exactly, and seeing as IPB has some pretty good support on it's forums, almost as good as vb.org's support i think it's a pretty close second, the templating system in IPB is the biggest letdown though, just by editing a simple file you can be approached with errors galore, if the next version of IPB had a better way of handling templates and skins, then i would prefer it to vB3, to me visually, vB3 is pretty poor template wise as well, not as the actual system, but the way it is laid out, for example the usercp templates and the breadcrumb, i enjoy vB2 a LOT more but sadly as soon as vB3 is made RC, all the hacks and support for vB2 will be limited, which is a shame, perhaps they can make a vB2 Gold version and keep it as a seperate "lite" script for vBulletin

Quoting Kier: "Style not final" ;) ^^

even if it isn't the final style, i'm sure it's not going to change completely, otherwise going to the beta version is a lil stupid, considering everything for them is going to change, the vB3 beta style is awful, especially the postbit and usercp templates

I've used phpBB on my localhost for testing, and am soon to use it as a community on a new website of mine, but I enjoy that software second to vBulletin.

I'm not very found of IPB, and see even Invision being above it.

Invision is IPB. ;)

Er.. I thought Ikon was termed as IPB? (which would explain why the abbreviations don't match) I had forgot it was Invision Power Board and not Invision Board (IB). Sometime ago I recall looking into Ikon board and saw something about it called as IPB-lite.

Eh heh.... yeah, anyway. So, (1) vB (2) phpBB (3) Invision. ;)

has anyone tried myBB, looks completely identical to vBulletin, yet it's free, check it out

yeah, there are quite a few vB look-a-likes out there...

this is more than a lookalike, this is like....vBulletin's evil twin brother, the code is similar, it has every feature of vBulletin, it looks exactly the same, the files are even the same name, i'm suprised the Jelsoft lawyers arn't having a field trip with these yet

haven't checked the code... will do now :P

[EDIT]
mailed to piracy@vbulletin.com

[EDIT]
and reported to IPB