vBulletin vs. Invision Board
 

Invision Board is supposedly just as good as vB, and its free....why choose vB over IB?

the support you get at this forum
it's really easy to hack, i've seen both vb and ib and vb is easier to figure out and hack

im sure theres more but it's late and i can't think right now

Reasons to choose vBulletin:

1. Quality Product
2. Quality Support
3. Ease of site integration via templates
4. Ease of installation
5. Extensive modification abilities (you can basically modify the complete look of vB through templates and graphics).
6. Ease of hacking (cut and paste for the most part)
7. The overall amount of hacks availible (1000+)

I am sure there are many more, although those are some of the top reasons to choose vBulletin. When I first installed iBF, I found their template system to be very confusing (3-4 templates would be combined into 1; which makes things harder to spot).

- SaintDog

"supposedly" is the keyword. If you take a closer look at the list of features vBulletin, you will find that it is much more powerful than Invision, in all aspects. Add that to the fact that vBulletin 3 is just around the corner (with the beta openning soon), you'll see vBulletin is a smart investment. From what I've heard, the support at IB is rather bad, while with vBulletin you have both vB.com and vB.org, as well as the official support system where you get a reply within 48 hours.

vBulletin is so much better than invision. The support is outstanding.

Invision board is simply inticing users in with its glorious packaged skin {Hint to VB3 makers: Make nice default template pweeease :P)

*pees himself* me sooo excited about VB3 now, Come on, September! Vbulletin Developers, give up sleep. NOW, Or me and all the millions of vb users will come and use you as hand puppets!

A question like that in this board is bound to have biased answers, however, the answers so far seems to be appropriate. :)

Although I haven't used Invision, I can say for sure that vBulletin is the best software I have used, and the support around here is great.

Ok, me an experienced user ;) of all sorts of boards, from ikonboards, to invisionboard, phpbb, wbb, ubb, but vb is different it is very easy to use, even for the average newbie. I can tell you that vbulletin, is one piece of software that would be a great feature for any site, and as Fire FLy had said, with vb3 right around the corner, and with high hopes for it, and from what I have seen from jelsoft's 2.x versions of vb, vb3 will also be one successful software. Vbulletin is user-friendly, and the support is great, not only do the admin, and mods help you, the fellow bb users, that are member like me and others, offer support too, and the great mod that have been released for vb is great, and I can assure you that you will not go wrong with investing in vb.

Drk

IB.....Support.....What support?, sorry to be nasty to all those that like iBF, but their support sucks ass, vBulletin has to be the only place that would really help out if you had a problem, it's worth every penny, even at a high price, there are quite a few good hacks availiable at iBresource, which i use for my other foru, but if i had the money i would go for vB in a second, if you really care about your members, you will go for vB

Some mod moved a rant about VB3 post by me into here :|

Anyways. Ikonboard is bloated, it eats bandwith and space
Invision Board is a slow and unefficent alternatve
In my opinion, the only real free board you should go for is PHPBB2. I used this up until the switch to "A new class of bulletins"

whats Invisions website

its www.vbulletin.com :-D

Drk

no invision not vbulliten i cant get vb for free

you can! Vblite is available free of charge from vbulletin.com

I am gonna state first of all, that I am from the IBF community.

I don't know if anyone from IBF has come here, but I am not gonna be immature like some of them might have been.

I'd have to disagree with all of you.

For one reason, it took awile just for the reply page to load.
Has anyone actually been able to prove that vB is faster?
Someone has been able to prove that IBF is faster than vB.

Not only has he proven it, but you can tell. He didn't really like IBF until he saw the results.

The Invision Support.
The Invision Suport is great. I wouldn't recommend support from the main site, since you'll get a faster reply in the forum.
There are many people willing to help, not just admins, but memebers, too.

There all so nice, too. The features are wonderful to.

The template, yes, is confusing. But the developers are making it better.

IBF also has IBskins.com and IBresource.com for Skins and Mods.

How can you say that you shouldn't go with IBF cause there isn't many mods?

For one thing, its only four months old. There wasn't much time to produce many mods.

