How hard is it to migrate away from vBulletin?

I know that IMPEX (at least) was the tops for pulling in most any forum to make it Vbulletin... but what about moving away from vBulletin?

With the growing list of defects in the vB line I am seriously considering alternatives, both free and paid, however, my biggest concern has and always will be the content and community. So I am looking into alternatives to the what was once tried and true, and looking for a forum solution that seemingly cares more about its userbase then it's wallet.

What are the options for switching vB over to something else?

 

IP.Board. Top-notch development by a company that actually knows what they're doing.

They also have a seamless converter that allows you to migrate rather easily. Unlike many converters (including ImpEx), users will actually retain their passwords in the conversion, and won't have to reset them.

 

the only problem will be the password because they can not be transfred you would need to do a full password reset for all user most off the time

 

This is incorrect. As I mentioned in my previous post, the IP.Board converter retains user passwords, meaning they do not have to be reset.

 

Well the passwords remain same for most of the softwares nowadays as they use similar hashes

 

vBulletin's converter doesn't even retain passwords. Very few of the converters do. IP.Board's converter is one of the few that actually does.

 

I Think i did SMF to vB recently for some1 and it did retain passwords..

 

Some of it depends on how the passwords were encrypted.

If the forum software uses the same type, then the users might not have to reset their password.

Each forum software has their own import system. Such as SMF has an import system that includes VB.

 

Yea basically it depends on the hash of the passwords the software uses

 

I would try MyBB - it's extremely close to vB in functionality - and free.

As a MyBB-targetted web host owner, I've transferred vB forums to MyBB with more than 500k posts with very little problems.

 

MyBB or IP.Board, lots of converters are available.

 

Here is some info on vBulletin to IPB conversion to answer any questions