vbulliten vs. phpBB

[Psalms34]

OK, now you guys have a thread to debate this


As for me, me uses phpbb for years and there are piles of mods, hacks and themes for it so me pretty happy with that system. Even a caveman can do it!

 

[Jesus-is-the-best]

It all depends on how thick your wallet is. Personally, I like the look and additional features of vBulliten a bit more than phpBB, but considering the price difference, I’d say you stick with phpBB. It’s free, and it’s very easy to set up. My vote goes to phpBB.

 

[csheppard91]

I've had experience with both, so this is what I have to say:

vbulletin:
-MUCH easier to maintain
-Code is MUCH cleaner
-Virtually no bugs, and if there is one, it's normally fixed within a day.
-Comes with MANY more configurable options
-templating system is amazing
-Better security
-Better sever backend
-Higher quality
-Overall it's more powerful

phpbb:
-it's free


That's my experience after using both of them. It boils down the content, and the will of the owner. What I mean is a free phpbb board with unique content, and a very active admin will be more successfull than a vbulletin forum with dull content and an administrator who doesn't give a hoot, but I guess that's besides the point.
Personally if I were to choose to use free forum software it would be invision.

 

[Megaduck]

If I could afford it, I would probably like to give vBulletin a shot because I've so many good things about it, but overall my vote goes to phpBB.

It's free, has great support, and I really like the dedication they have to this project considering they're not making any $$ from the software itself.

God Bless,
Justin.

 

[PuppyforChrist]

I actually switched from phpBB to SMF. (www.simplemachines.org) I am not crazy about phpBB much at all. It may be free, but it doesn't have a lot of features, nor easy ways to install really big mods without causing a huge problem.

I REALLY would like to have a vbulitain board, and I might get one at some point, but I'm worried that if I don't like it I won't get my money back.

I've heard really good things about vbullitan and I would love to at least try it and if I like it, pay for it.

 

[Megaduck]

I think vBulletin has a demo account setup or something, but if someone knows otherwise, please let me know.

God Bless,
Justin.

 

[csheppard91]

Yeah, there's an admin demo you can run on their site. I don't think it's really persuasive though.

Personally I wouldn't pay all that money unless you are sick and tired of complaints(because some functionality is missing), or you simply don't have the time to install all the mods you need. My forum hasn't been up very long at all(bairly 2 months), and at the beginning I was recieving complaint after complaint, and request after request. I actually lost a few members because the functionality isn't all there. So, I decided to switch to vbulletin and it's allowed me more control over EVERYTHING, and not one complaint. Things are really going fast now. For instance, I've had 25 new members in the last 48 hours. I just don't think I would want phpbb with that much traffic after I dealt with complaints with virtually no traffic.

 

[AbelaJohnB]

As we over at phpBB have said since day one.... install them both and see which one you like better.

There are enough forum software these days to get a headache over. When I was apart of the original development team of phpBB (I was the second developer to join the phpBB Group) there were but a small handful of forum software for the php language. It was Vbforum, Phorum and us... and that was pretty much it.

Every forum has it's good points and it's bad points. Some of the will run better on some servers while others will kill a servers resource memory. Some forums have really easy administration panels with a lot of configuration, and others are not so easy to install and have less admin options. Some forums have a lot of built-in features (we call it 'bloating' in my line of business) while others are a straight-up forum without all the eye-candy and bloating.

It really comes down to what you are after, which of the forums runs best on your server, and which has the features you are after.

 

[imawebmonkey]

I voted phpBB because it's free.

 

[JesseRaymondBassett]

I vote VBulliten

 

[joellark]

vBulletin is advanced, now, to the point that its noticeably better than phpBB. If you can't afford vBulletin, then Invision Power Board is an alternative that may work.

 

[Psalms34]

Well for me it's not a matter of whether or not I can afford it but what other things I could do with the high price tag for something else. I could lease my own dedicated server (as root) for six months or get the next 3ds Max version on ROM for the price. That's not even counting the yearly price tag to update the thing. The words "price gouging" comes to mind. phpBB works fine and has tons of features to add in.

 

[Bendude]

Phpbb for me. Its all I know and I know it inside out.

 

[KimmiKat]

I voted for vB. I switched from IPB last year and have been happy with it. If I'm helping someone set up a board and they want a free one, I usually point them to SMF since a few hosts don't allow phpBB, which is also a decent software.

 

[Talie]

the first forum i set up was snitz - I've added numerous mods to that but it's hard because I have no asp knowledge - the support forum for snitz is very good.

I then set up a phpbb because it was offered through cpanel for one of my site's hosting. I find it much easier to customise - especially graphically - because PHP is much easier than ASP.

they're both free, and both have good points.

I should note however, that whenever I've tried to get support through the phpbb forum, my posts either go unanswered or the answers that are given aren't at all helpful - so from that aspect, i prefer snitz

 

[osx]

I prefer phpBB... ive used vbulletin and others. I still think phpbb is better.

 

[theartist87]

I think phpBB is better for smaller forums, or when you have no money. There are quite a few hacks to let you make it do what vBulliten has built in already. vBulliten is much more stable for very large forums, and I think is much better than phpBB.