Forum Authority

Which one do you like and why ?

For starters i prefer free forum, so if the project fails, money won't be lost. Later if the forum get active then we can move on to paid .
Also many free forum are much better then paid

A free forum hosting is good, especially for someone who is new to being an administrator.  It allows you to test the waters without putting a bunch of money in it, like you said.  There are some free forum hosting that is good anyway with a good support forum if you need help, 99% up time, and the admin control panel is pretty easy to use.

I think free forum software is good enough, especially myBB. If I had enough funds then I would probably get XenForo because I just love it but I just would feel bad paying $140 just for a piece of software.