robzilla - 11:01 pm on May 27, 2011 (gmt 0)

bbPress is not just a WordPress plugin, but standalone forum software developed by the creators of Wordpress. I like their philosophy, but I'm not sure they're living up to it with (what I've seen of) bbPress.

As for lightweight forum packages, I'd vote for phpBB. I'm not sure how lean the actual code is, but the software allows me to output lightweight pages without sacrificing functionality, using a simple but powerful templating system.

I started out with vBulletin, but just trying to get rid of all those site-wide JavaScript files gave me enough of a headache to begin looking for an alternative. Same goes for most commercial forum software (IP.Board, XenForo, etc).

FluxBB is another promising package, but as of yet it does not have a proper templating system.