Good forum software?

I'm starting up a private forum for my gaming clan and I am shopping around for some good forum software. I am not opposed to investing some cash for something good, but free would be preferable. Many of the forums I frequent are running vBulletin so I am pretty familar with using it, although I have never maintained it and that is where I am looking for advice.

Whats a good forum that is not that much of a hassle to administrate, is feature rich, and is preferably free? I have MS Access, MySQL and if need be sql server 7 at my disposal for this. Also the forum can run php, asp or asp.net so that leaves my options pretty wide open.

Thanks for your help!

paid www.vbulletin.com : the best
free/paid www.invisionboard.com : next best
free www.phpbb.com : good for small sites

Vbulletin is by far the best. It has the most features, is the simplest to administrate and has the best organization. If you are looking to go with a free board phpbb and invision are great, just as HaTE said. Invision has more features, but the support is lacking because they try to get you to buy hosting from them. Phpbb has good features, but for optimal features and functionality hacks need to be installed. They have a good support forums and a bunch of guides explaining how to install the hacks and general info about phpBB. Its simple to use, I use it for my site. The style is also very customizable. I would say if you go with free, go with phpBB. I didn't mean for that to rhyme, lol, o well. Good luck!

Matt

Hey thanx for the responses guys. I will check into both of those. I still may end up going to vBulletin, but I want to look into everything before I make the investment

Unless your clan is very big i woudlnt get Vbulletin, its 160 a year if you own your own or 85 for a lease and thats a lot for just a clan board which probably wont have more than 20-50 posts a day...

Actually the $160 licenses you to use it forever, you just get 1 year access to the members area. Still it is alot of money for a small forum as you said.

I have phpBB up and I am testing it right now. It seems pretty robust, and I have yet to investigate any of the mods.