I've recently canceled my IP.BOARD forum for various reasons, and am now looking for a different software, that's free.

Here's the ones I've eliminated:

-MyBB
-Invisionfree
-Yabb
-PhpBB

Anyone know of better ones, hopefully close to the style of IPB?

Also, I am considering SMF, but I do not have any experience with it. Does anyone have good/bad comments of SMF?

You have to use a hell of a lot of ftp to use smf.

You should try getting a http://Jcink.com board for now, and once you have some cash then buy either IPB or vBulletin or possibly BurningBoard.

I don't have a monthly income for IPB As far as I know, it's a per-month payment.
And I did have a Jcink forum, and it was invisionfree, which me and my co-runner decided not to use.

you know, its much better than IF except for the lack of skins mods and the community.

SMF looks very good. I don't have any first hand experience, yet, but i haven't heard anything bad about it yet. If you wanted to differ a bit, then you could try Vanilla, although it's been known to get a bit cluttered for large communities.

I think we'll either use SMF, or InvisionFree.
Thanks guys, this can be closed.

IPB is $100 for a year, $150 for forever.
Also PHPBB or MYBB are the best free forums out there, don't dismiss them so quick.

I'm confused. You listed in post 1 that you've eliminated InvisionFree, but say you'll possibly use it in post 6.

What do you mean in terms of style when compared to IPB? There are a lot of things to consider in a comparison between two forum software solutions. You could mean the forum display and layout, base features, Admin Control Panel organization, security, availability of forum mods, support, permission masks (though this ties in with features), etc. What exactly turns you away from the software in your list? There may be something we can assist you with.

We're currently using Zetaboards, good choice until I get cash for IPB?

SMF is a really good software. I'd try it out.

Also: have you tried IPBFree.com? I've never used it but I hear it's a good free IPB.

Yes it is, in my opinion. The only drawbacks I have ever found for ZetaBoards is the lack of RSS feeds and the horrible blog system. The lack of RSS feeds can be worked around if you have enough PHP knowledge, I think, but I'm not sure how. Other free forums may have the RSS feed and blog system, but I haven't found one that's better than ZetaBoards that isn't ugly and horribly non-user friendly. The right code may help with the ugly thing, but like I said, they're not so user friendly and it's not so easy to install those skins.

Not to mention the ads...

And no ftp access.

Well, I'll attempt to purchase an IPB as soon as possibly
I just hope Zetaboards will be okay for now.