Invision Power Board is the industry leading forum software and platform for building thriving online communities: buy it online now!

Invision Power Board 3.3 Now Available

Invision Power Board (IP.Board), now at version 3.3, is the industry leading web application for publishing and managing professional discussion boards and forums. Based on PHP 5 and MySQL, IP.Board (formerly InvisionBoard) is the software platform powering the online communities of many large businesses and institutions, including O'Reilly, NASA, EMI, NBC and Skype.

IP.Board differentiates itself from competitors, both open-source (e.g., phpBB) and commercially-licensed (e.g., vBulletin), thanks to the flexibility given by its numerous features, its high scalability, and the expandability offered by the IPS Platform, a suite of applications consisting of several IP.Board add-ons, ranging from the IP.Content CMS and website builder, to the IP.Gallery picture and video sharing script, to the IP.Blog add-on for the management of blog communities, to the IP.Chat hosted chatroom script, to the IP.Downloads download management and file sharing component, to the new IP.Nexus shopping cart plugin, enabling effortless integration of online store functionality in your community.

The outstanding features of IP.Board also include integration with social networks Digg, Facebook and Twitter, and the ability to create accessible forums for smartphones and mobile devices, thanks to the mobile skins and iPhone app.

Hosted Community Packages

As an alternative to the downloadable application, you can purchase hosting packages already fitted with the latest version of the Invision Power Board forum directly from the manufacturer. This is the cheapest and fastest way to create your own community without having to worry about installation and regular software updates: check out the IP.Board hosting packages.

Advanced Hosting Packages

For high-traffic communities, which need to have high availability and quick response times even with many concurrent users online, advanced hosting packages are available: IP.Board-optimized hosting solutions operating on VPS or dedicated server hardware, ideally suited for crowded communities, and designed with reliability and stability in mind.

Free Forum Software

Are you looking for a free forum script to power your community or build your own forum? The web offers many free and open-source forum scripts, such as the popular phpBB, or the latest Simple Machines Forum (SMF): these are stand-alone pieces of software that need to be installed on your own web server, requiring ASP, PHP or CGI (Perl) support, and –often– a database such as MySQL or PostgreSQL. Alternatively, many popular "gratis" forum websites offer the possibility of creating a hosted forum based on Invision Power Board, vBulletin, or other hosted applications on a third-level domain, either supported by advertising of ad-free.