# Forum support software



## Techtech100 (Aug 16, 2019)

Hi Tech Support Forum,

Apologies in advance if this is not the right place to post this but I was not sure where to post (admin's please feel free to direct me to the right place).

I am working on a community project where students from university can engage with each other on various educational topics.

I have done a bit of research but I am not sure which software to use that allows advance features and engage with the students actively. I want the forum to be comprehensive in terms of students gaining reps and are involved with academic activities, us posting and advertising events that the academic departments through banners etc. and allows me to make changes, migrate data if in the future I want to move to a different software, SEO friendly and targeted towards university students, nothing too technical or boring?

I have looked into the software as below but I am really confused as to which one is the best in the market as I do not come from a tech background.

Can you direct me?

here are some that keep coming up on google but I thought best to check with the tech experts

https://www.vbulletin.com/en/ 
https://invisioncommunity.com/ 
https://plushforums.com/ 
Wotlab 
Mybb (not sure how good this is?)
Flarum 
Vanilla Forums
Zendesk forums
Telligent 
PHBB
Flux bb
Codologic

Thanks in advance!


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## eddie5659 (Mar 19, 2001)

Hiya and welcome to Tech Support Guy

I've moved this to Web Design etc, and all the above you linked are for websites/forums, and you may get better response in here 

Thanks

eddie


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

Personally, I would write my own, but if I were to choose to use a 3rd party package I would probably opt for *phpBB*


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## bassfisher6522 (Aug 8, 2008)

Most of the forums that most of us belong to use either vBulletin or XenForo. And XenForo has a free demo to try.


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## salmansaleem920 (Jul 21, 2019)

Go for Xenforo as XenForo is written using modern technologies and patterns. I think that XenForo is the first forum software to apply an MVC pattern (a modern technique for writing good quality code). After browsing through some core XenForo scripts I can admit that developers were strict to rule: write less, do more. That is why their code is easy to read and learn. 
The other thing is semantics, mainly html5, which provides SEO optimization and better development conditions for javascript coders.
And the last but not least is CSS and great tools for customization. XenForo still needs some extended CSS3 support but it is already a great product and could be extended drastically.


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