I finally decided on using vBulletin... Thought I might let others know what made me decide. Obviously this will depend a bit on your intentions and aims (100 local book club users or 10,000 worldwide members with 4 different user groups)... But if you are thinking of going big then check out my TOP 10 reasons for choosing vBulletin: vBulletin is paid for (you know what they say, you get what you pay for) vBulletin's admin panel although at first a bit overwhelming is like magic. So many options available that phpBB doesnt have in admin. vBulletin's customisation (plugins) appear to be much easier to install than phpBB phpBB over the past 3 years has been a nightmare for me (due to hacks, updates every few months and then having to reinstall or reconfigure everything from footers, to SEO mods. vBulletin (their users) give the impression that security issues are solved faster, upgrades are less problematic and given the widespread use of phpBB compared to vBulletin, the hacks on phpBB are more frequent. vBulletin's standard moderation options are great (sends email upon posting, can put posts/threads in moderation approval before going live)... Things like this I havent seen in phpBB standard version. vBulletin has definitely got a slicker look than phpBB - it appears to have been associated with big, professional, quality forums (just look @ DP!). vBulletin's interaction options are way beyond phpBB (reputation system, flagging posts, feedback comments, rating threads). vBulletin's user Control Panel features are much more advanced and complete (a user can view suscribed threads, modifiy signatures with WYSIWIG editor, choose forum view types - linear/threaded... the list goes on). phpBB barely has a few fields to fill in the user profile, choose board style and choose an avatar. vBulletin has a kind of extasy to it that I think will lead to quality contributions by professionals who want to be part of something (many skins, hacks, etc. are paid for). phpBB has a long long list of free hacks - being free I think there are many that are no longer supported, valid and no uptodate with latest phpBB releases. vBulletin's standard goodies such as Calendar, View latest posts/last 24 hours, Buddy list...). Ooops, did I forget one of the most important reasons? vBulletin's standard version is definitely more SEO friendly than phpBB's standard version!
It really depends on how often you update the site...if you keep updating it as they release upgrades, you should be safe. And just wait till Olympus launches, its gonna blow a lot of paid forums away!
Comparing a FREE forum with a paid one is no comparison at all. Sure phpBB has a lot of criticism, but it's FREE - what do you expect?
Here are my top 10 reasons why I won't use VB again 1. vBulletin is paid for (you know what they say, you get what you pay for) Yeah .. I paid 160 USD for a script and have to pay 30 USD a year to have access to upgrades done monthly that put my site on the rocks since I have over 20 hacks installed and guess what .. some might not work on upgrades. Never had this issues with phpBB. I made code changes and upgraded and even hacks created for 2.0.2 work like a charm on 2.0.22 2. vBulletin's admin panel although at first a bit overwhelming is like magic. So many options available that phpBB doesnt have in admin. It has so many options I can't to this day work them out. The permission masks are so elaborate I am still stuck on this. And I used it for 5 months already. 3. vBulletin's customisation (plugins) appear to be much easier to install than phpBB I installed tens of phpBB hacks. The best documented ever, easy to work out. VB does have a simple way to istall them, but still some of the elaborate ones need to have code changes made and other things taken care off. That makes them as easy or hard to install as any phpBB hack. 4. phpBB over the past 3 years has been a nightmare for me (due to hacks, updates every few months and then having to reinstall or reconfigure everything from footers, to SEO mods. vBulletin (their users) give the impression that security issues are solved faster, upgrades are less problematic and given the widespread use of phpBB compared to vBulletin, the hacks on phpBB are more frequent. phpBB had few upgrades in the latest months. I used VB 3.5 when got my license and now I am many versions behind. And I still don't want to upgrade since many of the hacks I installed are not supported ... it's a nightmare. As for hacks.. Never had any issues with phpBB. It's easy to work on and SPAM can be dealt easily with the right mods and amdin measures. 5. vBulletin's standard moderation options are great (sends email upon posting, can put posts/threads in moderation approval before going live)... Things like this I havent seen in phpBB standard version. No problem. We can install hacks. VB doesn't have topic description for instance something IPB has till 1.2 version. There are many features we might or might not need. I have installed 20+ hacks on VB because it lacked something I needed. As long as there are mods to be installed, don't see any problem 6. vBulletin has definitely got a slicker look than phpBB - it appears to have been associated with big, professional, quality forums (just look @ DP!). VB has one of the worst looking templates. The colours don't match (the violet and that blue are ugly), ugly buttons and so on. The best looking default skin is made by IPB, unfortunately VB is ugly as can be out of the box. 7, 8 ... They are good features indeed and come into the default installations. I can make them work on phpBB with hacks to be installed. 9. vBulletin has a kind of extasy to it that I think will lead to quality contributions by professionals who want to be part of something (many skins, hacks, etc. are paid for). phpBB has a long long list of free hacks - being free I think there are many that are no longer supported, valid and no uptodate with latest phpBB releases. I have to disagree again. I used phpBB a lot in the last years and ALL hacks I installed (we're talking 40-50 in some of my forums) worked wonders no matter what version I had them installed on. They are easy to install if you know to read and follow some instructions and they work even if you make 20 script upgrades. Of course you need to make code changes upgrades, not copy new files over the old ones There are hundreds of hacks and themes and from my experience as web designer and forum theme designer phpBB is the easist to skin. I have created skins for VB, IPB, phpBB and myBB and to this day the best results I had with phpBB. phpBB has been used for many years, there are hundreds of very talented people who work on developing skins and hacks. Just head up to phpBB.com or phpBBhacks.com and look there. All their work is made so that all people can use a good script and not have to pay just to have a forum. VB has to be better out of the box, for Goodness sake it costs almost 200 dollars. The VB developers have a salary, most of the phpBB developers do this just out of passion. And they do a great job. I have many forums and was able to earn a decent buck from phpBB forums. Modded with unique skins, but I only had to pay "time" because that's what I have. I live in a poor country. I don't have 1600 USD, but I do have 10 forums that made me learn a lot. Not all people can afford paying 160 USD and 30 USD/year to have a forum that does what a free one can do with proper modding? How many of the people who praise VB and bash a free script calling it unprofessional really know how to mod a skin? How many still use a default skin and still ask in specialized forums how to change a colour? Of course we're all biased in the end, maybe a bit stubborn and we love a script and dislike another. I come to say I don't think VB is better for me since I dislike some of the things regarding it. I used it for half an year, I made a unique layout for it and installed many hacks. I don't like it. I use it because in my webmaster forums I might have again people to tell me it's unprofessional to use phpBB. even if my phpBB (the one that was ported to VB) was with the same layout you see now, with over 50 hacks installed that did more than VB can do (I still search for some hacks for VB to re-create some features I had), even if I had unique articles and tuts .. All they saw was that "powered by ..." thing. This is why I use it. I have 10 forums now, and 1 VB license. That's all I'll use. .. Sorry if I offended in any way ... I couldn't help it, since so many people rush to bash a free script without maybe giving it a chance. I know VB might be a good option for some people, but we have to think that not all of us here have the money for a script and some great results can be achieved just with some more work
Hey Dojo, nice to see you vented out on this thread... My top 10 reasons in case you didnt notice, where MY reasons. Understandably may be different for you. And dont forget Im talking about the standard version. Of course both can be modded and hacked as much as you want just like you can tune a renault clio into a ferrari but thats not the point. Oh and I havent rushed to bash a free script... Ive tried several scripts in a total of 6 forums over 3 years. And this is MY conclusions. Take it easy and enjoy 2007