The guys who brought you the amazing WordPress blogging platform, now bring you the free forum software called bbPress. It is focused on web standards, ease of use, ease of integration, and speed. bbPress now is officially released, and called 0.72: Bix
bbPress has been in testing form for quite some time and currently powers some popular sites like WordPress support forums and 9rules notes. It integrates with WordPress easily and has powerful spam control by Akismet.
bbPress is governed by a few basic principles
1. Open Source, always and forever
2. Less (code) is more
3. Simplicity is a feature
4. Speed and security are the foundation of any good user experience
5. Put the user first
Bix version 0.72, is now available for download and installation. It requires PHP version 4.2 or greater and MySQL version 4.0 or greater for use. You need to host bbPress on your own server – try pay as you use web hosting, or life time hosting deals, or try my host Dreamhost.
I had earlier tried out the phpBB forum, a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customizable Open Source bulletin board package, which installed within minutes thanks to the one click install goodies of my web host Dreamhost. One of the reasons why I like Dreamhost. But it was difficult to control spammers and required more effort to control spam than encourage user participation, so I shut it down. Maybe Akismet protected bbPress can deal with this issue better…