Is Vbulletin $160 better than phpBB?

[Roze]

Hello DP'ers!

I'm in the process of trying to make my site better then my competitors (aren't we all...) and my eyes have turned towards VB. I currently have about 2,000 members in a phpBB for nuke, but I've decided to take my scripts out of the PHP-Nuke system to speed up page load times. I figured that I'll have to install a standalone phpBB anyway...so I might as well just convert the user tables and "upgrade" to VB. Sites similar to mine are all using the phpBB (the default sub-silver skin, no less) and just look very unprofessional and I think I can do better. I also think that my users will enjoy the extra features like featuring threads, ranking threads and giving people green points for good things.

What are your experiences? Is the install easy? How about changing the theme?...I like the plain blue, but I'd like to tweak it a bit and maybe make some custom buttons (simple stuff). Finally, will my low-tech readers be able to deal with the change from phpBB? It's quite similar on the front end from what I can tell, right down to the Quote button.

[dirvish]

I've used phpBB and thought it was great. What are the advantages of Vbulletin? It would have to more $160 better for me; I'de rather support a free product!

[Dastar]

As soon as the new version of VBulletin comes out, i'm upgrading.

A few things to consider:


1. Pay $85 for the lease every year and always get updates and new versions.

2. I have always noticed, even with mod_rewrite mods/hacks for phpbb2, VBulletin seems to keep more pages indexed in Google (just a personal observation). It seems like the engines just like it more. Again, just a personal observation, it may or may not be true but is something i've observed.

3. Tons more options, as you pointed out. If your site was a mere fan site and non profit, then phpbb2 would be fine, but if you want to get serious get VBulletin.

4. The backend is way easier to admin the phpbb2. It'll take a little time to learn the differences, but you'll be amazed as you discover options that aren't in Phpbb2.

Don't get me wrong, phpbb2 is my favorite free forum software and is ok for someone who doesn't want to shell out money for forums, but with VBulletin, you get what you pay for. I think most DP posters will agree.

[noppid]

If $160.00 is an issue, you have no business in the forum business.

Free software is fun to "play" forum with, but if you are serious, most see the light and get vB.

I tried to run a "free" forum on free software, it was not worth the effort. I've made my 160 back many times over in having to make less effort and having more traffic that generates revenue.

There's a fine line between a hobby and a business.

[e10]

Okay, great topic for someone who is considering adding a forum to their website. What about which is the easiest for someone who knows absolutely nothing about coding but wants a slick, quick, seo´able forum to plug in?

[noppid]

There is no such option IMO. None of them are nice stock.

[Dastar]

Okay, great topic for someone who is considering adding a forum to their website. What about which is the easiest for someone who knows absolutely nothing about coding but wants a slick, quick, seo´able forum to plug in?

When I installed phpbb2 I didn't know anything about coding, I just knew how to follow directions. As long as you know the basics of server administration and setting up a database, you should be ok. Knowing html will come in handy in customizing you forum template to fit in your design, but to just get the forum running it shouldn't be too hard under normal circumstances.

[Roze]

Wow thank you for all the fast replies! I'm happy to report that our sponsors (along with adsense) will offset the $160 rather quickly, so that's not an issue. It's a hobby/professional/academic type site at the moment but I plan to start selling some products (like CD's recorded by our contributors) soon, so I can certainly benefit by attracting to people to my site with better forum software. I like the idea of giving reputation points because people will enjoy becoming 'experts' on our forums. (Some of them already have big enough egos, I might as well feed them) ;)

I'm willing to get into the code a tiny bit, I'm also very good at following instructions. So far it sounds like Vbulletin is worth my while...anyone have negative opinions? I'm just as interested in them also.

[noppid]

The staff has teenages on board at vB that can be annoying. Other then that, they have a good product.

10 for product
7 for support
8 for price

On the 8 for price, I would pay more for adult and professional support.

[mjewel]

As soon as the new version of VBulletin comes out, i'm upgrading.

