Opinions on Upgrading from vB4 to vB5

[Hikarin]

I've read a lot of opinions on this topic over the years that caused me to stay far clear of vB5.
Nothing really from 2018/2019 however.

What's the general opinion of vB5 now and with the release of 5.5.5?
Is it far improved from its versions of 2017 and prior?
Are there pros and cons that I should know about?

Let me hear the general consensus.

[Dave]

Stability and performance wise, the latest vBulletin 5 version is much better than the first version of vBulletin 5. The recent security issue in vBulletin 5 was pretty bad though. Probably one of the worst things that can happen to forum software.

When it comes to upgrading from vBulletin 4 to vBulletin 5, ask yourself why you should upgrade? What is wrong with the current installed version? If you have a lot of visitors, people will complain about the visual changes since they will not be used to the new look.

[Hikarin]

I personally am happy with vB4.

But the team over at vB are telling me that upgrading is the best option now that vB4 has reached end of life, and that since PHP versions will not be able to be increased, that it will create security issues.
I was fine, but they have me second-guessing myself. =x

I personally prefer the look of vB4. But if security really will become an issue....

[Dave]

Even if there are new security issues for vBulletin 4 published, including from software such as PHP (although unlikely that it will affect vBulletin), there will be plenty of people publishing unofficial fixes for it (including myself)

It will probably take many years before hosting companies no longer support PHP versions that can run vBulletin 4. At that point, once again, the community and myself will make public unofficial fixes to make it work on more recent PHP versions.

[In Omnibus]

I personally am happy with vB4.

But the team over at vB are telling me that upgrading is the best option now that vB4 has reached end of life, and that since PHP versions will not be able to be increased, that it will create security issues.
I was fine, but they have me second-guessing myself. =x

I personally prefer the look of vB4. But if security really will become an issue....

What's really becoming an issue is privacy laws. vBulletin 4 is already way behind the curve regarding EU Privacy laws and US Privacy Shield laws. US Privacy laws are about to take a major turn toward resembling EU GDPR regulations.

For a number of sites this won't matter but for any site that advertises, markets, conducts research, sells, or solicits it's going to be a huge compliance issue.

The modifications currently available for vBulletin 4 (and the one available for vBulletin 5) don't even come close to meeting the legal requirements.

As Dave said there will always be someone willing to figure out how to make the software work so long as it can be figured out. I will say that PHP 7.1 is going to be deprecated by year's end and SQL 8.0 is going to be the industry standard next year. Those are going to make it a lot harder for anyone not technically knowledgeable to continue to operate vBulletin 4 or any other software that won't run on those versions.

I generally function by the axiom, "If it isn't broken don't fix it."

But if you know ahead of time it's going to be broken over and over and over ...

[alfuzzy]

Another thought is vB 4 is not mobile friendly. With some serious interface tweaking it could probably be made mobile friendly...but this is probably on a site by site basis...probably not something that could be done via an app or plug-in.

Also Google crawling (Googlebot) starting July 1st, 2019...by default will crawl new websites with it's "mobile-first indexing"...older sites will continue to be crawled with Google's "desktop-first indexing".

How this exactly effects website SEO will have to be determined...but I'm willing to bet that eventually websites that are not "mobile-friendly" will lose SEO ranking to sites that are more mobile friendly.

Thus if vBulletin 4 is not mobile-friendly and vBulletin 5 is (it is)...then vBulletin 5 will have an SEO advantage vs. vBulletin 4.

[In Omnibus]

Another thought is vB 4 is not mobile friendly. With some serious interface tweaking it could probably be made mobile friendly...but this is probably on a site by site basis...probably not something that could be done via an app or plug-in.

Also Google crawling (Googlebot) starting July 1st, 2019...by default will crawl new websites with it's "mobile-first indexing"...older sites will continue to be crawled with Google's "desktop-first indexing".

How this exactly effects website SEO will have to be determined...but I'm willing to bet that eventually websites that are not "mobile-friendly" will lose SEO ranking to sites that are more mobile friendly.

Thus if vBulletin 4 is not mobile-friendly and vBulletin 5 is (it is)...then vBulletin 5 will have an SEO advantage vs. vBulletin 4.

Mobile-friendly is meaningless with 4K resolution phones and 5G technology.

[z3r0]

As vb5 is a complete change that is not compatible with all your current vb4 addons, skins etc, you really should look at all the other players in the market before making any decision.

[alfuzzy]

Mobile-friendly is meaningless with 4K resolution phones and 5G technology.

