Thinking about making the switch phpbb -->vBulletin
 

We are looking to take our site to the next level and Vbulletin looks to be far superior. (forum currently runs on phpbb)

We understand it would be possible to transfer the forum over to vBulletin but would we be able to maintain the look and feel of our site? In particular it would be great if we could keep our main page.

We will need to hire someone to do this and because we can't get into the services area have no idea what a price range would be. Any thought? Thanks!


http://www.TrumpetMaster.com

I have moved two of my sites from phpBB2 to vBulletin in the past six months or so and cannot give you enough of a glowing recommendation that you do the same. It is indeed, as you say, the next level (a couple levels, in fact.)

The basic look of your site should be easily duplicatable, even the front page.

You will probably be able to find one of the local folks to migrate as well as install the portal (for the front page and other functionality) for less than $200 and perhaps half that (or so).

Good luck!

I think you will find that styles in vBulletin are not the nightmare that themes are in phpbb. Why don't you go to vBulletin.com and check out the admin demo.

http://www.vbulletin.com/admindemo.php

I know as well it is possible because I converted my php-Nuke site to phpBB and then to vBulletin. :) - I wouldn't go back for anything.

Thanks for the feedback Krahl. Could you or anyone else checking out this thread PM me or post the usernames of some people who might be willing to do something like this for $. We need to get some prices down before I pay for the vBulletin so the services area is not an option for us at this time.


Christian,

Were you able to retain the look and feel of your site? Or did you have to change things around? The big thing for us is retaining the main page.

http://www.trumpetmaster.com

So we would need someone to keep the same look and hack the vB to display the announcements, log in, and current topics in the same places.


I checked out the admin panel and it looks nice. One question. Are sub forums a hack? Or do they come with vB? I couldn't figure that out and sub forums will be very important for us.

hey mate, sub-forums are not a hack... have a glance at my site. I have heaps or forums and sub-forums: http://www.commodorelife.com/forums/index.php and it's all do-able via the default vBulletin...

When making a Forum [Forum Manager], you just set an option to make the forum a 'child' of [forum name].

For the most part, it was a similar look and feel. There were a lot of things that made it feel new and "fresh" in comparison to the old nuke/phpbb. Fortunately, the style I am using now (as seen at my site: style is "Bluey") was very similar to the one I used before. In your case, that appears to be pretty common looking (not meaning to sound negative) but actually benefitial to retaining your look. If you'll look around, you can see many, many styles on vb.org and I'm sure you may find one that can fit your website - and possibly moreso than what you have now. You may benefit even more from saving images from your current style and incorporating them in another one (such as the music symbols and the background.)

As kurtbarker says as well, sub-forums are not hacks, they are standard in vb. This is one thing I hated not having with nuke.