A few things to consider:


1. Pay $85 for the lease every year and always get updates and new versions.



You can continue to get updates on an owned license by paying the $30 renewal fee.

[teamshop]

phpBB is something nice and cheap to play around with if you are just starting out and wanting to see if your forum is worthwhile to keep going. But after having my phpBB forum hacked 2 times even while always updating to the latest version almost as soon as they came out it just became more cost effective to upgrade to vB. Got sick and tired of upgrading every other month to fix a security hole and having to re-hack all over again. Now I just have to wait till 3.5 comes out so I can work on getting it skinned :eek:

[Roze]

The $30 dollar renewal fee sounds like a good idea because then i can upgrade when I choose, not when my sub runs out. So today i stumbled upon the search engine watch forums (am I allowed to talk about other forums? ;) ) and I saw their "Featured Discussions" at the top of their VB homepage...is that a hack or a plugin? I'm really interested in that feature or anything similar. Is it part of the package, is it available as a plugin, or did they hack it themselves? Anyone know?

[Servetraffic]

Yes, vb is very good and be sure to go with owned lisence, then $30.00 every year and there are allot of hacks (as they call them) to add or have one made at vbulletin.org, you can do allot with it, about install I can't help you there as I have my developer do this for me so there is very minimal down time if any at all, also found some nice skinz over at extremepixels.com for all board versions.

Hey let us know what you do I want to see it when you are done. :)

[noppid]

You can get some free vBulletin Hacks (http://www.cpurigs.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=28) from various places. Most are free too!

[clasione]

In my opinion VB is well worth and is your best choice if you plan on having your forum running for a long time.....

phpbb is a good forum, don't get me wrong, but it's purpose seems best if your just starting out as a test and your willing to do the merge if it takes off....

If your serious about your forum, you can feel safe with jumping right into VB...

[I, Brian]

If you want a free forum software, my personal recommendation is SMF - simple to use, very easy to mod for the learner webmaster, and has mod_rewrite on Apache as an option if required.

I personally wouldn't touch phpbb with a barge pole for anything that matters - the security problems it has had are pretty appalling. I've seen too many people on forums complaining about their phpbb being hacked, and for someone to write a worm to attack phpbbs in general in December was pretty astonishing. I have old and unpatched vBulletins running which are far far less likely to be hacked than an up-to-date phpbb.

[Inka]

If $160.00 is an issue, you have no business in the forum business.

Free software is fun to "play" forum with, but if you are serious, most see the light and get vB.

I tried to run a "free" forum on free software, it was not worth the effort. I've made my 160 back many times over in having to make less effort and having more traffic that generates revenue.

There's a fine line between a hobby and a business.


Oh shut up... vBulletin is not worth $160 dollars, in fact if I had a choice to pay for one or the other and they were the same price, I would use phpBB, I have expierence with both scripts, but phpBB is 10x more seo friendly (when you play with it and mod it).

Bussiness or personal, I would never buy vbulletin again, don't get lost in noppid's personal opinions, he thinks just because something costs money that it's better.

Only downside of phpBB is last I check you can't upload files, but there are mods out there, that's why I am not sure if it's still like this, mine is moded so I have always been able to upload files.


phpBB > vBulletin by far, don't bother wasting your money.

[teamshop]

You just keep thinking how wonderful phpBB is up until the day you wake up and find your board has been hacked for the 3rd time because of a previously unknown security flaw that seems to turn up every other month or so or you are lucky enough not to have been hacked but are upgrading your heavily modded board for the 3rd time this year having to start over from scratch and re-doing all those wonderful mods (quite a few of which are included in vBulletin) and 3 days later your board is finally back to where you started.

[newbie100]

Ok I run both phpbb and Vbulletin boards and no doubt vbulletin is better, both from a users point of view and a webmasters. Whether it cost money or not, if its easier for my members and easier for me to use then its worth the money.

Dont get me wrong I have a lot of respect for the phpBB guys who could have made a bit of money out of it.

