The indepth review of the Fireboad Forums, version 1.0.1.

 Total Score : 88 points - Gold Medal!

Performance - 18 points -

This lightweight forum does a good job in the area of performance.  While it does execute a few queries to do its job, none of them are all too expensive.

Extensibility - 8 points -

This component does a good job in the extensibility department, and is only getting better.  Modules and Mambots are available to extend the display of this component, but it lacks a little in the ability to extend the processing of posts.  It includes hooks to extend its functionality with Community Builder, and other components.

Usability - 17 points -

While this component is pretty good and easy to use, it does lack some administration features that would seem pretty handy.  For example, defining Moderators is a PITA...

Expandability - 8 points -

The only area of this component that really is lacking in expandability terms, is the user administration.  There is a need in larger forums for user group handling, which this component lacks. 

Stability - 7 points -

The component is in beta, and does have some issues, but it's pretty good for a live site...

Community Support - 10 points -

This component has a decently large community behind it, and looks to be maintained by skilled developers. 

License - 10 points - GNU/GPL

Userfullness - 10 points -

This component fulfills a large need for an integrated forum solution for Joomla.