As title says, PhpBB is really good software and you can tell just by how many big companies and open-source projects rely on it.
I have made a total of 5 posts on the community forum and been attacked every single time, it truly is a toxic community where you aren't made to feel welcome whatsoever.
Great forums if your not bothered about all of the designs or templates etc. If your looking for a plain forum then I would recommend phpbb. If your looking for a good looking forum then I would recommend freeforums. Although, phpbb forums are easy to handle and easy to get around the forum. Great admin panel as well.
PHPBB is free and vbulletin costs big bucks, so what do you choose? - PHPBB is the best open source bulletin board software provided and it helps me develop and manage multi category bulletin boards. The php88's extensive administration panel helps me customize features without coding. Overall I think it is pretty good tool to develop bulletins with and it is free. I tried Vbulletin and it is a little bit better, but NOT for the $$$$ and licensing fees they charge. Just go with phpbb and don't look back.
I recommend any free forum hosting site, but none gets any better than MyBB. The features of phpBB are great, but they don't have the features I like, like they do in MyBB. This probably second right before SMF, that's about it.
The script is very good and well made, and very editable. Plus is php and everyone knows php these days, even us