The target is to create a community where mostly people will have their own "vault". Like an enhanced diary system.
Public areas will exist for some common operations, but mostly a user will get into this system because he wants to operate on its data and add/modify them. The "data" may be posts (blog? forum?) or it may be events that need to be tracked privately ...
I want to start on this thought and see where i can get it?
I have thought of the "obvious", that is to combine a CMS wit a forum (like Joomla with phpBB).
Is there a product out there (preferably free) that does my job?
Is it better to start building one of my own?
Update: Thank you all for the answers, i went with phpBB as a forum for a start and Joomla for the wrapping around the forum. RokBridge will serve as a user bridge between them in the future when i will need it. for now joomla has no users.