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Best forum to self-host and start a community
Hi guys! I am looking to start a community, as a place for everyone to hangout and chat, like the old days, before the existence of Reddit and Discord.
I hope to create a community where everyone will feel welcomed, and there are many tools to enhance the community like plugins and themes. I plan to make it a place for all types of discussions, so it needed to be able to handle a heavy load. I plan to develop it into a social networking website, and possibly replace Reddit and Discord by becoming an alternative.
I am currently looking at MyBB and Flarum. I wonder if anyone have any other suggestions, or which is better.
The software must be in PHP, through, as I will be using a shared hosting to host this, and I prefer open source software.

Comments
I like Flarum.
MyBB
Smf is solid if you can get past the old clunky ui. It might actually suit your project well given your target niche.
Flarum. This forum is on Vanilla (another FOSS)