[noppid]

1) Oh shut up... vBulletin is not worth $160 dollars, in fact if I had a choice to pay for one or the other and they were the same price, I would use phpBB, I have expierence with both scripts, but phpBB is 10x more seo friendly (when you play with it and mod it).

2) Bussiness or personal, I would never buy vbulletin again, don't get lost in noppid's personal opinions, he thinks just because something costs money that it's better.

3) Only downside of phpBB is last I check you can't upload files, but there are mods out there, that's why I am not sure if it's still like this, mine is moded so I have always been able to upload files.

4) phpBB > vBulletin by far, don't bother wasting your money.

1) That's unlikely. As for SEO, that's your job and those of us that know can and do SEO vBulletin just fine. Thank you.

2) You have no clue my friend. This is not about money making it better. I'm the cheapest bastard there is! I've tried all the free software and it sucks in comparison. So I got my wallet out against my will. Again, if you knew me, you'd know I'm no vB support or staff fan. I just can't knock the software, it is as advertised.

3) Attachments being a hack is just one of the many downsides of PHPBB. It is not what one would expect out of the box.

4) Oh shut up... PHPBB is not worth my time to secure or hack. Don't get lost in Inka's personal opinions, he's just mad because vBulletin costs money and his mommy won't give up her credit card. :D

[Roze]

Wow I didn't realize this thread was continuing all this time - I need to double check my "instant notificatin" options in the profile.

I have installed VBulletin, and I am VERY excited about it. It's working well, the import from phpBB went seamlessly, despite having to convert my nuked phpBB data into phpBB2 style tables. I'm using the default color scheme, slightly tweaked at the moment, but I plan on changing. My visitors had been asking for a dark text on light background anyway, so they have it for now.

I'm really enjoying all the features - especially the user reputation thing. I want to do something like assign moderators 20x more weight then users, that way WE have the most say on who's an expert, but the users feel like they're involved.

I'm about to use VB's amazing newsletter system which is very customizable to sound out my monthly announcements, I like that it sends them out in batches and you can add variables like $username. Hello, $username, thanks for registering! etc...

It has been SO worth the money I can't even tell you guys, thanks for the advice...I just have to woo my forum chatters back, the site crashed last week because nuke has a definite limit and it couldn't handle the traffic (which wasn't much by your standards), so all my visitors ran away, that's where the newsletter will come in. The site definately has an edge now over other forum/chat sites about my topics, software-wise, so I need to get discussion going again.

I realize that VB3 has an archive module that will let search engines crawl around and munch, and I've heard it's very effective. However, I've also found hacks to put into VB that will make it even more crawler friendly - are those worth the installation, or are they unnecessary server load. To be honest, my server cant take complicated things, hence the entire site redesign. Google has been all over the archives since I installed VB, however nothing showing up in the serps yet, I realize it might take a few days or weeks, I'm not concerned. I redirected cached versions of old (deleted) forum posts to my forum index, so at least visitors from search engines aren't greeted by 404's.

Any comments on the spider friendly mods or should I just be happy with the Archives?

Oh yes, here's a link. Sorry about the total default color scheme, getting it up was about speed - I'll make it prettier later: http://www.tubanews.com/forums

[Dominic]

Glad to hear you are happy with it, I was just about to post a 'yes get it' kinda post.

[Inka]

1) That's unlikely. As for SEO, that's your job and those of us that know can and do SEO vBulletin just fine. Thank you.

2) You have no clue my friend. This is not about money making it better. I'm the cheapest bastard there is! I've tried all the free software and it sucks in comparison. So I got my wallet out against my will. Again, if you knew me, you'd know I'm no vB support or staff fan. I just can't knock the software, it is as advertised.

3) Attachments being a hack is just one of the many downsides of PHPBB. It is not what one would expect out of the box.

