Experienced User of different forums advice needed

Hey, I'm wondering which forum is the best. There probably isn't a best, but maybe someone can give me an comparsion between the forums. Or tell me what kind of purpose is a specific forum good for.

Like I always hear people saying vbulletin is the best or SMF but any perticular reasons to it?

I'm kinda new to this so maybe someone can fill me in.

So far my picture of it is

SMF - Safe, Free, Crappy Themes(my opinion), Easy to use
PhpBB- Free, Unsafe, Easy to Use
vBulletin-Paid, heard its the best a lot, other than that notthing i know about them.

 

VBulletin is search engine friendly.

 

rly? The other forums are not SEO Friendly?

I actually don't mind paying that much if I can get the bang for my buck.

Like is there features that one forum has and the other one doesn't or are they pretty much the same since you just get hack/mods for them.

 

SMF is Search Engine Friendly too. For vB you have to pay and the Search Engine Friendly feature is not build in, with SMF it is.
Did you tried to look around for SMF themes? Take a look at www.tinyportal.net
A lot of themes for free.
Or here: http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/
For SMF you can find everything you need for free. For vBulletin is everything paid.

 

This site makes a nice comparison of the features of most forum packages:

http://www.forummatrix.org/

 

Nice site, but that comparsion shows like SMF is probably best choice its got everything vBulletion has and its free. I got SMF forum right now but i really don't like the themes. I looked at countless theme at tinyportal before but they all got this simliar style, iuno why.

Where do you buy friendly SEO for vB?

 

Acutally, I know where to buy it, but its so expensive $149 when SMF is free. So basically your paying $160 + $149 = $209, for what, when you SMF gives you everything for free.

Is there some specifically good about vB? or is it just some big hype where a bunch of people buy vB say its good and other people buy it just cause they heard it from someone.

 

I have not used SMF extensively, although I have used it a little. I like it, but the way in which the admin interface is set up and operates is a little unorthodox to me.

I have used both myBB and vBulletin quite a bit and although vBulletin has numerous refinements, as far as SEO goes I have been able to make such strides with myBB that I no longer see the vBulletin/vBSEO combo a necessity for competing at the top end.

 

Thanks for your post. I have heard lots of people simply say vB is the best, but never really stating why, so just wondering if its all just a hype.

Personally the only thing thats making me change right now is that I can't find a theme I like with SMF. But I would really like to know if vB is actually better than SMF or is it because its paid people just think its better than SMF. Because price implies quailty.

Hopefully we can get a expierenced SMF, vB user in here.

 

vBulletin - Its customizable to any extent, its light.
Search Engine friendly, many inbuild features. Doesn't needs file edit for mods etc.

I would rate it the best and its worth it.