Best Forum for Integration into existing site?

[oneguy]

I have some sites that have a membership base already.

Is there a consensus on the best forum for integration?

I don't care about SE friendliness. The forum will be only for members and not for search engines.

Current sites are coded in perl. (and would be nice if users could move seamlessly from forum to site and site to forum.) I'd like to user current login information, and avatars.

I do care about ease of integration and ease of moderation.

Will I be able to integrate the php forums like phpbb and vbulletin?

Anyone integrated a forum into an existing site? Problems or concerns?

Given that current sites are coded in perl, does a winner emerge as far as integration goes?

[rogerd]

The important part of your plan is the need to use a common login. On one site, I took the opposite approach - I used the forum user setup and authentication features in other site areas that needed limited access. I figured that the forum software already had lots of user management features - granular privileges, password recovery, banning, etc. - so I wouldn't have to pay to code that stuff.

Since you have existing user management and features, it might make sense to create some code to keep the data in the forum user database in sync with your existing user data.

I'd talk to your coder about the degree of difficulty in working with different forum packages. One good thing about the two you mention, phpbb and vbulletin, is that they are common enough that if you have to hire a new coder you should be able to find one who is already familiar with the forum code.

[oneguy]

Thanks for the thoughts.

if you have to hire a new coder you should be able to find one who is already familiar with the forum code.

Yeah. I have some coders I work with fairly often, but they are mostly the "tell me what to do type" instead of the "tell me what you want, and we'll figure out how to do it together" type. I can still see what they come back with.

[encyclo]

> perl

You should look as YaBB as a potential candidate too:

[yabbforum.com...]

YaBB is written is Perl, so has a good chance of easing the integration process, unlike phpBB or vB which are both PHP-based.

None of the current boards are ideal for retro-fitting into an existing site, although you can often get systems to build a site around the forum software. You're always going to need some recoding.

One thing to check is the software license: both YaBB and phpBB are open source (thus giving you the rights to reuse the code), whereas vBulletin has a closed license that risks limiting your customization options. This is not to exclude vBulletin as a possibility, but you need to be certain it can be adapted legally.

[PeteM]

I would copy my existing user base to phpBB and use phpBB thereafter. Should be fairly easy to integrate phpBB with your site.

Pete

[MThiessen]

It may not be so easy PeteM, since his existing site is PERL not PHP. It is indeed possible, but I believe it would be easier with a perl-based board like yabb. I used it before, yabb will have "issues" if you get a lot of traffic, but for that matter, so will *anything* perl based. PHP handles lots of traffic far better then perl imo.

[rogerd]

>>PHP handles lots of traffic far better then perl imo.

Tell that to Brett. :) I agree about commercial Perl BB offerings, though. They are great up to some level of traffic, but when they hit the wall it can be ugly. Of course, 99% of the forums online are capable of being run on a Perl platform.