Advantages of moving from EZboard?

[BrendanBurgess]

I have been running an EZBoard for the last three years.

The big advantage to me of EZBoard is that it is hosted and I don't have to worrry at all about technical issues.

The big disadvantages of EZBoard are the lack of a working search function and the inability to have registration required for all forums except one.

What are the other advantages of vBulletin over EZBoard?

Is there a hosting service which will look after all the technical issues for me, except the administration of the board itself?

Thanks

Brendan

[Brad]

There is no hosted solution for vBulletin (at least offered via jelsoft). But that dose not mean you have to know how to set up and run a server to use vBulletin.

Unless you are going with a un-managed dedcated box or co-location your webhost will take care of the day to day up keep of the computer you are hosted on.

The one thing vBulletin will always hold over ezboard (and other hosted solutions) is that you control how your data is stored, and presented. If you ever need to make modifications to the software to suit your own purposes its possible because you can edit the source code or have someone else do it for you. With ezboard you have to take what they will give you.

Secondly vBulletin will be on space/bandwidth you control at least to a certain point, meaning you don't have to host ad's for others on your board like you have to at ezboard (last time I looked their free acounts still required pop-ups/banners). And if you did want to serve ad's you would get the profit, rather then the company hosting the board for you.

If you are worried about having to install vBulletin yourself jelsoft will do it for you for $135. However I do advise attempting to install it yourself, as it's very easy to do. Upgrades are also a simple process that dos'nt take more then a few minutes (less if your blessed with broadband ).

I encourge you to try the Admin Control Panel for yourself. This will give you an idea of exactly what vBulletin will and will not do 'out of the box'.

[James T Brock]

The biggest advantage? The fact that YOU would own your own forum and posts!! EZboard can delete your board whenever it wants, where as with a vbulletin you'd own everything.

Oh...and all of those things mentioned in the above post too ^^^

[Reeve of shinra]

Vbulletin has a LOT of default features that aren't available on EZ Board and there are ton of great modifications here for further enhancing your board. Plus Vbulletin support is top notch and thier responsiveness and helpfullness has become the standard by which I am starting to judge even off-line businesses by.

If your biggest concern is the technical stuff behind it, then dont worry yourself. I started off not knowing anything about forums, programing, html, hosting, or any of that.

We can help you find a web host with an adiquite plan for your needs and on a shared server plan the hosting company will take care of most of the server maintence for you. You would need to install vbulletin and thats simpler than a forum registation process.

Also - do a search on vbulletin.com for ezboard and you should get some other responses to that same question, especially in the pre-sale forum.

[Bunny1]

Originally Posted by James T Brock

The biggest advantage? The fact that YOU would own your own forum and posts!! EZboard can delete your board whenever it wants, where as with a vbulletin you'd own everything.

Oh...and all of those things mentioned in the above post too ^^^

You still need a host. That host can delete your account :P

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Bunny1

You still need a host. That host can delete your account :P

Its possible to host your own site, if you got a fat pipe that is . There are also many other options out there if you don't want your data on someones server.