Bear in mind that major changes are planned for vBulletin with their release 4. The problem is that it looks like this will be more than 6 months from now. I'd be interested to hear from others but the changes that I'm aware of are: - Improved skins - Improved user admin - More social networking including a means for individual users to create private forums - SEO friendly - Big changes to the code requiring latest versions of php and mySQL
Yea, I'm hoping version 4 will bring better and easier editing of skins as well as a huge cleanup/speedup. I do think it's worth it though (obviously)
vB is starting to get carried away with all the options though. The social networking seems a little overkill, if I wanted that type of thing I would join MySpace. But I imagine lots of people like that feature which is why it is now a part of vB. Either way, vB is the best for security, updates, support, and modifications.
More people should be looking into mybb. The latest version is snazzy to say the least. VB is bloat, overkill, and expensive. Check out mybb 1.4. It's free and you can just setup a test forum to see all the features.
I'v been using SMF for 2 years now and I can say it's been a very good learning experience ... SMF is a free software and comes with a lot of options, free support and lots of mods to customize a lot of things. With this come some issues : 1. The options are not as plenty as VB. This makes the forum lightweight but also makes it necessary to use mods. A lot more options can be added with the use of a popular integrated CMS designed for SMF. A gallery mod is also available. Both these popular mods work seamlessly with SMF and add quite a lot of functionality to SMF. 2. Using mods in SMF can become a pain after sometime as the mods start interfering with each other. You have to be very careful before installing a mod and a backup mirror forum for testing is more than essential. 3. Free support is only as good as you can expect free support to be. There are quite some members who help out a lot with a lot of issues, but if you don't pay for support, then you can't hold anyone accountable. VB comes with a lot of features integrated into the basic package itself but it makes it heavy. I guess it would take me 2 days to go through all the options in the Admin CP to configure VB to run just the way I want it. If money is an issue, go for SMF. Period. Otherwise, take your time and try out some free forums by doing a test install on your server and checking out the demos for the paid ones. I recommend this even if money is an issue. I would be doing my bit of testing with VB once I make up my mind to pay for it to try it once. Otherwise, I'm happy with SMF. With a little effort spent in learning and regular backups, SMF can prove to be a worthy competitor of VB.
SMF is really safe but I can't comment for vB. I know they have had a few issues with the release of theere version 7 but I'm not sure about now.
My personal preference is vBulletin but if you are looking for a free forum software SMF is the best then phpbb and mybb
In my opinion, you rather should use something from the Open Source world, like : FluxBB (Review: http://www.forum-software.org/fluxbb/review) or Simple Machines (Review: http://www.forum-software.org/smf/review) They have tons of plugins, themes, and it's free, so why not using them ?
Vbulletin, no doubt. But people can start with phpbb as its free and then convert their forum into vbulletin.
Vbulletin is the most advance no arguments over it, but for a free one I think MYBB is the best. Its much like VB. I think its possible to upgrade from MyBB to VB.
It's possible to go from phpBB to Vbulletin as well, and vice versa. And to be fair, phpBB is much more worked on and developed than MyBB.
you could start with SMF as it's quite similar to vBulletin ... you could always convert it to vB later ...