Should I buy Vbulletin?

Hi,
I am just planning to start a new forum, and plan to make it real BIG
However I am confused and dont know, which forum software to choose.
I am looking at VBulletin as an option and the others like phpbb and SMF.
Whatever I go for, ultimately I have to go in for vbulletin after the forum grows big.

Please tell me that should I begin with one of the free boards first and when I have considerable traffic, upgrade to Vbulletin or should I directly start with vbulletin?
and whatever be your answer, please tell me why?
Thanks.

 

I'd say go for vB. I did and have never regretted the decision.

 

I'd be interested to know how many people are using a priated copy of vBulletin

it's fairly easy to obtain, but it seems pretty dishonest for something you plan to make $ from...

 

Run a priated copy of vBulletin and you could find yourself shut down. Those that pay are vested in protecting their investment and report such sites.

vB has a good attorney that shuts ya down if verified pirated. http://www.piratereportsforum.com/showthread.php?t=590

Buy it and you won't regret it.

 

If your so cheap that you cant afford to lease a copy of vBulletin --


Your site is ultimately going to fail in all liklihood. So why bother in the first palce.


Do it right the first time. Remember, you get what you pay for.

 

I know how they would feel
I'm a web programmer as well, I understand the pain

however, there are so many little forums that just pop up over night running vB, I don't know how these forum owners afford them all

 

Get a vbulletin or IPB license

 

As business expenses go, $160 that your can re-use in a few months if things don't work out is a VERY minor expense If things do work you already have your forum on a platform which you know will scale. I wish the choices in some other areas were as clearcut.

 

If your tight for funds, my advise would be the start with a free solution like phpBB and just do the conversion when it's justified. With the bundled Impex conversion script, changing to vB is very straight forward.

 

Vbulletin is a blessing. I would definately recommend it.

If you are tight for cash, they allow you to buy the lease copy for $85.00 and then pay the other $75.00 within the first 60 days. So you have 2 months to get together the $160.00 to pay for it.

If you are serious about your site, and the forums are a centerpiece for it, I would recommend it.

 

Sorry to knit pick, bit I seriously hate it when someone says something like this. Dont get me wrong, I am a vB forum admin myself (having previously converted from phpBB) but I just disagree with the fact that your not serious running a site without vB. I had a very active forum before choosing to go with vB. The forum software doesnt make your site successful, its the memberbase and quality of discussion. vB just has better functionality and would be nice to have if affordable. It's certainly not a must have software if your budget is tight though IMHO.

 

Has anyone converted to vbulletin and had any catastrophes?

I guess it would be wise to take a backup before hand

 

Kind of, but I eventually sorted it out. Whend doing the phpBB to vB conversion, Impex was choking on one of the phpBB posts as it was REALLY long. Once I indentified the post causing the problem, it was pretty smooth sailing from there.

 

Stare deeply at your screen. Now scroll all the way down to the bottom. What do you see?

That's right, serious forums like DP run on Vbulletin, not phpBB.

That being said, conversion from phpBB to vbulletin is a snap. So if you're a bit tight on cash on startup, go the pinto route; use phpBB and be aware of the ongoing vulnerabilities like exploding gas tanks and hackers. If you'd rather have the cadillac to start with, jump right in to vBulletin and save yourself some time. Either way will work.

 

Hi Guys! Thanks a lot for your advice!
I am not in favour of phpBB because of the huge no. of modifications I will have to do, to bring it to the level of vbulletin, and then redo it when an update is released. It takes a lot of time and effort. SMF is better "out of the box", but not as many mods are available and NOTHING compared to VB.

SO, I have atlast decided, what to do! I will buy a VB license
I want to give my forum members quality stuff from the very beginning. Thanks a lot to all you guys for your great advice!.
And after all, even if my forum is not a big success, I can always resell the license here on DP.

 

That is fine.. You can disagree with me all you want. I have 7 phpbb forums, and 2 SMF forums and only 1 Vbulletin forum.

I have written a ton of my own mods for my phpbb forums and am very capable of having it do what I want. That is the point though... It is a huge amount of work that I could spend doing other things, time you will never have with PHPBB. Some basic aspect of forum management take so much time and are such chore that it is a huge time waste.

So perhaps I will reframe my statement to say :

"If you don't want to waste a huge amount of your management and development time on things that should only take seconds, go with VBulletin."

And I don't disagree with you. The software does not make the forum. However, as you can see I have a several non vbulletin sites, and if I knew then what I knew now, I would have figured out a way to get the money, because it makes that much of a difference. The quality and depth of a site I can put up on Vbulletin in a fraction of the time, is pretty astounding to me.

People can figure out for their own for sure. And I don't mean to disuade anyone from using the free forum softwares. I would recommend PHPBB and SMF for various jobs, regardless. However, if you have the resources, I would seriously look at vbulletin.,

Heck install phpbb and play around with it. Install smf and play around with it. You will find SMF more simple to manage as well. Then go get a 24 hour demo from vbulletin so you (not talking about you Dcristo, but people who have not used vbulletin), can see the ACP and how it works.

As time and resources permit, I would eventually like to move all my forums over to VBulletin.

 

Thanks for that refreshing reply aeiouy!

Have you got any links to your forums?

How much do you charge to install phpbb? (if you have the time that is)

Thanks

 

I started off many moons ago with phpBB. I found it easy to administrate but hard to secure, and many sites have been scuppered due to this, including two that I have been part of.

I went onto use IPB free and used it for several years until invision decided to kill it and demand money. I then looked at both IPB and VB as a paid option and after administrating a site with VB, decided to go with them.

I have actually played with a 'Pirate' copy of IPB on my PC (never published) and think it is ok, but not a patch on VB.

I am glad I went to VB and think the $160 was money well spent.

If you do decide to play with a free software before buying VB, please consider a serious time to change. One board I work with has had many problems due to it changing when the database was huge.

 

If it's a 'serious' forum, then go with VBulletin or a bespoke solution. Using PHPBB, even if only at first will cause issues later. Migration to a new script will cause massive headaches and probably downtime.