how can I choose the forum software
 

Hi
I'm looking forward for a powerful and reliable secured forum software, I've goggled a lot for such thing and found that the best forums are VB and IPB. So I do not know which one I can choose ... Please may you help a newbie guy like me to make up my mind?
What shall I look after when i choose a forum software?
Is it really true that paid solution is the best or another free tools could be the same quality I mean phpBB or MyBB.
Is it possible to know the advantages or disadvantages for VB?
Thanks and much appreciated.

Well your here on a vBulletin support site so... everyone here will probably suggest you go with vBulletin.

vBulletin support > IPB support

vBulletin has greater qualities then all the forum software you have listed. I know someone here will link you to a comparison to all the boards.

Shazz have the habit to talk about me as the "someone"..

http://www.forummatrix.org/ will help you compare all known forum softwares, feature by feature

Ahh yes your name is so hard to pronounce sorry, I took a look at forumatrix and saw it dosen't have http://www.xoops.org/ - Xoops software on there...

xoops is not a forum but a portal

Vbulltion is the best bet, its very powerful and members seem to love it :D

If I were to sum up the major differences between vB and most other forum softwares, I would say that vBulletin is a deeper, more robust front and back end software, whereas most others take a more basic approach.

This is good or bad depending on your personal likes and dislikes. I used to kid a friend of mine who just loved Fords above and beyond everything else, by telling her the reason she loved them so much, was because she really enjoyed having something to do on the weekends (i.e. Fixing whatever was wrong with her Ford that day.) :)

Though I'm not saying vB is a Ford, I'm making a comparable metaphor. With vBulletin, your either going to be intimidated/confused/aggravated with the controls, or your going to love the absolute depth of them and how you never really know everything there is to know. For me, that's really why I love it. Administrating vBulletin has taught me more about coding in general then anything else would have. This is not just in due to the general maintenance required of vB, but also due to the fact (and I don't think I'm exaggerating here) that vB has far more modifications and articles devoted to expanding your board then any other software. Just learning what to do with templates alone, can teach you things about coding you can use in other web based design.

Other softwares, at least the ones I've experienced, take a more basic, bare-bones approach to administration. And some people just don't plan on delving into their software that much, or are just not that interested in dealing with a perceived higher learning curve.

My opinion, vBulletin is better. However, phpBB can do everything vBulletin does with a few mods. Its just that vBulletin looks more professional than any other forum software IMO.

besides the features you should also look into

• support
• community
• modifications
• styles/themes
• ease of installation
• update frequency
• price

vBulletin in my opinion is by far the best option for forums, but you can pretty much expect me to say that, this is vBulletin.org. Never the less, first off, there are I think three or four things vBulletin has which no other boards do as well:

1. A great template/style system
2. Easy adding of modifications as plugins/products
3. More indepth controls for users, forums, permissions, etc.
4. Support in any way, and other such stuff.

In terms of features, there is a lot less difference between vBulletin and Invision Power Board than there are between vBulletin and other forums, and while I'd say vBulletin offers more out of the box, I'd also say that both forget to offer features the other does and vice versa.

Don't even consider phpBB for a forum which keeps up for things like features, security, etc, it's still behind pretty much every other mainstream alternative in things like that.

All in all though, you compare them and choose, although there's only really vBulletin I'd truly recommend.

P.S. I'd also say vBulletin increases forum activity, with about a 1000% activity increase for my own forum, but then again, I did go from free hosted forum on Invisionfree to paid vBulletin forum on a proper domain. Still think vB helps activity in this regard though.