Flarum is a modern take on PHP-based message board software. A completely new and modern piece of software has been forged with a dedicated team over a couple of years. While Flarum only offers the essentials of a message board software, it gives all the basics needed to build upon it. A big community has created loads of actively maintained extensions that help you build exactly the community you want to have.

Message boards see their main rivals on social media sites. Those offer excellent access on mobile devices and a feed giving you the latest posts. Both things are addressed ideally in Flarum while not giving up on the concept of message boards.

Most importantly, it's using state of the art frameworks allowing for longevity and greater possibilities. If you want to give Flarum a spin yourself, you just need to make sure to have a host that allows SSH access and has composer 2 installed.

Go check out the official project website: https://www.flarum.org
Giving it a quick spin without worrying about hosting: https://freeflarum.com/