most powerful forum engine

All forums are decent enough, the problem is the type of user., and software you would be using.

1. The bottom of the fish would be,
A. Irc / ftp client type chat rooms. However more recent software has to be used because of people able to execute commands.
B. Then you have RSS, newsgroups, and other kinds of clients.
C. Even in the 1990's there are tons of programs/apps ( many still usable today ) that is able to open a video window, present a chat, and transfer files. All without using services.
D. PhBB is a common one and usually free.
E. vBulletin was extremely popular and still used today but it is a paid product.
F. Then you could always just program a "fill-out-forum" and literally make it for any user to leave comment between each other, which essentially is a blog. Programming a FOForum that allows logged users to make new forums is the next step.
G. You have older forum software, where you can have comments among comments in a drop down list. I honestly miss how simple those were. No images nothing but links and names and messages.
H. Even if you do make one you have to find a way to control BOTS, and other robot users. I know this japanese company and they made a forum and all of these Chinese phone numbers and offers would pop up, in the forums. It was terrible. Even Deviant Art has this problem.
I. Speaking of DA originally it had a decent forum software but since the new buyout from WIX it has shifted to phone users. Even Deviant Art users have complained and the service seems to work with Android rather then PC ( especially if you have script blockers.. WIX targets fine-artists, models, paint enthusiasts. Basically anybody with money. DA originally started out as a college art magazine, but since WIX came along it strongly targeting fine-artists. They have tons of Chinese, and Eastern-Europeans, along with LGBT and feminists.
J. This forum seems to be decent, I can open it on older browsers but to sign up I have to use a newer browser.
K. Newgrounds is another system entirely. Zionist Israeli moderators but the user base could vary.
L . Facebook initially is a forum but because people originally designed it to look for people from their grades K-12-college years that was the original pitch. Facebook simple used free access to data-bases of people to make profiles and the rest was history.
M. Twitter initially popular among book readers, and people with glasses.
N. City-Data is basically a forum of retailers, and job seekers, usually who are older then 50. Nowadays posting anything will get you banned for anything political related. They do not like people sharing information. Their system is probably the best information and most cleanest forum.
O. Myspace was a nice type with it's own webpage creator but slowly was over-shadowed by others.


You could make one from scratch, or you could us another persons system. Maybe even request help from a programmer. I tried starting a free forum the problem is why do people come to the forum rather then the faces of these people.

Even such you still need enough serve space in order for users to log-in, and leave-feedback, along with other server functions.