1 Yr Later: Is vB4 Better than vB 3.8?

[Brandon Sheley]

Originally Posted by misuse

The skinning/styling is near impossible for an intermediate user let alone a company that is one of the best template designers in the VB world.

All opinions of course.. I was able to make a few styles that our members liked, I've also seen several nice 4.x styles.
IMO the style system is better than the 3.x series, but again.. just my opinion.

PS.. what's this "best template designers in the VB world" I'll be sure not to recommend them.

The ad spots are very limited! For those of us that make a living off our sites the spots and ability to ad new spots (there is none) makes VB4 a definate NO UPGRADE.

PS.. they are the exact same ones that are in 3.7 +

I feel like IB took over and wants everyone's sites to not make $ and all look the same. It would mean less customer support issues.

Do you have anything to back this claim up?

It seems now that they are trying to force us to upgrade. Great....

Once again, no one is FORCED to do anything.. you always have options

I want to use the new tech but not at the cost of losing $ and dealing with managing nightmares.

Do you generally use the latest and greatest of everything?
Have you ever ran into problems with other items using this route?

I have 3 dedicated servers running my site. My host said they would not support VB4 if upgraded to. Too buggy for them, this was yesterday!

You must have a crappy host than who has no idea what they're talking about

[misuse]

First off I am not in this to argue. I was just pointing out my experiences with VB4 after running Vbulletin for the last 9 years through all of the series.
I have built a business off a single forum site that now has 16 well paid employees.
My case is not the general little fansite. 350K+ users a month.
My community puts food in the mouth of many. I have to be very careful with which paths I choose. VB4 is not the best option for my business right now...

Originally Posted by misuse
The skinning/styling is near impossible for an intermediate user let alone a company that is one of the best template designers in the VB world.

All opinions of course.. I was able to make a few styles that our members liked, I've also seen several nice 4.x styles.
IMO the style system is better than the 3.x series, but again.. just my opinion.

There is lots of nice color options out there along with header images.
Customization to the templates is all vanilla so far.

PS.. what's this "best template designers in the VB world" I'll be sure not to recommend them.

I found them on this site and he is one of the main guys that everyone has recommended for years! He's done a great job in the past but since vb4 came out he has been stumped with my particular layout. (layout is a big deal in the ad world)

The ad spots are very limited! For those of us that make a living off our sites the spots and ability to ad new spots (there is none) makes VB4 a definate NO UPGRADE.

PS.. they are the exact same ones that are in 3.7 +

Maybe you should research this a little more. http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBIV-7586

I feel like IB took over and wants everyone's sites to not make $ and all look the same. It would mean less customer support issues.

Do you have anything to back this claim up?

If everyones website looked/worked the same then end users would have the same problems and the customer service would have less gremlins to chase.
In the end the product would be stable and work out of the box just like Apple.

It seems now that they are trying to force us to upgrade. Great....

Once again, no one is FORCED to do anything.. you always have options

They discontinued support for the 3x series at the end of this last month.
Options:
Stick with 3.8 series and hope there is no security holes.
Upgrade to vb4.
Move to PHPBB, SMF or custom. I will probably fork out the $20K for custom.

I want to use the new tech but not at the cost of losing $ and dealing with managing nightmares.

Do you generally use the latest and greatest of everything?
Have you ever ran into problems with other items using this route?

The question was 1 year later... It's not so much new anymore.
Yes I have been known to upgrade my cell phone, video card, processor, servers, drivers, car, truck, office, wife, etc after a year.
Yes I have had problems with new stuff. Especially the wife.

I have 3 dedicated servers running my site. My host said they would not support VB4 if upgraded to. Too buggy for them, this was yesterday!

You must have a crappy host than who has no idea what they're talking about

Because a host that has experience with other big boards going to VB4 does not recommend my company upgrading to VB4 they must be crappy.
They must not know what they are doing with VB.
I will leave them immediatly to whoever you recommend so I can be supported with VB4 server configuration.

VB.org must not know what they are doing. They are not on VB4 either!

Brandon I know you try to make a living off of design and forum set up. I hope you are as busy as can be and wish you success.
The GF forums look good for what they are.
I remember 4K members years ago. It's not easy to get. When you hit 10K members it will start to roll and the next thing you know you are at 80K then 100K+.

