Free Forum Solution?

Mystic Terrapin

Hey, guys! I'm looking for an alternative to Proboards forums that lets me customize the hell out of it. I've been looking at a bunch of sites and they claim to have full customization, but what they really mean is that they have lots of features. I basically want to be able to change the layout a bit, make custom icons and have special features in people's profiles (maybe some rpg elements, etc). I don't mind using special coding (such as CSS), either.

Reznik

Invisionfree is the one I'm most familiar with. It seems to have quite a large community for skins and codes. I think you can find free hosts for phpBB and SMF as well.

edit: jcink uses the Invision Power Board software, but from what I've heard offers more customization options than Invisionfree. I haven't used it myself, but I've heard good things so you might want to check it out as well.

sYnister

check out Vanilla http://vanillaforums.org/
i know theyre using it for the reboot of the penny arcade forum and ive used it for a client and it seems to work quite well

Mystic Terrapin

Both look interesting. Jcink seems to be a more standard board while Vanilla seems to be more of a reddit type board.

Edit: Well Vanilla is out because the free plan only allows for 10 users online at one time. I'm trying to work with jcink, but I've already got some problems.

Noquar

Try phpBB?

Kato

I have always been a fan of PunBB in the past, but I don't know how much they are doing with things these days.

spool32

phpbb has served us well. Check out the link in my sig... the portal we use is nicely designable, and there's a great support community.