Usually most forum software have an importer or a converter, so basically everything should be imported (boards, topics, posts, private messages, avatars, attachments, etc) when migrating to other forum software. In the past I did migrations from phpbb to smf, phpnuke to smf, smf to other paid software and I did not lost anything.
I don't have experience with Discourse or Flarum, I only installed them on localhost/ small vps for testing so I cannot comment on theese softwares. Instead I used SMF since 2007 until 2015 when I migrated to a fork of smf called
Elkarte. I am also using paid software for forums, but for an open source project like Scribus I think it's better to use an open source forum software.
After all these years using forums I have to say I like SMF, it's simple to maintain, easy to use, fast and secure. But why I did migrate to elkarte if it's only a fork of smf? Well there are many reasons, first if compared to smf or other free forums I think the development is much more active. Beside that it has some features that smf does not have in the core, like:
- likes
- mention member (@member)
- a notification area for likes, mentions (and quotes in the 1.1 version)
- it's responsive
- SCEditor for posts and PM
- spam protection, bad behaviour in the core ( I see it's also installed here)
- post by email, reply to PM by email
- drafts & autosaving of drafts
- custom.css file for editing styles
- inline attachments (with the new version 1.1 actually in RC fase)
- minify css & js files
- embedded videos from youtube
- Font Awesome icons
and probably other things I don't remember. If you like the look of discourse forum there is also and addon that will make it look like discourse, but I don't use it and not tested, have a look
here .
My suggestion to Scribus admins is to try in localhost or in a test environment elkarte and you will probably love it. The migration is a painless process, everything should be imported without problems.
p.s. I am not a developer, I just manage a couple of forums powered by elkarte (skodaclub.it and sharkracingclub.it) You will probably notice on elkarte forums that I am registered with the same nickname I use here, I am also a moderator of the board, but like I said I am not a developer of the software and I am not here to promote elkarte.
If you have any questions just ask here or on elkarte forums.
Regards,
Radu