4) Oh shut up... PHPBB is not worth my time to secure or hack. Don't get lost in Inka's personal opinions, he's just mad because vBulletin costs money and his mommy won't give up her credit card. :D


Not my opinion -_-, if you use static url on phpBB it will kick vB ass, I have both a vB board and a phpBB board, my phpBB board is indexed daily and has much more pages indexed then the vB board and I made the vB board first so it is not my opinion it is a fact, my gaming site uses vB because I wanted a forum that allows downloads but guess what, big mistake, phpBB allows downloads with a mod.

about the "hacking boards" as long as your boards up-to-date then you wont be hacked, visiting the phpBB site once a week will be worth it if you want a quality site, if you don't have time to check for patches once a week then get vB, otherwise your site will end up doing better with phpBB, trust me :)

[teamshop]

about the "hacking boards" as long as your boards up-to-date then you wont be hacked, visiting the phpBB site once a week will be worth it if you want a quality site, if you don't have time to check for patches once a week then get vB, otherwise your site will end up doing better with phpBB, trust me :)

Your kidding right??? Check the phpBB site once a week to check for patches? Why should it be necessary to constantly have to check for patches? That is reason alone to go with vB!

[Shoemoney]

phpbb2 is extreamly insecure. I have had 2 boxes rooted in the last year and each time it was a phpbb2 exploit and they were at current code. I just had this happen 2 days ago and there is no fix yet.

edit - actually there is a security fix...

look at the fix though

--Delete lines 23-25

// Begin PNphpBB2 Categories Hierarchie Mod
include_once( $phpbb_root_path . 'includes/functions.' . $phpEx );
// End PNphpBB2 Categories Hierarchie Mod


phpbb2 has some sad code =(

[letsmakeamillion]

Im looking to get VB 3.5 soon..

Does anyone know of any skins that are very clean and light on graphics... without all the 'fat' ? (light greytones background with black text)

Kind of like the way webmaster world looks.

Looking for a very simple basic skin that is highly usable.

[dcristo]

Your kidding right??? Check the phpBB site once a week to check for patches? Why should it be necessary to constantly have to check for patches? That is reason alone to go with vB!

Beggers cant be choosers. If you want a free solution you gotta take the good with the bad.

[I, Brian]

Beggers cant be choosers. If you want a free solution you gotta take the good with the bad.

There are some other free bb options other than phpbb to consider.

My personal favourite is www.simplemachines.org - single click to mod_rewrite the board to static URLs, and simple to admin with a better security record than phpbb (the SMF developers are the ones behind YaBB SE).

However, there are other free scripts out there, some of which also have interesting mods for search engine friendliness.

[mcfox]

Brian,

What's SMF? I'm not really up to speed with forums (apart from the security side or lack thereof, with phpbb)

[Blogmaster]

Wow I didn't realize this thread was continuing all this time - I need to double check my "instant notificatin" options in the profile.

I have installed VBulletin, and I am VERY excited about it. It's working well, the import from phpBB went seamlessly, despite having to convert my nuked phpBB data into phpBB2 style tables. I'm using the default color scheme, slightly tweaked at the moment, but I plan on changing. My visitors had been asking for a dark text on light background anyway, so they have it for now.

I'm really enjoying all the features - especially the user reputation thing. I want to do something like assign moderators 20x more weight then users, that way WE have the most say on who's an expert, but the users feel like they're involved.

I'm about to use VB's amazing newsletter system which is very customizable to sound out my monthly announcements, I like that it sends them out in batches and you can add variables like $username. Hello, $username, thanks for registering! etc...

It has been SO worth the money I can't even tell you guys, thanks for the advice...I just have to woo my forum chatters back, the site crashed last week because nuke has a definite limit and it couldn't handle the traffic (which wasn't much by your standards), so all my visitors ran away, that's where the newsletter will come in. The site definately has an edge now over other forum/chat sites about my topics, software-wise, so I need to get discussion going again.

