vBulletin by far. I tried phpBB a while back & didn't like it at all. The vB support is way better AND there are great features included in vB that phpBB requires mods for.

Consider that vBulletin is commercial, and I've learned the hard way that no freebie can compete in terms of features and support. The crew at vBulletin earn their bread by working on the program. While open source can inspire lots of dedication too, at the end of the day, if your business depends on an online community running efficiently, where should you place your confidence?

I recently moved to vB especially because i wanted a change but i used phpBB 3 for my forum for 1 year and i must say that for a free software it is fantastic !

i can talk about phpBB3 for a week there are good parts and bad parts...but don`t compare vB to phpBB2, compare it to the new phpBB3, and maybe you should not compare this 2 because one is
180$ +60/year and the other one is free !

phpBB3 is not perfect yet but they are really close...and they can push vB to be much better software then it is now

comparing them it`s like comparing linux (phpBB) vs windows (vB)

I use phpBB on my from for about 7 years. I think about upgrading to vbulletin several times. Recently i upgraded to vbulletin and i really like it. I will never go back to phpBB on the site. I still have few sites with phpBB as i don't want to spend on those sites. If you can afford to buy vbulletin, go for it.

One thing that impresses me about vBulletin is that, fully equipped with 16 mods and all, our traffic at the main forum we use has gone up tremendously in just two months. We were using MyBB previously which has, out of the box, a lot more features than phpBB.

That means our members enjoy the community more and want to participate more actively. More traffic means more hits, and more ads, of course.

So this was a worthwhile investment for us (we have three vBulletin licenses now).

Peace,
Gene

^I understand the exact same. My traffic personally went up by about 1000% due to using vBulletin from a free forum software (then again, it was also free hosted, so the domain and stuff may have made a difference).

I can't say this would always happen reading one of briansol's articles: http://skeymedia.com/invision-power-...in-re-visited/

Keyword is that it might not always happen. Just saying from personal experience though, and from my research and readings on both vBulletin.org and The Admin Zone, people are influenced, even slightly, by what forum software you use, and paid software will get higher stats as a result (unless maybe your members like working on open source projects).

Hey guys.

I'm an administrator on smallball.org we're a community for an online baseball/soccer game. Anyway, in my time in the community we've phpbb2, SMF, and now VB (although I wasn't an administrato in the phpbb2 days) I can honestly say that in the short time we've used Vbulletin our members have been more active compared to SMF and phpbb.

First off, I've noticed people feel "safer" using our forums now because they feel VB's security is better. Also, of course they enjoy the new additions and features when compared to SMF.

When someone is searching around on the internet.. I fully believe that when they see a community site running software like VB (meaning paid, and not free) I believe the tend to gravitate towards that.. Almost like they can see the effort people put into that community to actually pay for something.

Anyway.. I've never liked phpbb2 or 3.. I have to admit I do love SMF but neither of those can touch vBulletin.

ive had the opportunity to use both i started with phpbb then when i was offered an owned vbulletin for 50 bucks I couldn't pass it up.

Basicly heres what ive noticed

vbulletin
Pros:
Alot of out of the box features such as quickreply quick edit and overall better look
Easy to install mods Simply just upload the xml file
And your site gets an overall better reputation when it shows that you have actually put money in to your site.
Easier to moderate (moderator controls are more accessible.)

Cons:
Cost money (not just the board with its self is 200$ new but if you want VbSEO you tack on 150 if you want a skin your talking around 40) in the end your talking 400$ to just get your site presentable.
ACP isn't as User Friendly as PhpBB (Its not that its more confusing its just that theirs so many features its almost overwhelming IE it takes forever to set permissions where as Phpbb is just a dropdown box)

PHPbb:
Pros:
Free (Seo and all mods are)
ACP is very user friendly
Since you install the mods manually its alot easier to customize it when you see the accuall code behind it.

