babez

I?ve used phpBB for about 4 years, and am using vBulletin for almost a year or so.
I like vBulletin a lot, but I also like quite a few of the phpBB features (their template engine mostly)

It all depends a bit on what you?d like to do with your board, since there are quite a few explanations to give when talking about an ?internal community system?.

If you?re starting from scratch I would suggest to take a look at other forum software as well, like IPB, SMF, Drupal, not sure who they are but the guys who made http://www.colourlovers.com/, etc.

Like the name of this board already mentions, we are all vBulletin lovers over here, therefore it would be hard for us to write an unbiased review.

phpBB=easy to hack and run rampant

vBulletin=far more secure

Experience has shown this, from the perspective of being a site admin on a site whose phpBB got thoroughly hacked by a bunch of Russian hackers. They tried the same on my site after we brought a new site up with vBulletin, and they got smacked down HARD.

I've tried them both as well, and ran both for years.. vbulletin is defiantly the way to go ;)

I've run everything thing in mainstream and Vb by far is the best

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VBulletin all the way. They have the best support and service too.

Just an added note, I also purchased IPB (still have that license) and I was really disappointed, especially with their attitude about upgrading their software. They seemed more concerned about supporting their business-end products, and kept delaying their next version release.

Drupal gave me a headache. And to be honest, I just use phpBB for ideas of things to convert to vBulletin.

As for colourlovers.com, it's a nice site, but how does that relate to this thread? (Unless it's just a plug for your site. In which case, very nice...)

You can't even compare vBulletin to phpBB, simply because vBulletin kills it every possible way. Better security for vBulletin, better customisation for vBulletin, better mods and installation, better features and just about better everything. And that's compared to phpBB3, which still doesn't even have a quick reply feature! As for phpBB2 or the like... just avoid like anything.

I really can't be bothered to list the better features individually, but a few nice ones that vB has as better:

Quick reply (I couldn't go without this)

Easy mod installation with zero file edits most of the time compared to the phpBB file edits for everything.

More security/quicker security patches and such like.

Better at keeping spam out because the vB captcha actually works to any extent, and the question and answer verification kills spam dead most of the time. Or there's recaptcha if you want something different.

Finally, being able to edit the templates through the Admin CP and easily is great, the lack of customisation in phpBB compared to this is apalling (I hate many free pieces of software for the lack of this kind of interface).

I used phpbb for 5 years, installed tons of mods. I know almost all about phpbb.
I also used SMF for two years I am still using both of them and now use vbulletin.
what a waste of time. should have started with vbulletin from the very beginning but those are all free communities so do not want to spend much money on them

I have lost so many hairs in phpbb... but I've them back with vbulletin. get it? :)

I asked myself the same question time ago, and = vBulletin all the way!
I won't run nothing serious on phpBB, great effort tough, but still we have everything here :)