I've always assumed that vBulletin is the best. However it's interesting what's being said here about Xenforo being better, faster, etc. That would make some sense, because as I understand, Xenforo is developed by a person or persons who broke off from vBulletin, and the reason for breaking away was that he/they wanted to do a total rewrite of the vBulletin code for vBulletin 4, but were not allowed to by the parent company who insisted on "agile" development instead (meaning just gradual changes to the code, which perhaps is better for existing forum owners). So perhaps vBulletin is kinda limited in what it can be because of the developers being limited to this agile development. And for what it's worth, the parent company of vBulletin filed a lawsuit against Xenforo for copyright infringement and breach of contract and unfair business practices. (It's still ongoing.) (You can read all that in Wikipedia.)
I have worked with IPB ,Wotlab ,Vbulliten and Xenforo.But i Xenforo is the best forum script.It is not overprices like IPB and vbulliten and many addons can be purchase at really low cost and some really interesting addons are available for free. Most important it is really easy to use
I have seen the law suit news but i dont think xenforo is going to loose it as developers always now about Legal issue before they started development. I think it is just a Vbulliten trick to hamper the growth of xenforo. This is all my personal views
Although I am using IPB for years and I am quite happy with that today I would recommend you Xenforo. Nice amount of add-ons, easy to customize, user friendly and fast. And last but not less important - it's cheaper.
vbulletin is the best in my opinion and I think it's around $300. It has the ability to run very large forums. However if you can't afford it, mybb is better.
VBulletin is quite good. I think that Website Toolbox is getting to be quite good as well. It is easy to use, making it ideal if you want a simple forum. One of the aspects I enjoy most about it is the customer service. You can always suggest new features, find out how to use a part of the forum and get assistance with the code. Lastly, their forums a exceptionally fast, and quite cheap to get one.
The ones you mentioned are quite good, but not as good as Website Toolbox for a features vs. price comparison. Check out the link below. IP board has a weird limit on number of members on the forum at one time (if they host), meaning you will need quite loyal users, and not just people passing through. vBulletin is quite powerful. The only down side in my mind to that is the price.
I am using phpbb, woltlab and mybb. They are all good but phpbb requires too much additional work (adding mods).
I have dumped using Vbulletin in favour of IPB xenforo looks impressive and has some great features but it is to young.
Xenforo may be young but it's clearly superior to Vb and IPB. Get in while the goings good. I did, and I have no regrets.
I also Vote for XenForo as THE BEST FORUM SOFTWARE I have no regrets moving my big board to XF, specially after I found out how lame and buggy Vbulletin5 connect
I'm new to setting up forums. I've settled on using phpBB for the reason that it's one of the most common and therefore it should be the easiest for the average end user to use as seasoned users should be familiar with it. Yes it can be require additional work and integrating it with a CMS (e.g. Joomla can be a task).
vBulletin used to be the best by far. I always use myBB now however I would like to check out phpBB as I haven't checked that software out for a couple years now. It was my old favorite.
Avoid phpbb as their plugin system is by far the worst out there. You need to manually add most of the plugins. We need to wait for phpbb 4.0 or 3.2 not sure which version will come sooner.
phpbb has got the best ranking and that's one most people use. But, if something is so general that many people are using it, may not be good anymore. Can you do the code from the scratch?
Yes, but it's been disproven by several experts. VB is just trying to wear down their competitor now in the courts. It's a vile practice but Xenforo is holding on. Here's 200 pages of why VB doesn't have a leg to stand on, plus ongoing updates, plus legal documents: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/california-case-update.10037/