[jgt58]

Originally Posted by MarkBeeson

My members love vb4. No issues here.
I do have like 12 mods installed but that's fine. I usually always have alot of mods installed. ;]

12? Is that it? hahaha

[Boofo]

Originally Posted by jgt58

12? Is that it? hahaha

Depends on the mods. Some can use the same resources as having 3 to 5 mods installed.

[Frosty]

I can't decide... Both of them are great, but both are for different types of people. For example, I'd say that vBulletin 4 looks way more "cleaner", and all you have to do is to create forum categories, change logo, and invite users. Everything else looks professional and great, it can be easily optimized. Pretty much it has everything that some average vBulletin Forum Administrator needs.

But, vBulletin 3 is a different story, you can make anything out of it easily, it's made for customization.

So yeah, I'd say that vBulletin 4 is better than vBulletin 3 for those who aren't much familiar with coding and design.

[RedWingFan]

Originally Posted by Chase

- Page load lags... seems to take a little longer to load normal pages, doesn't seem as fluid as 3.x... I am on a semi-dedicated server so it can't be that.

I have access to a couple of different web servers, including dedicated. vB4 overall is just not as responsive.

Originally Posted by Chase

- Adding tabs or nav links aren't as easy. Shouldn't this be a rather simple procedure? I don't want to deal with crazy conditions.

Conditions unfortunately are a necessary evil. I've had to do the same myself.

Originally Posted by Chase

- And like many others have already stated, it seems like 4.x is more bloated than 3.x.

WAY more bloated. 4.x has featuritis. More new features thrown on top of existing features--just overall clumsy coding (and I've coded for a living). vB could be better if it had a ground-up rewrite, and lose all the extras that slow the entire system down. Yes there is "more going on." Bloat does that. Bloat is a waste of CPU cycles. That bloat should never have been added--no important new functionality was added.

With 4.x, vB has turned into the Microsoft Office of forum systems.

How many of these features did we really need? None that I can see. Why don't we TRIM features and instead, work on making the coding more efficient (especially the expensive database queries), and make it a lot more responsive? Why don't we rebuild the template system to something a bit more modern in terms of web standards? C'mon...tables in 2011 for forum layouts? The web HTML coding standards have moved on. vB is stuck in 2005.

On a couple of forums, I've switched over to something completely different and users have overwhelmingly liked it--I've noticed participation has gone up substantially on both. It's much more responsive and has far less clutter and "featuritis;" our members have not really missed all the extras. The emphasis is back on discussions and community interaction...and our members. Which is how it should be.

One final shot on the "forced" comments above, and I'm dropping out of this thread: what choice do we forum license holders have? We either have to convert to vB 4.1 to receive support, or get left in the dark because we can't, or don't want to, convert. Many of us also have a lot of customization in our 3.8.x forums (many of which address shortcomings in vB that STILL haven't been addressed in 4.1, by the way), and it is not feasible to convert to 4.1. So if we want support, yes, we are forced to convert to 4.1. I have never seen the Jelsoft-era vB drop support for older versions this quickly. Us 3.8 and earlier license holders just see this as a throbbing middle finger thrust in our general direction...

[kevinwill]

I currently have Version 4.1.2

what do you guys think about that one?

[Boofo]

Pretty much the same as we think of all vb 4 versions.

[boodog]

Personally, I am quite happy with the upgrade from 3.8 to 4.0. I like the cooler look, CMS, and more. Runs great, looks great and it was the right decision for my forum. A lot of 3.8 sites look dated in comparison to the sleek new 4.0. I've not encountered any significant bugs or have any major complaints. vb support has been excellent and with vBadvanced I have even more control over content.

[Alfa1]

I still see no reason at all to upgrade to vb4. There is nothing in vb4 that I need or that vb3 does not have. Not counting the half baked CMS and the mobile style that does not display the whole suite.
What it does have is 1000+ bugs that I surely do not need.

One thing that vb4 does have is some addons that are not available for vb3. Like digitalpoints sphinx and Cerberus. But other than that, I would not be able to find something we need in vb4.

Even if that would be motivation to update to vb4, I would not be able to due to GARS being stuck on vb3.