I am starting a new forum, but I am having a very tough time deciding with either vbulletin or Invision. In my opinion, IPB has a much nicer original theme, its clean, the ACP is way better. According to most people Vbulletin is better, why?
I use both.. I think it depends on the subject of the forum. If you're running a professional forum such as website support or health related issues, I'd go for IPB. It's a lot more professional. If you want to start a hobby forum or general forum, choose vBulletin because they offer more features.
phpbb is free,its no way near the quality of vbulletin,just google vbulletin versus phpbb,you'll see what im talking about.
I prefer phpBB because I think it has better theme's and skins as well as seems to flow better. My opinion...
I love vBulletin, it is great to use. If you can afford the license go for it, otherwise i would take phpBB over IPB.
I have been an admin of both systems, but I haven't run either on a hosting account. From a visitor's point of view, I like vBulletin better. It's nice for all the forums I go to to (mostly) have the same layout and features. From the administrators point of view, it would be more difficult to choose, but I would again have to choose vBulletin.
Well I guess I have a very different opinion. I would like to see my forum run IPB because of the user and admin interface. The admin interface on IPB is a million times better then vbulletin. So I am going to use Vbulletin because everyone seems to like it, but I would rather have an IPB forum. But it's not only about me I guess.
Yea, I agree 100%, Lets not worry about security because we can always restore from back up. Lets not worry about real tech support because we love begging for help. Lets not worry about paid memberships, payment processing, account promotion, reminder emails and returning the premium members to their original account because everything should be free. Even if I could buy it, who needs phone support anyway? I have google. Lets not worry about professional modifications, because we LOVE mods with all kinds of security holes - remember, that is what backups are for. Yea, who needs built in reports, we can just guess how many post and new members we get a day. Who needs scalability? If the forum works for 100 members, surely it will be ok for 10,000 members? Who needs a forum with an easy install and upgrade script? I love staying up late at night crying. I would rather be chmoding folder permissions and editing config files then sleeping or watching TV. Who needs easy to install mods? I would rather spend hours trying to install something then spend time with my family. Yea - who needs security and a top notch product when we have good looking themes. PHPBB themes > VBulletin security. I think that pretty much sums it up.
So as a user would you think that more people would sign up and post if I had a vbulletin forum versus an IPB?
I find ipb a little over developed - when starting a new thread, why do you need a thread title box, a description box, and then the text box for the thread itself? Just a title and then the thread is good enough. VB took the "tag" route that works much better. The last 2 or 3 ipb sites I signed up for were a real pain. I was sent a code that I had to enter into a box, then I could not log in. The site kept reporting some kind of error when I logged in, but why? When I reentered the code the site said my account had already been activated and to log in, but I could not - so what was the problem? After maybe 5 - 10 minutes I could finally log in. But a lot of people will give up and go away. If you own an IPB site, do not use that code sent by email thingy - its a real pain and reports error messages. IPB with its register and email code design might be driving your forum membership away. I like IPB forums, there is one site I have been a member of for close to 3 years. IPB has some really good mods, such as the arcade, and at one time there was a good picture gallery solution. But what really turns me off if the error msgs after I enter the code that is sent by email. Its as if the site does not know that the code has been entered. On those sites I signed up on, I have not been back. If the register and log in feature does not work, what else does not work? when a member registers and jumps through all the hoops to sign up, they should not get error msgs. Make it easy for your members to sign up and they will stay. Give them lots of errors and new members leave. And IPB gives errors.