I'd say that for being four months old, IBF is doing Really well.

I am not saying this because I am from IBF. I am saying this because its what I believe.

Thanks for reading this,

Doofey

[edit]

I don't know if you guys have heard of Neowin.com or not, but it is a very popular Windows website.

They are switching from vB to IBF because server loads and stuff.

doofey: the test you speak of is on one machine. and i wont belive that ib is faster then vBulletin or vise versa until i see many test on many platforms. and also i saw no mention in the test if vBulletin had gzip or how ib or vbulletin was configed in the test. however i might have missed that. if you care to link me ill take anthor peek at the test.

Doofey

I have been use invisionboard for two months with 6000 members (transfer from ikonboard) and I m sorry to say that but it cause lagging loading on unix server and when I change to vbulletin, loading becomes more significant than before. Actually Anime-loo is right about benchmark, we need more machines to test it out and I know that test when I was ibf fan, I check it out and it didnt provide enough information even though I dont remme the link.

As for customer support, vb provide these supports far excellent than ibf does. I asked ibf some QQ and often left unanswer, offtopic, didnt provide enough answer or give me improper attitudes but compare to vb, I ask one QQ and answer in thirty mins or less.

As for "mods" or "hacks" ibresources have some support problems. And ibskins? it is dying (there is a tutorial on ibf's skin but no one bother to update it, 0.2 verison since three months) and ib skins is difficult to modify and get it right, vb have unique templates under separate category that which give me %100 control over the looks of board without having to look thur these ibf template for while to find what wrong.

Actually I have no regret that I convert myself from ibf to vbulletin, I love vbulletin and vb support are excellent. Yes ibf have the potential but need real lots of improve to get head to head with vbulletin or need more time or perhaps never will. VB3 will make everything different though.

As being former ikonboard and ibf user, I know what I m talking and I can only say that I make a right decision that I choice vbulletin over ibf after two months of ibf and members' feedbacks and complaints. I m not intend to offend you in any way, I m not that type who to do that to anyone but trust me, you will not regret if you give vbulletin a try.

I respect your guys decision......

but, to me, its just not worth the money to get vBulletin.

I have tried IBF with with many members and many topics, with no slow down at all.

It might just be the type of server? not sure.

There are many respectable members at IBF, and yes I admit, many topics do go off topic. Bt so far, I have a little or no problems with IBF.

I think If I went with vB in the first place, I would have loved it.

But then would have ran to IBF. Maybe its just the tpe of person I am? Maybe the type that I am gets along with the type of people there?

If anyone is willing to provide the funds to vB, I will gladly try it out.

myIBF.com, I believe thats it, has about 400 boards and some other stuff that I forgot with With no sign of slowing down.

Also, I would like to thankyou guys for being so kind, it show to me that you guys will be nice.
I bet there are some people here that feel they have to lash out.
^
Do you guys have some of those people here?

Doofey

I would like to say vBulletin is tried, true and tested. Its not 4 month old software. If your running a site just for the heck of it, I guess you might use it, since its free. The support you get here and at vb.com are above anything else out there. Sure its not free, but that's ok with me. I was willing to pay for excellent software, like many others. And its not even a question of free, or paid for me. It all boils down to the level of support you get, and the quality of the software. I've used phpBB and ikonboard. Not bashing any of them. Just not what I was looking for in a forum package.

BTW, talking of speed, vb vs. phpBB, IB, UBB, I find vb to be quite fast. Even though I run a relatively small sized forum, vb flies for me.

Sad or unfortunately yes we do have some but it doesnt matter actually every board have these people anyway, all we can do is ignore them and give them few chance to get it straight. I m going to deal with people thur net as I deal with people in IRL.

I d love to give you temporary "admin" to access AdminCP and some to see how it work but I m still work on it so I didnt let any members to swing by until I m done with hacks and etcetera.

As for "respect our decision" as I do for you, I respect you for your decision with ibf situation, I doubt you will regret with your decision anyway. :)

Of course I won't regret my decision.
vB may be very good indeed, but when I load my IBF from my local server and WebServer. Its really fast, both running different OSs.

