vBulletin vs XenForo vs IPB

Your favorite commercial community software? I have been fan of vBulletin and I run large community powered by VB4. It has its ups and downs, but in general gets things done. However, now that vBulletin talks about version 5 makes me think what is really going since we just kissed version 4.2. I have been thinking about alternatives so in my mind I can seriously think only about two other alternatives. This is just a small debate I do not intend to move from vBulletin (well not yet).

vBulletin 4 - Built on old system and even they know they messed up big time by keeping old architecture. Now they just can't keep up with new stuff that other forums offer. However, VB has the best mods on internet and it keeps growing. Some of the best forums run on vBulletin including Sitepoint and Digital Point. It is secure and it has long history that I followed from the day one, but lately it has been under attack from XenForo community and some "individual" website like: http://vbtruth.com

XenForo - This is interesting project created by two Ex-vBulletin developers Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan. Guys went through a lot to keep their ideas fresh. Lots of courts lawyers and lawsuits from Internet Brands (company that owns vBulletin). Xenforo is built on Zend Framework (which is not my favorite) and it has promising future, but not yet there. They lack mods and driven community. Long way to go to achieve vBulletin.org popularity. I think it mostly lacks professional default look and other styles look more like free forums. Good ideas just not delivered properly.

IPB - Ok this is the software I have least experience with. Last time I tried it it had great skins and bad mod choices. They charge for most of the mods that vBulletin community offers for free. Every time I try to consider IPB something throws me off. Maybe just feeling that I can't shake off. Like a vBulletin ghost that chases me around when I look for other alternatives. However, if I do switch to other forum software it will probably be IPB, but we will see I am not in the rush there is long wait until we actually test new vBulletin 5.

 

Also it seems Digital Point is moving to XenForo.

 

Where exactly did you come up with this info?

that vbtruth site is a joke, it's made some someone who has been very angry with vbulletin, I wouldn't trust anything I read on there, do you're on research.


xenforo is nice but has been lagging in developement
vb4/5 is nice and actively being developed, getting better every day
ipb has ip.content which is great, I don't really care for anything else they have

 

You can find info on Xenforo forums:

http://xenforo.com/community/members/digitalpoint.47/

You can test demo and it seems it is not getting any better:

www.vbulletin.com/vb5demo

 

Plus to XenForo <3
I love it.
Consumes little Resources.
Extremely faster compare to vb and ipb.

 

Shawn has made some xenforo mods if that's what you mean, but he's never stated that he'll move the digitalpoint forums to xenforo.
We recently did an interview on him if you want to check it out.
http://admin-talk.com/threads/6988/

 

i think vbulletin is best available right now... so many mods, very customizable and has a solid reputation
i thin xenforo needs alot of time to get a little close to vbulletin software maybe someday the can beat vbulletin ...

 

XenForo is Great among then all !

 

I am loving Xenforo more than vBulletin. The Xenforo guys are doing a great job to keep the software modern and updating it to current web technology. vBulletin on the other side have never really showed any improvement after being bought by Internet Brands.

 

xenForo has come a long way since this thread was posted. Digitalpoint now runs it, and xF 1.2 gold is right around the corner, with state of the art features such as a fully responsive style. The only other software to have a responsive style that I know of is vB5 - but that's slightly baddened (I know that's not a word) by the fact vB5 is the worst software ever.

I don't like IBP. They charge for everything, and I don't like the UI. It takes too many clicks to get something done. Same with vB. I used to use vB4, but I fell in love with xF after looking into it, now I'm using it for my forum.

Liam

 

I had them all, i love Xenforo

 

Xenforo all the way. I toyed with VB5 and it was horrible. And now they won't stop emailing me!

 

OMG, i heard bad stories of VB5 and see a lot of people moving away VB all together now sad ..

 

Let me share my story. I have run dzwiek.org website since 2003, first using some free scripts, then in 2005 I moved to vBulletin 3. Then when vB4 was released I moved to that and later Xenforo showed up, which was amazing. I liked the alert system and conversation system better than vB4. Later, Xenforo suspended their activity and I thought they would never continue, so I decided to try IP Board last year. It was fine, it had alerts and conversations similar to Xenforo, but it didn't feel as light and as easy to manage like Xenforo did. The customer support was horrible. I purchased IP.Nexus and then it turned out it didn't have one important feature they advertised regarding selling banner ads. So I asked for a refund and when they ignored my request I did that through Paypal. They revoked my license after that. Although I managed to convince them that they are doing bad job and they reinstated my license, that experience led me to go back to Xenforo as soon as I found out they were back in action again. I think Xenforo is the best and it is getting better and better with each next release. Looking at some amazing custom features implemented here on digitalpoint, we can imagine how nicely it will develop in future!

 

When Jelsoft owned VBulletin I loved it, that was until Mike and Kier left and opened Xenforo, so I'm a fan of that cool software.

 

Xenforo is looking very promising

 

XenForo by far.

Oh sorry for the bump! just noticed it's from 2013 :S