I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on how to go for building a site that I can run a small-sized community with maximum costumization as well as hook a portal up to it so I can post content on the site, guides, block messages of text, etc...
I was think of going with IPB or PhpBB and Mambo/Joomla or whatever they're calling themselves these days.
It's more of a matter of which combo has the best/any modification(s) to fuse them, otherwise I might try out PhPNuke, but I don't particularly like it, wished it had a bit more costumization and 'more shiny' features =P

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I'd say the choice was down to personal preference really. IPB you've got to pay for, so I'd only really go for that if you have an instant membership (e.g. a website for a group or club) or are prepared to pay yearly for it. phpBB has thousands of mods, themes and customizations, and support is provided completely free by the forums, and also people are willing to help out here

If you really want to go over the top with the feature-rich element then try phpBB-FM, which is a pre-modified version of phpBB, with hundreds of the most popular and stable modifications already installed and set up. A fried of mine is running a copy and has had no problems at all with it.

Things like Mambo and Joomla are different, as they generally provide more ways to post content, articles, images etc, rather than being based around a forum. However, there are ways to get a CMS (content management system) to work in conjunction with a forum such as phpBB or IPB. More information about this can be found on the website of your chosen CMS.

Your best option is to try out demos of these CMS's and forums, normally there are demos on their sites of both the admin panel and of the front-end (what visitors see). See which you like and which seems to fit best with what you want to use it for.

what rvalkass said is true.
it is largely down to personal preference, but if your looking for it to be heavily forum based, then IPB or PHPbb would suit fine, aslong as you can jazz it up with your own site's identity.

CMS tend to be moreabout ease of adding content to a general website, which may, or may not include a forum. I would advise against Nuke, as 90% of sites created with it turn out ugly and with an "out of the box" feel to them.
Joomla is a great and powerful CMS, and with addons such as Community builder, and Forum Bridges, you can create a great communtiy focused website, and give privledges to certain users to add and publish content.

If you need nothign more than a forum with a home page to post news and maybe some other little thigns like, shoutbox, calander, basic statistics etc, then jsut get a Forum and use add-ons etc.

But if you want a way to manage and add content to your site quickly, with a forum attatched and integrated, then get a CMS.

(strictly speaking PHPbb and IPB can be classed as CMSs as well, but their bassily forums with some added functionailty)

Well if you want more than a forum I would recommend PHP Nuke. You can choose different themes and make your own and it is really like a website with a PHPBB forum built it. You can add on pages if you wish. I think you can do the same with IPB if you can afford to spend that much money on a license for one. I really like that forum but if you can't afford it you gotta look elsewhere.

For your Content Management System, You can use Powerfull CMS Softwares like PHP-Nuke And POST-Nuke, they have many features better than Jamola/Mambo CMS Softwares, And they all are free of COST, that means you don't need to pay for any thing, also you can get free Templates for these CMS from Search or from directly HOME Sites.

For Community i recommend you to use PHPbb, as IPB is not for FREE, if you have a Cpanel Hosting like Trap17.com is giving than IPB is present in Fantistico.

For Full Mode Forum softwares you can use PHPBB Full mode from www.phpbbfm.net FREE of cost, This is look like a protal, specially design and customize for SMALL And HUGE Communities.............and have almost every thing that a user think