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What forum software is better: phpBB, vBultein, Ekarte, SMF?

That's an interesting question.

You have probably listed the most popular ones that are currently in use and you cannot choose one. Because each of them has a number of advantages and disadvantages compared to each other. However, among the new ones that are not yet so popular, I would single out Flarum. It is a very high-quality and powerful tool for work. I filmed a video about its installation and it turned out to be very easy to install and use. So I recommend that you pay attention!
 
I used to use phpBB probably 15 or 20 years ago, same with vBulletin.

It seems many of the bigger forum sites have moved to XenForo (this forum included). I did find XenForo a little complicated to extend with custom modules, etc., but once I got the hang of their system, it worked pretty well.

My only gripe with XenForo is that not only is it a paid platform, but if you want to provide an add-on, you must also have a paid license. I have an add-on that could be very useful to site owners, but since I don't have a license (I was the developer, not a forum owner), I can't share it on their marketplace, so I have to "market" it myself, even though it's 100% free. Go figure! (if you're interested in it @RackWorks run a search our site for XenForo and it'll pop up)
 
Would like to mention that vBulletin's biggest strengths are advanced administration, moderation, customization, scalability, and its mature forum/community feature set. You can modify styles, colors, fonts, images, CSS, and templates to create a custom forum design. Its expanded API supports integrations and different ways of accessing community content; vBulletin 6 also added Shopify integration.
 
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