This has been a long debated topic and I'm sure lots of people seen these questions around, but I haven't seen them lately. I attempted to run forum about 2 years ago and stopped since then. I was leaning toward invision because they seem easier to use and navigate for a person that don't know how to program anything. and I like most of their skins more. Anyways, the last time I asked this question on dp like 2 years ago, I got convinced to use vB, and hence now I have 2 vB license. Now, I decided to possibly go on another venture into the forum world. And I know there has been a lot of updates since then, so I ask again which forum software do you recommend. Again, I'm leaning to invision and trying them out this time.
if you done your research lately, im sure you seen all the madness about vb4. I would and am going with invision boards for many reasons. Bottomline is they listen to people needs and make it happen unlike vb.
I am researching for an article in vB at the moment. I searched a lot of webmaster/forum admin forums looking for polls on which is the best forum software. vB gets the most votes every time. vB usually gets about half the votes (sometimes more; sometimes less) and the other half of the votes is usually split between all the other platforms
really? How did you work that out? Previously you paid for a licence and a yearly fee for upgrades. Now you pay once for a licence and no yearly fee for upgrades .... the price will work out about the same....
both are great, here is a recent post on "Do you use vBulletin or IP.Board?" that we've had over 30 comments from vbulletin and IPB forum owners.
I've always preferred vBulletin, not only for the software itself, but the huge modification community as well. As someone already mentioned, there are a lot of mixed feelings about 4.0. An important thing to take into account is that changes are never drama-free when releasing a new product to a large community. People were complaining when the transition was made from 3.6 to 3.7, and that was much less significant. That being said, I did make the decision to use 3.8 for now, even though I started making my forum a few months after 4.0 gold was released. My reasoning behind this was that modifications aren't as plentiful and I'm not used to the design scheme. For someone who is just making a forum, however, these shouldn't be problems. IP.Board is great software as well, although I don't think it's comparable to vBulletin in function or support (member support, mostly). I've always preferred IP.Board aesthetically, but I don't think it will ever catch up to vBulletin in terms of feature innovation and user base - at least not anytime soon.
Thanks for all the input guys. I think I'm gonna go with IP this time. Plus vB requires you to upgrade to 4.0 which cost like $175 just to upgrade, which pisses me off a bit.
vBulletin does NOT require you to update to 4.0 I'm setting a new forum up and will be running 3.8 for a while, at least until 4.0 has less bugs
I know, but when I bought my two vB licenses, I had the impression that I was going to have the option to upgrade them in the future for $60 not $175.
Both are great in their own ways.. But it seems vb is more secure than IP Board and have the awesome plugin called vbseo.
vBulletin is updating its core system utilizing PHP5 and all of its OOP features. If your the kind of guy that likes a professionally written piece of software then wait till vBulletin finishes its complete rewrite of its core system.
That'll be vBulletin 5, which will probably cost more than it is now. This made me laugh: Personally, I'm abandoning 8 of my vBulletin licenses, and transferring at least 6 to IPB.
Comparing vBulletin and Invision, is like comparing Apples and Oranges Ford and Chevy Toyota and Dodge Baseball and Football Soccer and Basketball In the end, it all depends on what your looking for in a piece of software.