[xdude]

I have been looking at NodeBB and vanillaForums for a while now. I have been using SMF and myBB for a very long time but for a new forum I'm going to create I need something very very moblie friendly. SMF is little too heavy for this and even thought I love myBB it really not so good when it comes to reponsiveness. There are workarounds but these create their own problems. I know myBB 2.0 not gonna happen in next decade or so and I have been waiting for Beta of  myBB 1.9 since 2017. So I think it's time for move on. At least for my new projects. 3 options I'm thinking right now are,

• bbPress
  
• NodeBB
  
• VanillaForums
  

bbPress is responsive as it can get and really good. But compared to other forum scripts it has limited base features. Maybe it has enough addons to cover all of this now. I should check about this more. NodeBB is something I haven't heard much about. It's also moblie friendly and looks very neat and simple. Now VanillaForums seems to be the next best thing to myBB as far as I can see. So have you guys used any of these 3 options ? If there are any other good alternatives plz share. But 2 mains factors are moblie friendlness and been a free product.

[Littlemaster]

Actually what functions you would like, why there is a mobile friendly concept at this time? 
Now a days mobile browsers are updated and is able to do manage many functions which were difficult in those early days. I remember searching for adobe flash player and bolt browser for streaming web videos. But things have changed now. People is able to browse well and stream easily. The main issue is people use apps like whatsapp , telegram and facebook instead of surfing web. 
I will say MyBB's mobile version is good.

[youssefbasha]

I used much forum softwares and i would recommend 3 for you
1. MyBB (There is a mobile theme, yeah it seems to be old but its still good)
2. IPB Boards (Much themes too but its veru expensive)
3. SMF (i was using it on mobile and didn't face any problems at all even with the default theme)

[chanalku91]

Asgaros Forum can be an option if you are a WordPress user and this is also mobile friendly!
Moreover, the features in the Asgaros Forum are already quite complete!
So the Asgaros Forum can be an option you can try!

[humanpuff69]

it mostly depend on the template that is using . if you want to use default one it already answered before

I used much forum softwares and i would recommend 3 for you
1. MyBB (There is a mobile theme, yeah it seems to be old but its still good)
2. IPB Boards (Much themes too but its veru expensive)
3. SMF (i was using it on mobile and didn't face any problems at all even with the default theme)

most forum support template so you can change the look of the forum easily and make sure you get the responsive template . for example post4vps have responsive theme and that what i use and it is 1000000% better than mybb default mobile theme

[TrK]

Deciding a forum platform is not simple it depends on many aspects i have too much experience working with mybb since it was always my first choice to go because of its plugin structure being too simple to work but simplicity is not the only factor if you are looking for a small community i would suggest you take a look at Flarum, Carbon forums and discourse. In these three choices for a small and minimal community i would go with either Flarum and Carbon forums as for discourse it would be a great asset when you got a large userbase i am not that familiar with carbon forums but for flarum and discourse i did had some experience installing and testing them for fun and i can say discourse so far is the only platform being in use by Mozilla, codecademy, howtogeek, etc. make sure you have a good enough server for discourse as for flarum and carbon forum it is possible to host both of them easily even inside a shared hosting environment. Hope you choose based on your userbase and carefull consideration.

[ikk157]

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT use NodeBB. Their mobile optimization is an absolute nightmare!!! It’s extremely glitchy on mobile and is all over the place. Not to mention how easily it breaks. It’s own features break it!!!

I highly suggest using Flarum. It works perfectly on mobile and is extremely light weight! I have to give you a heads up tho: Flarum was made to be “modular”. Hence, it won’t have all the features of a standard forum out of the box. You’re supposed to install extensions to add the exact features that you’re looking for.

[xdude]

I was looking at both Flarum and Discourse too. But then I found this mobile friendly myBB theme which has worked very well when I tested it. It's called BootBB. I thought giving it a try and salvage the forum rather than nuke it. So for everything seems good.