Can you please explain how having a 4K resolution phone and 5G technology eliminates any website mobile-friendliness issues (I would honestly really like to know)?:)

But tell this to Google when they send you warnings/errors for your site not being "mobile-friendly". When Google crawls your site...and the Googlebot says your site is not mobile-friendly...then your website drops in SEO & you lose traffic.

This may not be important to some website owners...but SEO is important to many website admins & owners...and mobile friendliness of a website should not be overlooked.

vB4 (out-of-the-box) is less mobile-friendly than vB5...and thus is a concern to those persons trying to optimize website SEO.

[In Omnibus]

Can you please explain how having a 4K resolution phone and 5G technology eliminates any website mobile-friendliness issues (I would honestly really like to know)?:)

But tell this to Google when they send you warnings/errors for your site not being "mobile-friendly". When Google crawls your site...and the Googlebot says your site is not mobile-friendly...then your website drops in SEO & you lose traffic.

This may not be important to some website owners...but SEO is important to many website admins & owners...and mobile friendliness of a website should not be overlooked.

vB4 (out-of-the-box) is less mobile-friendly than vB5...and thus is a concern to those persons trying to optimize website SEO.

"Mobile-friendly" is for smaller screens with lower resolutions and lower bandwidth devices that take longer to load pages. With new phones having the same or better resolution than desktops and 20GB download / 10GB upload caps and with 5G technology allowing one million connections per square kilometer instead of one hundred thousand (the limit with 4G technology) the entire point of mobile-first development is naught. Mobile devices can easily load and display full desktop resolutions.

Having said that you'll still get people who complain about how hard it is to read desktop layouts on mobile devices because the number of pixels is irrelevant on small screens when comparing 1080P to 4K. The human eye can't tell the difference. Those people will still have to enlarge the screen but it has nothing to do with "mobile-first" development. Making a layout full screen might help but that's not the same thing.

[alfuzzy]

"Mobile-friendly" is for smaller screens with lower resolutions and lower bandwidth devices that take longer to load pages. With new phones having the same or better resolution than desktops and 20GB download / 10GB upload caps and with 5G technology allowing one million connections per square kilometer instead of one hundred thousand (the limit with 4G technology) the entire point of mobile-first development is naught. Mobile devices can easily load and display full desktop resolutions.

Having said that you'll still get people who complain about how hard it is to read desktop layouts on mobile devices because the number of pixels is irrelevant on small screens when comparing 1080P to 4K. The human eye can't tell the difference. Those people will still have to enlarge the screen but it has nothing to do with "mobile-first" development. Making a layout full screen might help but that's not the same thing.

Thanks very much for explaining in detail...really appreciate it.:)

This doesn't resolve the issue of Google/Googlebot when it crawls websites...and if the website is considered not mobile-friendly (according to Google)...then these websites will get negative marks for not being mobile-friendly...thus lower SEO scores...thus lower traffic.

My website is on vB4...and I don't like getting "dinged" by Google for it being non-mobile-friendly. I want my websites SEO to be as good as it can be (at least as good as it can be without spending lots of $$$$$). Lol

[In Omnibus]

Thanks very much for explaining in detail...really appreciate it.:)

This doesn't resolve the issue of Google/Googlebot when it crawls websites...and if the website is considered not mobile-friendly (according to Google)...then these websites will get negative marks for not being mobile-friendly...thus lower SEO scores...thus lower traffic.

My website is on vB4...and I don't like getting "dinged" by Google for it being non-mobile-friendly. I want my websites SEO to be as good as it can be (at least as good as it can be without spending lots of $$$$$). Lol

What specifically is it "dinging" you for? DOM elements? Page load speed? JS elements? HTML issues? CSS? Media query issues?

Google must have a set of specific criteria they use to check URLs from mobile devices. I would suspect their own webmaster or analytics tools would detail those criteria and indicate which are specific issues. If you can determine the causes then we can discuss the solutions. The term "mobile-friendly" is a catch-all and encompasses far too much ground to know where to begin insofar as Google is concerned.

[romaine]

If you can make current mods on vb4 work with vb5 then it is time you should upgrade to vb5 without thinking more.

I am currently happy with vB4 hence I don't think I need vb5 now.

[alfuzzy]

What specifically is it "dinging" you for? DOM elements? Page load speed? JS elements? HTML issues? CSS? Media query issues?

I don't know specifically. But if Googlebot is giving an error that a site is not "mobile-friendly"...I'm sure this is impacting the SEO score of a website (lower)...and thus the website is showing lower in search engine results.