For an upcoming community should I purchase vBulletin / XenForo etc or use a free board like PhpBB?

I suggest you IPS 4.19.1 latest its cool and all in one and its have forums also.

What makes it so good? vB is quite good too, quite borderline atm.

I guess MyBB and SMF will do just fine, they're widely used, though it's all up to you.

I have tried smf forums and xenforo i'd go with xenforo, though you sorta have to pay per year if you want updates which is like $40 after your support and updates runs out

I just suggested you here you can see service website then decide which wanna you want to use https://invisionpower.com/

Full smart WYSIWYG editor. No more silly BB-codes. A pasted link automatically gets converted to a clickable link, an image link immediately inserts the actual image, a ******* link automatically embeds the video in the post, a link to another post or topic on the forum automatically shows a preview. Also @mentions that will actually send a notification to the user.

Not bad at all

can you go to zoo?
you are a animal and thief

FREE:

SMF
myBB

PAID:
WBB 4
XenForo
IPB

My top list.