I wouldn't use the "Temp" admin access. I wouldn't want you to feel that I may screw it up. I feel that it would not be right, and I wouldn't want someone to go into my Admin Area and Possibly screw it up and I don't want you to feel the same way.

I do have a few friends that have vB.

There are some tings that vB has that I would love to see in IBF.

Also, for some reason, I don't really like vBs GUI. I know its editable, but I am so used to the way IBF is. I guess you can say I am a preson thats afraid of change.

Doofey

Yes, if you're on a fast server vBulletin is lightening quick. That's one of the reason I decided to go the vBulletin path myself. :D

first i have to say that i own two vbulletins one of which i am co-webmaster at. I am quite frankly disgusted with vbulletin right now and i will surely be converting to another bulletin board when each term is up respectively.

- you guys speak about the great customer support when you buy a vbulletin. this is completely false! you can get the same support from a free boards official site just as much as you can get from vbulletin.com and .org.

-Limitations on what you can put on your board also hinders many sites although you guys dont seem to enforce the rule that much considering ive seen some crazy stuff like marajuana forums listed. the potential of having your lisense revoked because of this is silly, id be damned if any vbulletin official would steal my hard earned money just because they interpret my content as illegal or against your terms of use. none of the other bulletin boards have such a stupid policy.

-vbulletin.org. this place is a glorified "feature" of buying a vbulletin. there are plenty of hacks available for other boards and you can get them without any limitations whatsoever.

My biggest gripe is the registration of the domain the forums will be used in and vbulletins partnership with nukepirates.com. Users cant even put up a simple subdomain,redirector or move their board without nukepirates being on you like white is on rice. it also seems that explaining a simple redirector or forum move isnt good enough for both vbulletin and nukepirates. vbulletin is too lazy to even reply to a customers emails about the situation yet they reply very quick to inquiries about purchasing a vbulletin on their forums but wouldnt give me the the light of day on my problems and im a paying member. while on the other side i have nukepirates sending me warning letters almost daily and even ultametums via email and emails to my host wanting to shut down my forums.

To me this is absolutely unforgivable and it is so in the business world. when you purchase a product you expect the support that they claim to give you. i have yet to see that in vbulletin in the time that i have purchased one. leave this as a warning for those who wish to purchase a vbulletin.

While what you say may or may not be true, I've received a ton of support both here and at vb.com. No other forum software I've owned even comes close. Guys like FireFly, Xenon, Bira, etc. They and the others make this place and vBulletin what it is.

first i have to say that i own two vbulletins one of which i am co-webmaster at. I am quite frankly disgusted with vbulletin right now and i will surely be converting to another bulletin board when each term is up respectively.

- you guys speak about the great customer support when you buy a vbulletin. this is completely false! you can get the same support from a free boards official site just as much as you can get from vbulletin.com and .org.

there are things called support forms for a reason. use it. the forums are extras.

-Limitations on what you can put on your board also hinders many sites although you guys dont seem to enforce the rule that much considering ive seen some crazy stuff like marajuana forums listed. the potential of having your lisense revoked because of this is silly, id be damned if any vbulletin official would steal my hard earned money just because they interpret my content as illegal or against your terms of use. none of the other bulletin boards have such a stupid policy.

practically any decent forum software authors will not let you use their work for an illega purpose. and why would you care? you condone piracy like some preteens do?

-vbulletin.org. this place is a glorified "feature" of buying a vbulletin. there are plenty of hacks available for other boards and you can get them without any limitations whatsoever.

there are no limitations of any kind. of course you need to own vbulleitn to get hacks, if you don't own it you wouldn't need the hacks for it.

My biggest gripe is the registration of the domain the forums will be used in and vbulletins partnership with nukepirates.com. Users cant even put up a simple subdomain,redirector or move their board without nukepirates being on you like white is on rice. it also seems that explaining a simple redirector or forum move isnt good enough for both vbulletin and nukepirates. vbulletin is too lazy to even reply to a customers emails about the situation yet they reply very quick to inquiries about purchasing a vbulletin on their forums but wouldnt give me the the light of day on my problems and im a paying member. while on the other side i have nukepirates sending me warning letters almost daily and even ultametums via email and emails to my host wanting to shut down my forums.

