vbulletin or phpbb ?? whats your take

what you think is better
vbulletin OR phpbb ??
i am going to start a new forum and need an idea as to what people prefer.

one point of difference is that vbulletin is paid while phpbb is free.

is vbulletin providing something that we should pay them ??

regards
dhaliwal

 

vB is definately better and well worth the money.

The only case where you may want to choose phpBB is if you are adding a forum merely to support a main site nad don't expect to have a huge forum. I use it just to answer support questions and don't need anything more.

Updating (which is essential for phpBB) can be a bit much, especially if you have a lot of Modifications.

If you are looking to really have a serious go, you have to choose vB

 

On the same token - I#m thinking of setting up a minor forum that I don't want to put money into if its not going to be successful. So I figure I'll use Free PhpBB. However, if it is successful then I'm willing to invest. Has anyone ever changed from free PhpBB to VB? And if so, how easy is it to transfer the data?

 

I've not transferred from phpbb to vB - but I have imported two YaBB SE's to vB - nerve-wracking process, but it all worked fine, and tech support at vB is great.

 

The other issue to bare in mind is security. PhpBB has a bit of a recorde of being attacked by deadly internet worm. I've not looked at yabb - don't know if that's had similar problems.

 

personally i love both phpbb and vbulletin.

I currently have a phpbb site with over 900 members and about 120 posts per day. I don't have any problems with the site at all besides my stupid host being paranoid about security updates. It's easy to mod and requires little maintenance.

i've never ran a vbulletin site b/c I've never wanted to start a site out in the whole (negative $'s). However I think vbulletin sites look more professional and have a few better things design wise and functional wise.

 

vbulletin

-

 

YaBB SE has been canned as a project, and the developers completely recoded their forum software as SimpleMachines - which is very similar in terms of being simple and easy to administrate, but better. Also, possibly one of the most search-engine friendly forums software around on Apache.

Personally, I'd hate to be seen to be knocking any open source project, but it's difficult to form a positive opinion of phpbb for all the security issues it's had. Try and find a single vB admin here who had their forum hacked (0), while there are about 5 different phpbb's reported hacked.

 

I got the bug from this thread and installed the Simple Machines forum this afternnoon. As I've never done a forum in my life I was surprised how easy it was to set up and get running.

It also seems to have a good security record. Its only for a test period in which case I may upgrade to VB - at present though it'll do for now. I just have to figure out how to turn the Adsense bit of on the reg pages.

I thought about Phpbb but couldn't in good consciousness plump for it. I've had PHP stuff hacked before and its a pain. That was only a guest book. I can't imagine the nightmare a hacked forum would cause.

 

vBulletin is the best out there and are growing way faster than phpBB.

phpBB needs some saving if it is going to be anything more than a hobby. Don't get me wrong, you can use it for production, but the amount of time that you are going to spend upgrading/updating it won't be worth your time. Well I should say it's not worth your time if your time is worth more than $0.25 and hour.

 

i've used both phpbb and vb. once you try vb, i doubt you'll ever go back. the feature set and the support forums make using their software a pleasure.

 

I know there's an import from vB3 to SMF 1 - but I don't think vBulletin have an importer for SMF as yet. Probably a matter of time, though.

SMF is good software, though, and manages to throw in some nice little touches that even vB could learn from.

vB is the more powerful solution - but SMF is a good alternative if you're after something cheaper and simpler.

 

Let me translate your question... You actually asked

what you think is better...
A vbulletin that doesn't have new weekly security bugs poping up every week. OR a crappy phpbb board that since you pay nothing, those that make it don't give a rats rear-end when it comes to security, until it goes public, THEN, just to save them the bad PR, they finally fix it. Then get another security big a week later.

Newsflash: You get what you pay for. Chepo= Chepo service.

 

thanks for such nice responses
i will go with vb