Guys, I need advise on which is the best forum software (not free forums available for installation through fantastico). Please include the price as well and features while you suggest any. I feel vBulletin & IP board are good but not sure which one is best with their prices. I checked their website but that is too confusing. There are many products of vBulletin alone and I'm not sure which one I should buy. Or if you guys have any license that you wanna sell, please let me know. Thanks in advance peep.
In case that you decide for vBulletin, wait few months, there will be a new version released - if you'll wait, you won't have to pay twice (upgrading from vB4). I do not have any experience with IP board but vBulletin is quite cool (I tried phpBB, SMF etc.).
Thanks Man, But what If I don't want to upgrade? How much is the cost?... is there any recurring cost each year/month? is there any other hidden charges?
There are not any hidden charges or recurring fees - they'll want to get paid only for occasional major upgrades (minor upgrades and patches are free). But nobody will force you to upgrade, it's your choice. Visit http://www.vbulletin.com/ for more information about pricing.
Thanks again ! I went through their website but unable to understand which suits my requirement. There are several versions and I'm unable to understand which one I should buy. My motto is to start a simple forum.
I recommend you buying Publishing Suite - it is costlier than Forum Classic, but it has unlimited ticket support + blogs and CMS. There are also products like Mobile Suite and Facebook App, but I find them useless.
I personally think Xenforo is the Best....i have used phpbb,SMF,mybb,vbulletin prior to Xenforo and Xenforo is def. the best. -C
The license price is $140 excluding taxes/VAT.. so If I have to pay $150 something, I would go for vBulletin, isn't vBulletin good?
Vbulletin is good, but Xenforo is better. Also VBulletin is $195 and Xenforo is $140. I believe the old lead developer for Vbulletin is now the founder/lead developer of Xenforo. VBulletin has always been the most popular forum, but people are starting to catch on to how good Xenforo is. The features and pricing is at Xenforo.com Good look in whatever you do! -C
Thanks for posting about the VBulletin update. That information will help many people time their decisions. I agree that Vbulletin is a very popular forum choice which many people enjoy.
MyBB is the best software, because it is easy to use, plugins installation takes less time than other softwares and fast and good support
My suggestion would be to go with vBulletin or xenforo, both of those are solid scripts. I've tried IPB in the past and I wasn't impressed with the modification available at the time, this may have changed since I tested it.
Mybb rules I have used it 2 yrs now it is great I will not use anything thing else nothing else can touch it
I love xenforo and I was a VB user. First thing I noticed was the incredible load time. 2nd? How easy it is to mess with the styles! 3rd? I've downloaded dozens of add-ons and, when I had to upgrade xenforo, NONE of them had an issues. It seems xenforo has made it easy for developers to create add-ons that will last through their own updates. I love this because I no longer have to wait to update the core because the add-ons I was using haven't patched the issues with the latest update. $140 for the first year and after the first year it's $40 per year to continue the support. License purchases due stack towards their bulk discounting. So if you love the software and need a few more licenses eventually you'll be paying bulk pricing, which is under $130 after 3 licenses i think? Big boards are making the move. *like IGN* and reported much success I think IGN saw a 20% spike in traffic?
I really like vBulletin simply because of how comprehensive their support is. They can help with problems on your forum to fixing your theme and offering one from their thousands of themes on the forum.
The best is the software that your favorite site is using. Everyone's best is based on different criteria. So there really is no best. Figure out what you want to do with your site. Then find one you really like similar to your thoughts and choose the software they are using.