You can put on a simple redirect as much as you want. You just can't install it in two public places with one license.

To me this is absolutely unforgivable and it is so in the business world. when you purchase a product you expect the support that they claim to give you. i have yet to see that in vbulletin in the time that i have purchased one. leave this as a warning for those who wish to purchase a vbulletin.

The only 'illegal' activities that could cause you to lose your license are intellectual property violations. Therefore if that is something you're engaged in, then you are right - vBulletin is not the software for you.

Other than that I encourage you to voice your complaints to John directly at john@vbulletin.com. Might as well try to turn this into something constructive.

Also I'm sorry that you feel the support hasn't been very good. If you'd like to email me specific examples of poor support you've received I'll be happy to take a look.

Changing the look of invision is very much imposible

i dont believe in blatant piracy but i do believe you should do whatever you want with the product you just purchase less distributing it.

i know all about the two vbulletin rule. i had a simple redirect and after about 5 emails they still neglected to see that.

as for emailing john@vbulletin.com i must have emailed him at least 3 out of those 5 emails i sent and to this date never recieved any reply nor even an apology for what happened on those days. this is no way of treating a paid customer.

i dont know about IBF, i have never used it. im sure they worked hard on it and they surely deserve alot of respect considering they are giving it away for free. I do know that there is more than one board that is faster than vbulletin(OpenBB one of them) but i do know that its not worth your hard earned money for a product when you dont get the support that you paid for while their competitors are giving their product away for free.

Try to post at vb.com and keep bumping until John or someone to notice your post. As for me, I post several times with vb problems, they answer my QQ straight and simple also immediately. Really yes, speed is issue but security, featues, and etcetera are part of the issue too. I dont like IBF due to ugly template system, permission group limited, and many more. Basically if you dont like VB then fine with us, just do what you want with your decision about board softwares. As for me I admire VB and its work. Perhaps someday I ll have the problem with these support, who knows but for now it s excellent support for me and many buyers around here.

Basically VB rules are really simple for me to deal with. Anything illegal is always illegal in federal's eyes so better for us to do not use or abuse its privilage anyway. You or anyone can always make your own BB if need or your liking without need to deal with these "rules" Even though I m VB fan and I m planning to build my own forum from scratch so that I can deal with my own rules, supports and vera... It is not simple but it is fun :)

I've tried Invision and did NOT like it. VB is MUCH MUCH better :)

Are Guichi and Codename49 the same person? Posts #24 and #26 are identical. Yet Guichi quotes Codename49 in post #29... Weird. :)

Erwin,

umm you re right. These posts are very identical, I never notice until you mention.

i am myself and dont need to pretend or register as someone else just to get my point accross. :tired:

ask an admin to do an IP check on both of us.

LOL i bet you guys will start some conspiracy theories about me aswell.....

Codename49 quoted and commented Guichi's post. I can't believe noone spotted this yet. :p

just to emphase one thing: the invision board code programmer was part of IkonBoard team, until he had an argument and decided to leave the team (official story from my buddy who owns neowin).
then he came up with Invision just to prove to IkonBoard that he's better? not sure on that... :)
however, Invision is not that good in code stability. many sites that i visited have sessionhash problems, pages not displaying all the time (i have to refresh?) etc.
my personal opinion that vBulletin is a great investisment. there are some boards(news portals) out there retailed at $800??? wow...

first of all, is neowin.net and i know neobond, the owner. they had server problems, not board problems, wich are fixed now. is true that they had in mind to switch to Invision, but not before VB3 will be released. in other words, they will never switch.

UPDATE
i just spoked to Neobond on msn. he confirmed me that they tried Invision and they didn't like it at all.

... :confused:

hehe.... that's why :p

also, from other people saying, there are no group perm options?
apparently you cannot set for a guest not to download attachments... i feel so much better in VB's company... :)