I realize that VB3 has an archive module that will let search engines crawl around and munch, and I've heard it's very effective. However, I've also found hacks to put into VB that will make it even more crawler friendly - are those worth the installation, or are they unnecessary server load. To be honest, my server cant take complicated things, hence the entire site redesign. Google has been all over the archives since I installed VB, however nothing showing up in the serps yet, I realize it might take a few days or weeks, I'm not concerned. I redirected cached versions of old (deleted) forum posts to my forum index, so at least visitors from search engines aren't greeted by 404's.

Any comments on the spider friendly mods or should I just be happy with the Archives?

Oh yes, here's a link. Sorry about the total default color scheme, getting it up was about speed - I'll make it prettier later: http://www.tubanews.com/forums
Nice forum, nice blog. Happy to see you've made the switch :D

[Roze]

Thank you! I just installed WordPress yesterday and I'm going to try running my personal site (which really doesn't have much of a purpose except being a portfolio/blog) with it. That way I can make announcements about new sites and post about random stuff that interests me, without being in an official capacity as editor of my main site TubaNews. Believe it or not, that site is quite important in my small, small musical niche...soon when I have time, I'm going to try to make some money off of it. lol.

[Blogmaster]

I am using wordpress as well :)

[Imran]

Is it possible to swtich from SMF to VB? If it is how easy or difficult it is?

[digitalpoint]

They have a huge number of importers in their ImpEx system. I would check vBulletin's website to see if your specific one is supported or not as an automatic conversion or not.

[Josh]

vBulliten IS better than phpBB 2.x.. however, phpBB 3.0 is going to give vBulliten a run for its money.

If vBulliten is worth the $160 extra, I'm not sure. For small forums, probably not. But if you have a large community (espically if you have a thousand members or more) its probably worth the extra flexibility that vBulliten gives you.

Oh, and as for phpBB updates.. I'm pretty sure the latest version has an automatic update checker, and once you login to the admin page it will tell you if there is a newer version. If not, I know its in phpBB3.

Josh

[Imran]

Thanks -Shawn!
Waiting for your further inputs!

[I, Brian]

Brian,

What's SMF? I'm not really up to speed with forums (apart from the security side or lack thereof, with phpbb)

Sorry McFox - SMF is Simple Machines Forum - www.simplemachines.org (http://www.simplemachines.org/)

[I, Brian]

vBulliten IS better than phpBB 2.x.. however, phpBB 3.0 is going to give vBulliten a run for its money.

They said that about PHPBB 2. Didn't happen.

Also, vB 3.5 is in beta - basically, they've recoded so that no matter what modifications you make to the forums, you can update your vb files without losing them. Excellent idea.

[minstrel]

Your kidding right??? Check the phpBB site once a week to check for patches? Why should it be necessary to constantly have to check for patches? That is reason alone to go with vB!
First, you don't need to check the phpBB site once a week for patches. You don't need to check the site at all -- notifications are now automatic if you choose that option or even just check your ACP once in a while.

Second, phpBB isn't patched anything like once per week. Not even close.

There are some advantages of vBulletin over phpBB. There are also some advantages of phpBB over vBulletin.

You look at the features of both (and a few other alternatives, although these are clearly the two best developed and best supported) and you select one or the other based on your needs and personal preferences.

I don't think the propaganda or competition-bashing is at all helpful here, any more than it is with the neverending Microsoft v. MAC v. Linux, or Internet Explorer v. Firefox debates.

phpbb2 is extreamly insecure. I have had 2 boxes rooted in the last year and each time it was a phpbb2 exploit and they were at current code. I just had this happen 2 days ago and there is no fix yet.

edit - actually there is a security fix...

look at the fix though

--Delete lines 23-25

// Begin PNphpBB2 Categories Hierarchie Mod
include_once( $phpbb_root_path . 'includes/functions.' . $phpEx );
// End PNphpBB2 Categories Hierarchie Mod

phpbb2 has some sad code =(
To be fair to phpBB, some of those security risks were created by PHP, not phpBB. Also, the "sad code" you reference here isn't phpBB per se, it's the Categories MOD, which has a number of documented problems.

