vBulletin, IPB, XF and headaches

I'm starting to lose my mind these days, and I'm sure I'm no the only one..

My web site www.defendingthetruth.com started off on phpBB back in 2005 as a college project. The forum has grown quite substantially over the years and I needed another solution to phpBB, it just couldn't keep up and there were many issues w/ spam. So after observing some of the best forum software out on the web, I decided to go withvBulletin 3. Since my purchase, I was very pleased and my forums continued to grow. The addition of vBseo only benefited the web site w/ more incoming traffic and revenue.

I don't know if any of you are like me, but for some reason I must have the "latest and greatest" technology and software. When something new comes out, I want it. Now we have VB4, XenForo, InvisionPower 3.1, and many others. I didn't list the "many others" because honestly, I feel it's down to the big 3.

Has anyone recently left VB for Invision or XF, or vice-versa? I think I may have to force myself to wait a few more months to see VB's release of v4.1. If it doesn't hold up to VB's expectations, then I think it will be time to move onto XF or Invision..

Thoughts/Opinions?

 

I did leave vB for IPB, but quickly moved back.
I've converted a few forums back to IPB after admins had left vB as well.

I think vBulletin 4.0.8 is a great product, the miner bugs here and there don't bother me at all.
If I had a choice or someone was asking what I would suggest between vB, IPB or xF, I would go with vBulletin hands down.

 

As much as I love the technology behind XenForo from a coder's perspective, I think as an admin's perspective that it is too soon to start converting live production sites over to it. XenForo has real potential and may give vBulletin & IPB some serious competition in the coming years but right now, today, with it only being up 1.0.0 Beta 2 it is too early to consider moving an existing site to it. If I was to create a new community from scratch then I would likely consider it.

In regards to IPB versus vB, I would have to ask anybody thinking about switching from one to the other "Why?" before they do it. If there was some compelling feature that you are looking for that is offered in one platform but not the other than that is a real consideration but change just for the sake of change could kill an existing community. They both do a great job (yes, even vB4 if we only consider 4.0.8 & above ) and have their devoted fans, but, again, if it is an existing community there better be a really good reason to justify a switch.

... and that is my soap box of the day rambling.

 

Loco & KW, thank you for the valid points.

In all honesty, I guess I'm just reading too far back when vB4 was just released (prior to v4.0.8). All I read about was complaints and how the company is not how it used to be. This is was really got my concerned.. I was visioning vB being bought out and everything suddenly changing.. maybe limiting resources or outsourcing development to save on costs..I don't know. But these are things that can happen when someone else takes control over a company, which had me worried. For that reason, I turned to other software opportunities to see what's out there and how their community felt about ongoing updates and releases. Invision seemed to get quite a lot of positive feedback and they were surely on top of their game. However I do think it's very risky to move from one software to another, and then back again (probably will do a lot of damage on SEO). Maybe I should wait until vB4.1 is released and see how that goes. Adrian claims the WYSIWYG will be updated in the 4.1 release (it's about time..), which is something I definitely want for my community.

 

Really, it's more that people are converting away from vBulletin than converting to IPB, XenForo, or whatnot (surprisingly the free guys have had a lot of vBulletin converts as well). And honestly, the pricing scheme of vBulletin is really uncompetitive. When you increase your prices by 200+%, things go wrong. This economy is very elastic. People are going to eventually respond to the lack of innovation and to the horrendous customer support and just leave. Kier even said it himself in a 2005 interview.

http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=530402#post530402

 

That's what has me very upset. The drastic increase in price of the software, and the fact that you don't even get a good enough discount when upgrading. When vB5 comes out, will that run another $250/upgrade or even more?

 

We don't know for sure what the upgrade to vBulletin 5 will cost

 

I wouldn't be surprised. I'd really laugh if it was as high as $250, though. What's more pathetic is that vBulletin 5 isn't even a code rewrite, neither was vBulletin 4.

 

What made me laugh is the fact that the AdminCP has not changed one bit. If you look at the AdminCP on other software it's much much cleaner..

 

MyBB has the best Admin CP of the "big 5," to be perfectly honest with you. IPB 3's Live Search is excellent, but MyBB essentially had the same thing a year or so before it.

But XenForo... Hot damn. But seriously, the fact that phpBB 3 has a better Admin CP than vBulletin is pretty laughable.

 

I like IPB "live search" as well in their admincp, but that's the only positive thing about it and it's needed since ipb's admin cp isn't organized at all. You need to change several settings in the admin to achive one change on the front end.
I've not messed with mybb's admin cp, but I don't have any problem maneuvering through the vbulletin admincp..

 

But isn't your background vBulletin, after all? I've had people coming from perhaps 3.0 telling me that they didn't have much trouble operating the vBulletin Admin CP back then as it wasn't as cluttered. As you have to add more and more stuff, it might be easier for you to adapt, but what about someone coming at 3.8 or 4.0, perhaps? I could see how you didn't like IPB's Admin CP. I kind of had trouble at first as well, coming from IPB 2.3 (and MyBB, SMF, etc.). I eventually got by because of the Live Search as well, which at least lowers the learning curve of someone new coming into IPB's Admin CP. My main problem is simply the iFrame-base. It seems pretty early 2000s, at best (for the record, phpBB 2 and MyBB 1-1.2 had a similar-looking Admin CP).

MyBB really has come quite a long way, though. I've had guys coming from other software (including remotely-hosted) and they just go "holy shit" when they see MyBB's Admin CP because it's literally simple. It's a bit similar to IPB's in layout, but you can simply simplify the Admin CP by reducing the need for features, and that was their ideology when they designed the Admin CP in 1.4.

I suppose that's what happens when you draw before programming a design.

 

That's a very good point. I know it't not a big deal, but it would look pretty sweet if vBulletin would update the AdminCP w/ the same look and feel of the new forums. I could just be too anal about these things..haha