PHPBB, InvisionPB or VBulletin?

Hi guys. I will be launching my company's website in around a week. My company is offering web design, SEO, hosting and copywriting services in Romania and I'm planning to create a community around the site, not just offering the services. We're planning on getting a forum up, but I'm still not sure what we should use, PHPBB (free), IPB (150$) or Vbulletin (160$)

We're going to promote the forum a lot, so I'm sure it's going to create a serious community around it since we're very determined and there's a lot of interest around these subjects. Can you please hint me as to what I should use? Do IPB and vbulletin justify their price in the long run?

I'm not very experienced with forums, although my partner is to some extent. He's suggesting phpBB because he says that we won't need many o the extra features offered by vBulletin or IPB. I think having a free forum CMS looks a bit unprofessional, just like you would use your yahoo e-mail account for contacts.

What's your view on this?

 

You should try phpbb if you want to start a new community and convert it then to vbulletin . It`s no rush to pay for an license if your forum is no active and doesn`t bring income .

 

IPB is the best, hands down imo.

PS - It's also very professional, good choice for a company/older oriented website.

 

I love Vb..

 

Boo vB is bad.

 

vBulletin is the best, I would suggest the same thing the 2nd poster said.
Start with phpbb2, then convert it to vBulletin if the forum takes off.

cheers

 

Both forgot the why part.

I seem to prefer Invision Power Board as a member and staff. It's modern, has a nice admin control panel, good support, and great add ons by IPS themselves.

 

cosign the above post.

 

Will I be able to transfer everything, DB, posts, threads, categories and whatnot?

 

Yes, vbulletin allows database imports (impex) from phpBB2 and many more.

 

The forum will be active, because we'll promote it like hell. As for income, I doubt we'll monetize it, being on a service company site. It's mainly for the image capita

@Agent_Smith: Thanks for the clarification.

 

I would suggest IPB.
Very friendly admin backend and frontend.

 

phpbb is unbeatable. What matters in a forum is how you raise your members and the topics they would like to discuss. Then as time goes on you install all the mods you need according to what your members would like.

 

Asking which is better is like asking what your favorite color is. You can't win.

 

I have a question here, I know the thread is growing old, but has anyone had issues managing phpBB as opposed to the others..

Do they all have issues with spammers? I did a hack with phpBB that disabled the member listing unless someone had been approved (this prevented the benefit that someone would get a backlink just by spamming a new account (phpBB lists them there even if they aren't approved by default))

It didnt get rid of the nuisance though of 10-20 people a day hitting it and signing up - yes even with "captcha" enabled so prevent bots.

It was the only traffic the site really got so I disabled the forum altogether because I was actively moderating it..

Anyone?

 

PhpBB 3.0 Gold is simply the best forum management software ever....

 

VBulletin baby! You can't go wrong!

 

You know what? Try all three and pick the one best suitable for your needs. Everyone is different so.

vBulletin & IPB are great softwares (own both of them). Never tried phpBB 3.0 so I can't really comment on it.

 

I have tried all of the above.
vBulletin is the Winner.

Originally started out a large forum on PHPBB 2.x. Went very well and we migrated over to Invision Power Boards, when they still offered a free version -1.3 era. It didn't do exactly what we needed, and when 2.x came out they redid their entire pricing structure and went back on the community that built them (not my opinion, but that of some developers and software users). We migrated then to vBulletin. As fate would have it, one of the admins left and took the license and the site finally ended up with Invision, yet again.

Over that entire course, we chose vbulletin. They've been solid and steady since 2.x, and have good support.

The typical flow chart goes like this:
No money / starting? -> PHPBB
Some Money / Your Main Forum? -> vBulletin
Your Forum Grew? -> PHPBB -> vBulletin
Not getting indexed / Need Stuff!? -> vBulletin + vBSEO + Arcade

 

mybb will be your best bet .... closly resembles vbulletin and is free also(you can later change to vb) .... phpbb is overhyped!!!