Hopefully I'm in the right spot here, I'm trying to decide between vbulliten and phpbb. I know there are endless threads on the internet about this and I've searched through them but I have a specific question regarding which one will be easier for my site. The site we're creating is not simply a forum, it's a custom made social application specifically tailored to the RC (Remote control) community which I would also like to offer forums for. Think facebook but specialized for a hobby. My question is this, through the website users will have the ability to create and keep track of things like their flights, aircraft, blog, etc that will all be wrapped up into their profile. In addition, users can get "props" (karma) for visiting the site, from other users, etc.. I want to select the forum format that will most easily allow integration between the forum environment and normal environment. Specifically, if a user gets props on a forum post it all pulls through to the overall website as well. I would also like for their to be links under the person's user name on the left that shows flights, blog, etc that will let a user quickly see other users information found else ware on the site. I'm paying to have the site developer and I'm not a programmer by any means. The two most important thing to me are the cost to implement and ease of use once it's implemented. Website is live and can be found here: www.rcflightshare.com Thanks in advance!
i should choose phpbb, just worked with it for years and years to come and is just working fine, easy to change and quite fast. vbulletin i have no experience with but if you may believe vbulletin has more hits on google then phpbb!
I don't know whether phpBB has the same type of community that MyBB has (I think it does), but the MyBB community includes a lot of people who will write plugins (which is what you'll need) for free. So your developer can concentrate on getting the site and the forum running, and someone else can spend time writing the equipment and flight log parts at no cost to you. Unless you need something specific that vBulletin gives you that a free forum doesn't, why spend the money?
There are plenty of better alternatives out there to phpBB, such as Simple Machines Forum. The cost is free, there's a great community and it's easy to use. I would recommend trying out a few and seeing what you're most comfortable with.