Best laravel forum package

Why don't you try the one right here on ladracasts that you build yourself. That way you build it, so of course you would know how to maintain it.

@mbo Are you looking for something you can extend and add functionality to yourself, or do you just want something plug and play that is maintained by others?

As @jlrdw has mentioned, there is a series right here on Laracasts which walks you through how to build a forum. It may not be "perfect" for you out of the box but you'll know how it works, how to maintain and extend it so that you don't have to rely on any package maintainers.

Alternatively there are some pre-made options out there. The folks over at The Dev Dojo have a forum package called Chatter, albeit development appears to have stagnated (last commit was 2018). A non Laravel recommendation would be Discourse. It is free (if you self host), open-source, very active and popular. You can be confident that if you used Discourse it would be well maintained.