Forum Owners: SMF or vBulleton

[medsb]

to any forum owners... do you see any problems with using SMF instead of vbulleton?

and also, if you start off with smf, is it possible to migrate over to vbulleton later on? or too costly?

[raena]

I believe it is reasonably easy to migrate to vB from SMF but last time I checked, passwords could not be converted and every user would have to reset their passwords. It's up to you as to whether that's too much of a pain for your users to deal with, but I personally wouldn't think it is a huge deal.

As for which one to choose, they seem reasonably similar. vBulletin is about to release vB 4, though, which is apparently full of new and shiny goodies.

[Force Flow]

SMF is in the release candidate state for their shiny new version

In any case, if you really want to spend the money on vBulletin, go ahead, otherwise, I'd say go with the free stuff first to make sure it would be worth it (as in, get enough traffic an use out of it) to later pay for vBulletin.

[freddeh99]

vbulletin always

[bigtimedev]

Originally Posted by freddeh99

vbulletin always

We used vbulletin for many years until we just got killed by them when they released a sudden upgrade sale on short notice. vbulletin was bought by another company that is not jelsoft any more. Do a search on the Internet and you'll read about the upgrade sale they just had for their beta version 4 software. It's a mess.

I would highly recommend invision board if you are looking to pay at invisionboard.com. not only is it cheaper it is also a much better all around product and you can buy the base forum software and modules if you really need them. vbulletin is trying to make you buy the whole bundle. what is even better about invision board is that their product has existed. vbulletin is many months away from releasing anything stable.

for free, simple machines forums is very good. If you just need a forum, mybb or phpbb easily do the job and you can always switch to anything else you want later. There are many people running excellent boards with SMF and even the Joomla forum runs with a free forum software. Best of all, you wont have upgrade cost problems like we and so many other people had.

[Ruben K.]

If you need to code your own extensions I would most definitely advise against using vBulletin, it's code structure is HORRIBLE

[Hosting24]

My vote goes for SMF. It's free and it's still better than many paid forum scripts.

Some people tell you that vbulletin is the best, but it makes as much sense as saying "Mercedes is the best car", while there are better choices

[cydewaze]

I've run both SMF and Invision forums. While I do like Invision, it's hard to beat free. I've had no complaints with my SMF, and the users seem to love it.

[cringer]

i have 2 vBulletins, both heavily hacked... but if/when I need another forum app - I think I might give SMF a try. I think it's come far enough by now, plus it's free.

I haven't upgraded or renewed either of my vbulletin's in quite some time (mainly due to the hacks) - but I did get an email about version 4 and all kinds of extra stuff I don't need or want. I didn't even realize that Jelsoft was bought out.

[webcosmo]

VBulletin in my opinion is the best.

[SpacePhoenix]

I remember reading somewhere that you can under the vbulletin licence rocode a ton of the code yourself but there must be a limit or something in there somewhere to stop people removing the licensing code.

How much can someone alter IPB forums? They still host afaik a free version of their own software so if you only need a free forum that's one possibility.

[cydewaze]

Originally Posted by cringer

i have 2 vBulletins, both heavily hacked...

I hope by hacked you mean modded, and not actually hacked!

[PhoenixDown]

http://vbull.net/ has the best highlights and links of the recent vbulletin fiasco.

I've been using vbulletin for over 10 years and have always recommended them in the past but I am not so comfortable with their recent actions.

[ryanhellyer]

http://vbull.net/ has the best highlights and links of the recent vbulletin fiasco.

Jeeze. That doesn't sound good for vBulletin at all!

Some of the links from there are not better than the site itself either. It seems there are a lot of disgruntled vBulletin users out there!

Personally I use SMF, one 1.1.x and one 2.0 forum. Both are fine, neither are excellent. I'd be more inclined to look towards phpBB3 than vBulletin unless you desperately require some of the extra features available in vBulletin (of which there are a huge number).

[hairybob]

The new version of vbulletin looks very interesting...

[cringer]

Originally Posted by cydewaze

I hope by hacked you mean modded, and not actually hacked!