Cons:
People don't give you as much respect when they see a free board
Less features
Mods are a pain to install
NO out of the box features
and not only are the mods hard to install their are always like 5 different versions of each mod so if you want to just try each your talking 6 hours where as Vbulletin you just upload the XML file if you don't like it remove it and try the next.

i like how you used my site as an example of phpBB when my site is actually a MyBB.

phpbb, the name is self explanitory. Vbulletin talks quality.

I had a phBB forum, but in March I got vBulletin. Lets just say- vBulletin drives phBB right into the ground. vBulletin crushes any competition!

I Became a moderator on a gaming forums in 2001, and started my own forums later that year.. my first forums were ikonboard, then i went to invision, then finally in 2003 to vBulletin.

Now i havn't used SMF or PHPbb to be fair, but i know people who have and they are always complaining.. i personally have never wanted to use another forums system since, i know vB is the best around.

I've used pretty much every main stream board out there except mybb and in my limited opinion VB just seems much more solid compaired to the rest. Certain parts of the others feel very whimpy and lose.

I spent a lot of time -- frustrating in fact -- trying to get MyBB to be fully functional. The previous 1.2.x version proved ragged in far too many places. I held out hope that 1.4 would be a lot better. But again, there were some decisions that were not properly considered, and the initial release was severely flawed. No more.

Peace,
Gene

As a newbie to this forum lark, I found that VB was easier to install than one of the phpbb as its does it all for you, ive used the free ones for years i wish i had started with VB would have saved me a lot of time and trouble.

vBulletin. No contest. One of the things that makes it great is that it already has features that come with it that other board software require mods for.

not sure why people keep saying "mods" and options on here for vbulletin...

the phpbb community is much larger then vbulletin, and can be expanded the same ways, maybe more, because lots of people dont want to pay for licensing. its just the way it is. looking at the phpbb community right now, and i havent been there in a long time, there is more post on that community then on vbulletin.com and .org put together, so that says something. and there is over 100,000 topics dedicated to modifications of the forum for 3.0x and 2.0 there.

now i choose vbulletin ofcourse, been using it for a very long time, and recommend it to all my customers, ya the plugin system is very helpful with instaling mods, but they are smoking us with the amount of mods there are, and phpbb still dominates the amount of installs there are im sure by a huge percentage, just because it is free.

both boards have come a long way, so its hard to compare the 2. phpbb offers a trouble ticket system just like vb's main site does, there are tons of things both boards do the same. i find the admincp of vbulletin easier to use.

as far as security goes, both boards are the same with security. the froum is only as vulnerable as the server admin or the staff lets the forum be. if your running your forum on a old php server, then ya your asking to get exploited, but both boards are safe to use im sure, just really depends on what settings you got going on with the server and your forum software. and even with vb, we are still having problems with exploits and spam bots, so nothing is 100%.

try phpbb and see for yourself. then see if someone you know who has vbulletin will install a testboard for you so you can do some test on it and see for yourself. or goto the demo sign up page and ask vbulletin to make you a forum so you can test it out @ http://www.vbulletin.com/admindemo.php thats really the only way your gunna really know which forum is best, but in the end, they both do the same thing, they let you build a community from scratch, let visitors post things and talk about things, and they let you as a admin run a community, and even possibly make some money off it.

apparently, according to stats @ http://www.big-boards.com/ still holding #1 is Gaia Online, and that site is built off a heavily modified phpBB forum, and its the largest forum in the world online, supposidly. i dont even know how it has those kinds of stats cuz that forum is just BONKERS trying to navigate, but anyways, a big chunk of large boards use phpBB and a chunk use vbulletin. its all preference. good luck.

vBulletin for sure.

phpBB restricts you to certain things.

I love vBulletin :D

As said, there's no real competition here , as vBulletin utterly destroys the competition.

I think it's pretty obvious.

And I also want to say that the support for vBulletin is top-notch. I used to be a phpBB user myself & wondered what crack I was snorting when I finally came across vBulletin a few years back.

vBulletin 4ever !! :D

Cant go wrong with vBulletin!