Best PHP Forum

"Best" is always a difficult concept. How heavy do you need it to be? Features? Add-ons/plug-ins/extensions?

Do you need a common login? Do you need bridging for login?

phpBB is very mature and has a huge userbase, so big advantage over many other open source php forums. However it can be rather complex, but having the power to change almost every aspect will dictate some degree of complexity. Rollover to the next version can cause problems for highly tricked-up forums too, so you need to do your research well.

So you need to specify your needs, in detail.

First of all, thank you for your answer

Well, I dot need it to have a lot of features. I mainly need it to be secure. I don't want to have spam in the forum.

The only free forum I know

http://www.forummatrix.org

http://www.cmscritic.com/resource-lists/forum-list/

No spam in forum. Heh heh, you're joking right? Just ask the mods and admins here why we have so little spam. The design itself I'm sure has quite a bit to do with it, but its the dedicated work of volunteers that stop those that get through spoiling the site for others.

You cannot prevent forum spam regardless of which script you use. I have used phpbb in the past and I was able to minimize the spam by writing my own anti-spam script.

I became so obessed in fighting them, that I have to create a dedicated database just for the spammers IP address, the last website they were seen, the username they have used. I also have created a bridged between this database and my phpbb forum so that I can delete all of the new members matching my database based on IP and username.

Like what Diafol already mentioned, you will need volunteers to help you out.

Hey, look at that, I just noticed what is underneath my avatar, this is crazy. I need to say thanks at the geek's lounge.

Sorry for getting out of the topic. It just caught me by surprise. I don't normally look at my avatar after all these years. :)

phpBB 3.0.12 is (and can have mods to make it even better) pretty good at stopping spam, so maybe still worth looking at.

Other free ones could be SMF or MyBB, but really phpBB is the most established and is known to handle much larger forums.

If you're really despirate to prevent spam, pro packages like IPB are epic for both spam, updates, style and features.

Have you considered SimpleMachines? SMF is a whole lot more compact than phpBB but just as good when it comes to handling spam. You can use image verification to guard against spammers. Even better - use a Q&A challenge. By and large you should find one of those two measures adequate. If you really need to go it is possible to hack into the code and scan posts/comments for spammy content. If you own experience is anything to go by filtering out posts that contain the words pharmacy, viagra and night should be adequate.

phpbb also have those string filters. As suggested by jresponse SMF is also pretty good and you can convert your phpBB to SMF. I did this once converting phpBB to SMF out of my frustration.

daniweb.com is best forum PHP related queries.

phpBB is one of the best forum software. It's been under dev for more than a decade. This tells you something about how solid it is.
yes it is true there was some spam issues in the past but that was due to emails leak and was on the 3.0 serie.

The new systems, 3.1 and 3.2 (3.3 in the works) are the most secure forum software period.
They have been tested by indipendents security firms. Take a look here:
https://www.phpbb.com/about/features/

The new 3.1 and 3.2 lines have tons of spam extensions. You can use the new Google captcha and other plugins meant to stop spam. Email offuscation, blacklists etc etc.

I personally have been useing phpBB since v 3.0.4. Having said this, you can also get other premium addons like properly coded themes and above all plugins.

For example, sitesplat.com offers a 2-step login extension and many other security plugin will enhance even more yoru forum.
The themes are are also amazing. I've been using pretty much all SiteSplat's products since 2012.
You can see some work here: https://themeforest.net/user/themesplat/portfolio?ref=ThemeSplat

http://www.sitesplat.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1332

and:
http://www.sitesplat.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2789

Good luck!
Tony.

I reckon the OP has probably already got his forum sorted now, seeing as he was asking three years ago to be honest.