Theres different forum software like phpbb, vbulletin, ipb, ect. that you can use.

Hi there,

There is no money to be made in forums. I wouldn't bother with it, not to mention, you'd be really busy with updating it every minute of the day due to security vulns.

You can install a free forum script such as Simple Machines Forum using Fantastico in your cpanel. From there, it's not hard to add categories and board topics. The beauty of SMF is that there are lots of themes available, and lots of packages that add extra features, such as the ability to add advertisements, and more secure captcha. There's also a thriving support forum that is very helpful.

Use MyBB forum script. It is best forum script as far as i am concerned. You can use Vbulletin but you need to buy the script. In case of Mybb script ,it is completely free. So Use Mybb script or Vbulletin For more details google as "mybb " or "Vbulletin"

I have a couple of sites for which I use vBulletin 4.0 publishing suite. It's not cheap, but their support is very good and any problem's I've had have been addressed quickly.

The big draw for me to vB was that their forum system is really good, has lots of mods available for added functionality, supports adsense out of the gate.

But it's what I'm familiar with... There are other free products you can use, I always view forums as an add on to some type of CMS (whether you're talking about Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal etc...)

If I were developing a site in Joomla as a CMS, I'd probably choose Kunena forums.

I don't know what others opinions are, but I've pretty much dropped traditional web development from my portfolio and almost always develop the base site in some type of CMS (Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal...) Content is so much easier to maintain with a CMS back end (especially for clients).

You should go with a forum Script like vBulletin or phpBB. Most of the forums on the web are using such scripts to create good looking forums. If you want to write your own script, that would be really messy.