I’ve experimented with various forum scripts in recent years. I don’t have any particular need for a forum but it’s interesting to know what works and what features are available.
People wanting free hosted forums have various options including Google Groups and others which you can find by searching.
If you have your own domain there are lots of scripts you can choose from. Some of them can be automatically installed. phpBB is one of the most commonly used and has lots of optional add-ons. It can be difficult though to integrate these scripts with the look and feel of your web site.
Up until now there haven’t been many forum options to integrate with WordPress. The creators of WordPress are developing bbPress. I haven’t tried this for a while.
I was about to give it another look when I came across a WordPress plugin called Simple:Press. It’s just over 1MB in size, uploads to the plugin folder and installs easily in the usual WordPress way.
I’ve been very impressed with this plugin and can recommend it to anyone using WordPress who wants a forum.
Update (December 2011): bbPress now integrates easily into a WordPress installation. Simple:Press version 4.5.0 is a 2.1MB download.
I had taked a look at Simple Forum before but I never really liked it. It always seemed to be missing something. I guess after that I ended up using bbPress and I have loved it since then!
bbPress All the Way!