phpbb or smf

[coolv1994]

which forum would be best for a small site phpbb 2/3 or smf

[spork]

PHPbb is really ugly and has crappy skins in my opinion. I have used both and found that the admin cp in phpbb doesn't compare to SMF. SMF has so many more options and settings.

[Conor]

It's down to personal preference and how comfortable you are with either phpBB or SMF. Personally I like phpBB but like I said, its a personal preference thing,

[rockraider]

phpBB3. pphBB2 looks ugly as can be...

But then again...it's all personal preference. Have a look around...see what works best for you.

[GG-Xtreme]

Neither. Sorry, but phpBB is too cheap-feeling and insecure for my taste, while SMF is also cheap-feeling and a resource hog. Best free forum software hands-down would be MyBB (VERY similar to vBulletin, but the default skin is ugly, get a custom skin; extremely customizable, huge plugin and mod support, tons of options that you would only find elsewhere in vBulletin), and the best overall would be vBulletin (obviously).

[Slothie]

Phpbb3 works fine in most cases, looks rather slick as well. Downside is not very many customizations available for it yet.

[DaemonS]

I use phpnuke 1.x and the version i have had PHPBB2 it works for all i need, but lik everyone has said its a matter of personal preferance

[shadowolf]

Well, I haven't used SMF yet, but I've registered on a forum using that engine; it's pretty nice, actually. A lot better than ProBoards.
PHPBB2 is as easily spammed as deerkill. I've seen two worthy forums using this software being plummeted by spam (coming up with some weird Finnish (something like that) names).
PHPBB3, however, is a huge improvement, but still not quite as good as an SMF forum. It misses some of the crucial UBBC buttons (custom UBBC buttons sometimes don't work), and it's not very customizable. However, admin panel looks nice, and everything's straightforward.