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I would name PunBB[0], which can be run on a potato computer. It was often configured to use SQLite database, so it really seems lightweight for CPU, disk and memory usage. In terms of source code - it was also very thin.
Also Flarum [1] looks good in terms of being lightweight. It is based on Laravel Framework, so it has own pros and cons, but thanks to wise implementation of mithril.js it felt very fast from a user perspective.
On a different spectrum, I would list Discourse [2], followed by Invision Power Board (IPB) [3]. Both require 2GB+ of RAM and a good CPU to run the server.
[0]: https://punbb.informer.com/forums/
[1]: https://flarum.org/
[2]: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/main/docs/INSTAL...
[3]: https://invisioncommunity.com/
There is a version of Lemmy (a fediverse clone of Reddit) with the phpBB interface: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmyBB
I would name PunBB[0], which can be run on a potato computer. It was often configured to use SQLite database, so it really seems lightweight for CPU, disk and memory usage. In terms of source code - it was also very thin.
Also Flarum [1] looks good in terms of being lightweight. It is based on Laravel Framework, so it has own pros and cons, but thanks to wise implementation of mithril.js it felt very fast from a user perspective.
On a different spectrum, I would list Discourse [2], followed by Invision Power Board (IPB) [3]. Both require 2GB+ of RAM and a good CPU to run the server.
[0]: https://punbb.informer.com/forums/
[1]: https://flarum.org/
[2]: https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/main/docs/INSTAL...
[3]: https://invisioncommunity.com/
A shameless self promotion, but for last 10 years or so I've been developing and maintaining my own forum software, Misago:
https://misago-project.org/
It's build with Python and React, so obviously not so easy to setup like PHP solutions, but there's also a magic docker setup that you can just git clone to your server and get forum running in minutes.
But with Misago I am trying to find a sweet spot between "new wave" of forum software and old solutions. So there's plenty of interactivity in the UI that JS provides and there's markdown support, but there's also classic pagination instead of infinite scrolling.
I think GitHub Discussions* strikes a nice balance between hierarchical and chronological comments.
The main comments are chronological, but you can also inline reply to a main comment. So the hierarchy is restricted to one level deep. I think this design flows more naturally, you avoid deep branching, and you avoid quoting a comment that was 3 pages back.
* https://github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals/discussions