.4Ghz means, but it definitely was not a good connection to host a website off of.

 

[Ghost]

I used SMF first.
I can’t remember the name of it or anything, but it was a tech related forum. After not gaining any popularity, I decided to take it down.

However, I had an idea. I had no idea how to code, but I wanted to create a chat room. My SMF forum had a shoutbox on the top of it. So what I did was remove every single page from the SMF installation except the admin dashboard, registration, login, and index.php.

Inside the admin dashboard I removed everything except the member controls and the plugin page for the shoutbox.

Then on index.php I removed everything except the shoutbox. I made it larger.

Then users could sign up and participate in the chat room, which was read only for guests.

It was pretty cool and an extremely simple set up that piggy backed off of SMF and that chat box plugin.

It all went well but because I didn’t have any coding skills I couldn’t implement anti spam measures. That became a huge problem and I took it down eventually.

I used the same principle years later to create a MyBB social network that only had:
Sign in
Sign up
Member profiles
Messaging
One single forum to act as the news feed for all posts made

 

[Jerlene]

The first one I used was IPB. It was ok.

 

[Jason76]

phpBB - but I was inexperienced at the time - so spam destroyed.

 

[Gio]

I first used Forumotion, although I do believe it was proceeded by another software that I can't quite remember the name, but was paired alongside Forumotion.

 

[two50v]

First serious site I ran would maybe have run MyBB. Have experimented with several and eventually now have settled on my go-to being phpBB. A lot of people dislike it but it has greatly improved since around the 3.1 release point IMO.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I first used Forumotion for my Pokemon Modding community I made back in 2009, this was the first forum I've ever created and only one spam account made it's way in. :V I ended up abandoning it soon in 2010, and tried to revive it a few years later but I ultimately scrapped it.

 

[two50v]

I actually had a look around for free forum makers just in a nostalgic wave moment and majority of them except ProBoards seem to be abandoned since at least the mid-2010s or earlier...

I remember getting the dreaded "Vance Miller Kitchens" spam on my first forum, lol.

 

[BestForums]

My first forum software was SMF. I'm still using it. I love it's appearance. 🙂 Other forum softwares are nice too. But I like SMF the most.