We often see members mistaking Forumotion with phpBB, and this confusion results in members asking support for their FM board on phpBB support forums.
Actually, there is much difference between the two systems.
phpBB is the name of one of the most used open source forum scripts. It is written in PHP language and uses a database. The script must be downloaded, then installed on a FTP account who supports PHP. You are charged of the forum's maintenance, modifications, database backups and you are free to migrate your database from one host to another when needed.
Due to its license, many free forum hosts use a phpBB script they modify and adapt for their forum system. That's the case with Forumotion who started with a phpBB2 script. From time to time, the script has been heavily modified.
With free forum hosting services, the forum is installed in one minute simply by filling in a subscription form and so, you don't have to search for a FTP host. But on the other side, you can't export your database (we call this "proprietary database"). You can access it only for forum restore when a problem occurs. On the templates side, it varies very much from one host to another. Some hosts are limited to simple colors and pics management while others allow CSS modifications, and some even allow template modification.
Even if template modification is allowed on the phpBB2 version of Forumotion, it isn't that simple to installed a style who's designed for a plain phpBB2 script. Some buttons might be missing, and some classes are different in the CSS and so, some adaptations are needed in order to optimize its rendering.
For this reason, I recommend you to use the Forumotion-designed skins as much as possible, whatever the way they are available (on hitskin or as zip pack)
You will find download links and support for Forumotion skins at this following link :
http://ishimaru-design.servhome.org/forum/forum-tg71,styles.html 