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Hello,
Please, I'm thinking of setting up a kind of a forum for a client, but I'd like to know whether to go with a paid forum app such as vBulletin, or free such as phpbb. what I'd like to know is the benefits of vBulletin over phpbb, what can be done with vBulletin that can't be done or can't easily be done with phpbb.
I'm already comfortable with phpbb, but would like to know why I would go for vBulletin.
Thanks.
JC Rocks!!
I've worked with them both and I prefer phpbb over vbulletin. It's a lot easier to modify and has a large community behind it.
Check out my web design blog.
http://www.bolducpress.com
It depends on what you plan on doing.
vBulletin is well established and a fantastic forum script - and has some excellent modules available.
But with their most recent releases phpBB, Simple Machines and MyBB are all free and doing their very best to catch up. Vanilla can also be a good option if you want to go slightly different route
I would recommend the Vbullettin forum, its so good
From what I've understood about vBulletin you're paying for good tech support, and lots of supported options right out of the box. phpbb is more of the figure-it-out yourself variety. Through add ons, I believe phpbb can do most if not all of what vBulletin does. The difference is support, security, and community. To get the full range of phpbb add-ons you have to jump into user made content that phpbb hasn't necessarily reviewed or had time to review. Non-supported addons can be security risks for the system, and if something goes wrong the phpbb team won't give you support. For support in general you have to fight in the mob line to their support forums. With vBulletin the addons are supported and you can get tech support on specific problems.
The new forum and user permission in phpbb is confusing and unintuitive and can cause headaches. The rest of the features seem nice.
It really is a shame about how SMF isn't as popular as phpBB considering how much better it is. Hopefully with the release of SMF 2.0 it will be noticed much more. I have been using SMF 2.0 for a while now and it is by far my favorite forum out of them all. I like it that much I make mods for it and am on the Simple Portal team. So I guess I'm a bit of a fanboy ;p
Anyways I recommend Simple Machine Forums and if you don't like it then I'd probably recommend vBulletin. phpBB just seems like the immature forum to me (as in aimed at a less professional audience) and the main things I don't like about vBulletin and phpBB are the admin interfaces and I'm not a fan of the code.
Remember this is just my opinion on the three. You might hate SMF
I'll second that recommendation. I've set up three SMF-based sites now, and two IPB sites. It's really hard to justify the cost of IPB when SMF is so good.Originally Posted by Robbo89
I'm definitely a fan of vBulletin.
~ Nate L ~
I'm a big fan of vbulletin, its a joy to administer I couldnt get to grips with phpbb3, the only drawback with vbulletin is the cost
IP.Boards from Invision Power Services is a fantastic option. Free boards have spanned off of their version such as Zeta Boards and Invision Free. The boards are really easy to customize and maintain and I'd say more user-friendly than phpBB and vBulletin.
If you are going paid then IP.Boards or vBulletin but if you are going for free then phpBB.
Hope you get what you want out of whatever you decide!
Andrew Cooper
If cost is not an issue, Then vBulletin is the best option. It is the best forum at the moment. PHPbb if you are looking for a free forum script. Especially with SEF mod, it is a very good forum script.
I'm actually looking for something similar...but with very simple requirements:
1. Needs to be lightweight and simple to theme -- I have heard horror stories about phpBB.
2. Needs to support modules/extensions and an API so I can keep my website userbase syncronized with the forums.
Vanilla, SMF, phpBB, vBulletin, maybe that WordPress forum software?
Oh yes, and security is impetus, which might very well kill all mentioned above. :P
The only constant in software is change itself
1. SMF is very fast and easy to use however theming requires basic knowledge of PHP.
2. SMF has great module support. Integrating SMF into a website is as easy as one line of code. All functions are then documented on the SMF website so you can easily use SMF features.
And SMF is very secure. The biggest threat it has encountered is a vulnerability in the attachments script which led to some spam on forums however this was quickly patched. SMF 2.0 uses a database layer to prevent any SQL injection if something threatening got through the application itself.
Also SMF has great support. Ask a question on the support forum and expect an answer in a few hours. I don't know how good the support for the other software is though...
I suggest you try out some free forums locally and if you don't like any then try out vBulletin.
vbulletin is professional software providing more features and services. I personally suggest you to use vbulletin, you can see vbulletin software on major popular websites using it.
Surely the best approach would be to shortlist 2 or 3 forums that match your clients requirements, then let them play with the admin side so they can see which one they are more comfortable using?
SMF looks really neat and easy, but in the end I had to pass on it. While the software is without cost it doesn't have the same freedom that the GPL awards to PHPBB. Which I am using as the basis for a new site and heavily modifying it. The SMF license forbids removing the copyright notice or redistributing it. Something that is a non-starter for my project.
Yeah that is a shame. SMF 2.0 will have the option to pay to remove the copyright which I will probably do for my main sites if it doesn't cost much. It is a shame they don't use the GPL license though.
As far as i see it phpbb and vbulletin are both great options. However, vBulletin seems to be the popular choice for profesional websites where phpbb seems to be the favorite for personal and hobby sites. They both essentially do the same thing. I just think vBulletin is more popular because you have to pay for it which means the developers have to offer some sort of assurance and support. I also think that vBulletin is more secure and has less problems with bots. I'm always having to apply patches and mods to stop bots from registering and posting on my phpbb forum. Havn't had any problems with vBulletin though.
Their explination for why they don't use the GPL seems really silly to me. There are plenty of projects out there using the GPL that didn't fork and no one forgot who the main developers were.
Projects using the GPL generally only fork when the original developer gets lazy or has a disagreement with a large portion of the userbase. In which case a fork is in the best interest of the project and the users.
This is just a control issue IMHO.
I'd recommend phpBB, SMF, or vBulletin personally.
I haven't used or been on an Invision Power forum much since IPB 1.3.1, but the code was a horrendous mess in 1.x. Worst skinning system in the world too.
I'm surprised nobody mentioned it yet...
Sitepoint is a vBulletin forum. Sitepoint gets a ton of hits every day, and lots of users as well. That alone, IMHO, is enough to seal the deal.
Check out www.bbpress.org if you need something simple.
I'll third itSMF is the only forum software I use at the moment.
Cool. I use SimplePortal on one of my sites. Great MOD
Where did you learn that?
SMF is a terrific piece of software if you are looking for maximum functionality. The killer blow to SMF IMO is the extremely poor default theme and the difficulty in improving on it. Like many of it's contemporary forum softwares, SMF has a very complex and difficult to use theming system. If the default theme was up to scratch, you could get away with simply modifiying it and end up with a good product, but the code base you are stuck with working from is absolutely appalling.
bbPress is one of the few systems which has a good theming system, I highly recommend it in this regard.
Unfortunately it is a super-skinny system so there is some significant leg-work required to add some of the functionality desired by a lot of forum owners. But if you want to heavily customise how the forum operates, then bbPress is one of the best out there.
I'm planning to convert some of my SMF forums over to bbPress eventually, but I have a lot of work to do before I can perform the switchover due to the lack of built-in functionality.
go for vBulletin
Running a forum is a lot of work. Is your client prepared for it? Especially for the daily work of removing bot spam and keeping the software up to date, lest their server be compromised by running a version of the software with known vulnerabilities?
Have you considered hosted solutions such as Tangler? You can embed it into their site with an iframe.
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