IPB for me, hands down. As someone said above, vB and IPB are certainly the most feature packed, but for a price. I don't mind. Buying IPB was one of my fairly large purchases that I have never looked back on. My forums currently generate enough to pay it off anyway. Though I was very upset when IPB promised they would never put a price on their software and then of course they did.
I love the sleek out-of-the-box look with IPB, whereas vBulletin doesn't seem to flow as much for me. Generally it takes a good deal of talent and coding experience to make a vBulletin theme that really gets me.

I've also had some experience with phpBB, Drupal and SMF. I love the simplicity of SMF, but if you want a free competitor to IPB and vB, phpBB is very good.

vBulletin. I have never gone wrong with the software.

__________________

Like Ben, SMF for me.

It loads fast, it has SSI.php for easy integration, and it's extremely easy to theme, and you can install packages in the matter of four clicks. You can pretty much have SMF do anything you wanted if coded properly.

All that and more for the low, low cost of nothing a month!

__________________
Gary M. Gadsdon
SMF Customiser

The Cutest Baby | Multi Talk 2 | Simple Machines Forum

IPB for me, But after that it would be SMF.

phpbb is nice, it used to have security problems but I think the phpbb team has cleaned that up quite a bit.

You can try out quickly here :
create forum

SMF for me as well. Although the only other forum system I've actually used is YaBB SE, I have played around with many other systems at one point or another, and after using SMF, could never go with anything else - I'd end up coming back to SMF due to not having features that SMF does, etc.

__________________
The Oldiesmann
SMF Project Manager
SMF+Gallery2 Integration Project - Beta3.1 now available!

Invision Power Board. Acp has layers, it's more modern, and more user friendly. Nice intergration with other official add ons, too.

__________________
Anime Gerad - anime and manga community

As said in the other thread. MYBB. Has the most features of ANY free script and support is great. Plugin system is the icing on the cake as it makes it very simple to add any modification to your forum. The themeing/skinning of MYBB is like no other and the best of them all. Full control over everything. I would rate MYBB right up there with the paid scripts.

A few of the features include,
1. Ajax quick edit
2. Ajax quick reply,
3. Ajax thread rating
4. Mod CP
5. Forum warning system
6. Full coppa support
7. Inline thread and post moderation
8. Ability to turn all ajax off via ACP
9. Abailty for users to switch between thread view via user cp. Option 1 is what is called classic with the profile stuff to the left. The other is with the profile (postbit user ) on top.
10. Postgres + SQLite Support
11. Online status indicator in profile + location
12. Forum home - "x viewing forum"
13. Reputation system
14. Search engine friendly URLs

That btw is part of the feature list of mybb 1.4 which is in the last beta and gold is due out by the weekend. See MYBB for more.

It's MyBB.
vBulletin can do all that and more.

Also, vBulletin is the best forum software.

__________________

Well he was probably saying for free scripts, and I'd agree that if I were to use a free script it would probably be MyBB, I'm with you though, vB is the best.

__________________
World of Warcraft Forums - Your #1 place to discuss all things World of Warcraft.