Yes modded. I even published and packaged a few of my mods on vbulletin.org as plug-ins.

I paid for both licenses. And I never hacked out the license footer credit if that's what you mean.


I did have to hack into core files in order to implement some of my customizations, because VB did not have a "hook" exactly where i needed one to pull it off via plug-in method... That's why upgrading became a hassle.

[stonedeft]

Originally Posted by raena

I believe it is reasonably easy to migrate to vB from SMF but last time I checked, passwords could not be converted and every user would have to reset their passwords. It's up to you as to whether that's too much of a pain for your users to deal with, but I personally wouldn't think it is a huge deal.

As for which one to choose, they seem reasonably similar. vBulletin is about to release vB 4, though, which is apparently full of new and shiny goodies.

Hello are you going to upgrade sitepoint forums to vb 4.

I received an email from jelsoft about our group's owned vbulletin license giving us discounts if we purchase version 4. We are currently using v 3.8.4 . I will consider suggesting it to our group if sitepoint will upgrade to vb4


Thanks.

[raena]

I imagine we will eventually, but probably not the day it comes out. Everyone else can find the bugs first.

[SpacePhoenix]

Originally Posted by stonedeft

Hello are you going to upgrade sitepoint forums to vb 4.

I received an email from jelsoft about our group's owned vbulletin license giving us discounts if we purchase version 4. We are currently using v 3.8.4 . I will consider suggesting it to our group if sitepoint will upgrade to vb4


Thanks.

It's probably not such a simple job for SitePoint. I believe that the user authentication for the forums also doubles as the user authentication for the blog as when you log into the forum you're also logged into the blog at the same time. They will need to make sure that any bridging scripts between wordpress and vBulletin don't break.

[cbp]

I do not know what the fuss about vB4 is. 3.8 is working fine. vB will be coming out with security updates for a few more years yet. There is not really a compelling reason to update to vB4.

Most of those whining about the price increase, are not very good at mathematics.

http://vbull.net/ has the best highlight

as they have an anon domain name registration ... no thanks.

[PhoenixDown]

Originally Posted by cbp

as they have an anon domain name registration ... no thanks.

Not sure what that has to do with anything?

You don't have to read the opinions presented on the blog, but the blog does include links to other sites which have a more balanced look at the issues presented.


(I am not affiliated with any way shape or form with that site or the sites I saw links to).

[stonedeft]

well 3.8 is quite stable err very stable for me and I may not be very good at mathematics but I think I won't let jelsoft bum us out. We'll stick with 3.8 and forget that there is such thing as vb 4.

[cbp]

Originally Posted by PhoenixDown

Not sure what that has to do with anything?

I don't trust sites that hide their ownership.

You don't have to read the opinions presented on the blog, but the blog does include links to other sites which have a more balanced look at the issues presented.

I guess the truth always gets in the way of a good story ...

Originally Posted by stonedeft

well 3.8 is quite stable err very stable for me and I may not be very good at mathematics but I think I won't let jelsoft bum us out. We'll stick with 3.8 and forget that there is such thing as vb 4.

I still using a heavily modded v3.6 on one forum and have no problems or issues ... 3.8 will be good for many more years.

[bigtimedev]

Originally Posted by stonedeft

well 3.8 is quite stable err very stable for me and I may not be very good at mathematics but I think I won't let jelsoft bum us out. We'll stick with 3.8 and forget that there is such thing as vb 4.

Jelsoft was bought out by a company Internet Brands. They are blood suckers and insulted the customers and charged them crazy upgrade fees. If you ever start a forum, using vBulletin is the worst choice. The vBulletin 4 version is being created by a whole bunch of new developers by people who aren't even good at running their own sites and don't do development that I have ever seen. I used Invision Power Board and it is MUCH better all around and even acts more logically as a forum with good profiles. vBulletin 4 looks bad and is a total mess. If you don't believe me just search on the Internet. You have never seen so much bad press about a company.

Paid - Invision Power Board
Free - Simple Machines Forum SMF
Light - myBB

[PHPycho]

I will go for PHPBB, the one of its kind.