phpBB vs vBulletin

[iogames]

The whole point is that vBulletin is the Best! Capish?

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by iogames

The whole point is that vBulletin is the Best! Capish?

Well, here's the deal: I have played with half dozen of these forum products, the free ones and vBulletin. phpBB is available everywhere, but it is feature poor. Try, for example, to get a true Contact form mod for phpBB 3. Maybe there's one now, but vBulletin includes that as part of the standard install.

I tried SMF, and I like it's features, but the interface is poor. For example, by default signatures appear in a smaller typeface, even though one's customized signature is an important part of community involvement. For the new SMF version under development now, I tried a Contact form add-on, but it only works on the default theme, and that's true with most of their "packages," or mods. You have to hack them to make them work for most other themes, even the extra ones that come with the default installation. They have a good installation setup, however, but some poor decisions about the design were made early on.

MyBB is a free vBulletin knock-off, with a good feature set. But my brief involvement as a beta tester in their upcoming 1.4 version showed an incredible degree of incompetence and a lack of maturity on the part of its young development team (lead programmer is 15). I actually had a decent-sized MyBB forum, and underwent a little pain migrating to vBulletin, because of bugs in MyBB.

That forum can be accessed at http://forum.theparacast.com, if you want to try it out for size, particularly if you find the subject matter of interest. It has 12 mods, a decent number of template alterations (minor) to customize the look and feel to my obsessive/compulsive standards. I don't know a lick of PHP, but did 95% of this myself with little difficulty, and asked some mod developers for advice and code for the rest. Feel free to see how things function from a member's standpoint, and try free forum software, too, if you must on test boards and then decide.

I'll never go back to free, at least for this sort of thing. If you depend on a forum as a part of your business activities, the price of a vBulletin license isn't terribly high in the scheme of things. Nor are the annual renewals. Here in the U.S., a couple of tanks of gas gets you a vBulletin license.

Peace,
Gene

[Jase2]

At the end of the day, this discussion could go on all day -- it still won't prove anything. There will always be critics -- that's a fact. Some will say this discussion if from a biased pov, others' will disagree. It's up to the person to decide which forum software they choose -- just check the features list, and try the demos and see which you find more user-friendly and more comfortable.

[cheat-master30]

This forum is also not exactly the best place to ask this kind of question without expecting a biased response. The only people against vBulletin here would pretty much be trolls attacking it to annoy people since the fans of other software would be at that's forum's support community...

[kevcj]

Originally Posted by genesteinberg

MyBB is a free vBulletin knock-off, with a good feature set. But my brief involvement as a beta tester in their upcoming 1.4 version showed an incredible degree of incompetence and a lack of maturity on the part of its young development team (lead programmer is 15). I actually had a decent-sized MyBB forum, and underwent a little pain migrating to vBulletin, because of bugs in MyBB.


Peace,
Gene

When I saw one of their lead developers arguing AGAINST a paid subscription modification, I was wondering what the problem was.

One of the programmers or members made the suggestion of including a "Paid Subscriptions" section - like what VB has. The reply back from one of the lead developers was reasons why "not" to have such a function.

I thought to myself, why would anyone not want a way to make money?? Oh well, I guess they think everything should be free. When I saw the replies, I knew myBB was not commercial grade forum software, nor will it ever be with that kind of attitude of the developers.

[tonyswifey]

Originally Posted by Jase2

You get what you pay for.

This is all that has to be said, I'm very happy with Vbulletin and wouldn't switch back

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by tonyswifey

This is all that has to be said, I'm very happy with Vbulletin and wouldn't switch back

Right you are. But after moving from vBulletin and back again (don't ask), I have found a really great community here. I've been using over a dozen mods on my various forums, and I'm pleased that the authors have been happy to work with me to resolve problems and, sometimes, even add a few tweaks to fulfill my obsessive/compulsive needs.

That's really a very important commodity. The purchase price of vBulletin isn't high in the scheme of things, but all the free stuff available makes it a lot more useful.

Peace,
Gene

[lstintxs100]

I am not bias at all when it comes to forum software. I hate PHPbb with a passion. I hated cutting and pasting code into files and then trying to troubleshoot it with limited tools.

[Gene Steinberg]

Originally Posted by lstintxs100

I am not bias at all when it comes to forum software. I hate PHPbb with a passion. I hated cutting and pasting code into files and then trying to troubleshoot it with limited tools.

That's a bias my friend. But you seem to have a valid reason.

Peace,
Gene

[Quillz]

Originally Posted by lstintxs100

I am not bias at all when it comes to forum software. I hate PHPbb with a passion. I hated cutting and pasting code into files and then trying to troubleshoot it with limited tools.

XD @ "not being biased" and yet still endlessly trashing phpBB.