Forum Suggestions? Asp.net/PhP interfacing

[NeuralJack]

I have somewhat of a unique problem. I really want a nice stable forum for my website, like vBulletin or SMF. Those are php programs.

These forums will support a .Net program I made. I copy-protected the program by making the program log into the website to verify the username and password. Yes, there is more to the copy protection as well. So, I have my own username and password database.

I want, at the very least, to be able to:
- Make forum accounts from an ASPX page
- Update a users permissions/roles from an ASPX page

And Id like to be able to keep make the username/password database the same for both forum and website, but I dont expect that.

Anyway, there are NO good ASP.net forum programs from what ive seen. Im only willing to spend $200 or less. Community Server makes me laugh with their prices.. Id never pay that much for something when vBulletin is only $160 and is much more time-tested and reliable.

So, the best forums are obviously php, from what ive seen. So, if anyone knows of a good strategy to accomplish what i want let me know. If i can successfully run everything on an IIS server even better, but php progs might run best on unix. Anyway, i thought id ask here because you guys are doing vBulletin, but its a .Net forum lol. Im sure youre just using a unix server do do everything though.

 

[mskeel]

PHPBB is another good option and its free/open source. The reason I bring that up is that with a few modifications you could probably set everything up to automatically copy username/password combos to your application protection database or vice versa. Remember that these things all use databases to hold their data and you have full access to those DBs. Its just a matter of understanding the DB schema and manipulating the fields without breaking anything.

Also, Ive been running PHP on windows (both IIS and Apache) for some time and have experienced few (if any) problems. The only real difference between the windows and unix/linux that I have seen is price and scalability. Well, also some things are just easier on linux such as remote administration, permissions, and some scripting stuff -- some stuff is more difficult though too. There are always trade-offs.

 

[NeuralJack]

Thanks, Ill check out phpBB too.