PunBB or phpBB ? Want to keep it simple.

I lost touch with punbb and haven't used phpBB from long. Was totally into vbulletin (even the forums I visit). But recently, I saw phpBB was much more simpler, the community more helpful with more mods and plugins, much like vBulletin.

Now, I need a forum software for a site which won't actually get me much revenue, so there is not question about Vb there. I am looking into punBB and phpBB . I like punbb as I more comfortable with its simplicity and working , with just over 1mb size compared to the 9mb of phpBB. Does punBB use lesser server memory than phpBB ?

I am having 10-12k unique visitors per month on my blog, for which I am creating forum for, which is hosted on a reseller account. Which one should I be getting ?

I would also like to know how to get the SEO Mod Rewrite Url's working.

I have a few problems with the stock version of phpBB. It is difficult to moderate new signups. You only get an email, no list online so if you delete the email, it is very difficult to validate/delete new users.

phpBB is a spammers dream. You will absolutely need to implement some captcha mod as it is not standard. This will be true for any bb/forum.

I looked at punBB a couple of weeks ago and it seems to be maturing nicely.

Good luck with your project.

PunBB is designed to be lightweight and so it should use less resources than phpBB. There are quite a few free/open source forum options available at the moment - bbPress, PhpBB, PunBB, MyBB, SMF, and Vanilla come to mind.

-Tim