It also looks like you're using phpNuke rather than phpBB itself... again, that's a "port" of the basic phpBB software which has problems of its own, problems which you really can't blame on the phpBB development team -- blame the people who created it and who should support it. I'd also suggest that the phpNuke and phpPlus versions were created as attempts to make phpBB more like vBulletin -- if that's what you want, you may be further ahead just going to the original (vBulletin) rather than messing with the imitators, which really are neither phpBB nor vBulletin.

[minstrel]

Also, vB 3.5 is in beta - basically, they've recoded so that no matter what modifications you make to the forums, you can update your vb files without losing them. Excellent idea.
For quite some time now, that has also been true for phpBB. When they announce an update, simply check the support forum at the phpbb.com site and generally within 24 hours you'll find a MOD (usually courtesy of AcydBurn) which will make the necessary changes while preserving any MODs you've added.

I haven't had to discard any MODs because of updates since I started with phpBB 2.06 -- and there are quite a few MODs, especially on two of the four forums I manage.

[joeychgo]

Sorry - I cant trust a software platform that is hacked often, the company's SERVER gets hacked, and when I go to their website, they have a bunch of red 'x's -- (saw this a few weeks ago when I went to look)

Everything surrounding PHPbb screams "We Dont Have A Clue!!"

I havent seen PHPbb 3.0, so I cant comment on that, but they need to work on their image IMO.

[minstrel]

I'll have to disagree with you, Joey.

Again, to my mind it's just not a "better or worse" thing. It's a matter of preference. If you buy a Lincoln and I buy a Jeep, is your vehicle better or worse than mine? It's neither, of course -- it depends on personal preferences and driving habits.

I will admit that I'm considering switching one of my forums to vBulletin. But that won't be because of security or "don't have a clue" issues -- it will be because I'm starting to like one or two features of vBulletin and, at least for one of the forums, I think it might suit my needs better.

[digitalpoint]

I will admit that I'm considering switching one of my forums to vBulletin. But that won't be because of security or "don't have a clue" issues -- it will be because I'm starting to like one or two features of vBulletin and, at least for one of the forums, I think it might suit my needs better.Wait until you see the backend AdminCP (if you haven't seen it in vB before), you will switch all your forums. :)

To be honest, besides price, I'm not sure what the advantage(s)of phpBB are. In truth, I had setup phpBB before vBulletin because phpBB was free, and on the surface, the differences didn't look like that much (it was before vBulletin 3). I ended up going with vBulletin when 3.0 came out though, and after seeing the backend at that point, I was kicking myself for not using it sooner.

For phpBB administrators that have never administrated a vBulletin forum, I would definitely recommend you do the admin demo, because the best parts about vBulletin are stuff end users can't see:

http://www.vbulletin.com/admindemo.php

[The Sandman]

There are some advantages of vBulletin over phpBB. There are also some advantages of phpBB over vBulletin.

You look at the features of both (and a few other alternatives, although these are clearly the two best developed and best supported) and you select one or the other based on your needs and personal preferences.

I don't think the propaganda or competition-bashing is at all helpful here, any more than it is with the neverending Microsoft v. MAC v. Linux, or Internet Explorer v. Firefox debates.Amen to that. Forums are about community, not which forum software powers them. And forum admins have much more to share with each other than debating which software product is "the best".

DigitalPoint would still be DigitalPoint even if it was running on phpBB. It's the people, people.

[minstrel]

Thanks for that URL, Shawn... that's actually very useful. I'll explore it at greater length this weekend.

[noppid]

Thanks for that URL, Shawn... that's actually very useful. I'll explore it at greater length this weekend.

Just write the damn check.

[minstrel]

Just write the damn check.
LMAO!

I don't like making snap decisions unless I have too (and I already have to make too many of those). :D

Besides, my next step was to hit you up for the purchase price :o