What would you recommend as an easily modifiable forum package?

Question

I'm in the process of setting up a new website which would greatly benefit from having user-forums.

Since I already have user accounts, and profile details, stored away it seems that I'd benefit from choosing an open-source forum package which I could modify so that logins were tested against my existing database.

Right now all my site is Perl-based, and looking around I don't see many great Perl forums - the only obvious one I could find which is featureful is yabb - but that is written to authenticate against flat files and to be frank the code is nasty.

If I need to use a PHP solution then so be it, but first are there any simple forums that are written in perl that you'd suggest? I'd expect to have different forum-groups and nominate particular users as moderators. More than that I don't need, just basic threading and an attractive appearance.

Answer 1

Really simple forums are often really insecure forums. If you're determined to use perl, a major web forum doesn't come to mind, and if your competent in security I'd say roll your own. You could even release it to the open source community to help people like you. I know there are several great PHP ones out there that aren't so insecure an rather well developed.

Answer 2

I seem to remember that Drupal had a reasonable fit as a module.