PhpBB vs VBulletin - Page 4

i go for phpBB
it got auction mod, link exchnage mod, other advanced features that can go under the forum theme...

so does vbulletin and its more secure - WAY more secure.

--Tone

I prefer vB over other forum software and definitely over open source or free forum software. For one thing, vB is and will have the necessary resource to fix security holes or bugs since we pay them to do it, it is one of the few widely use forum software and it is easier to spot a bug, their sales/support response time is superb.

I would have to agree with that - their support is good - their programming team is def. up to par to take care of any issues and it's an expandable platform.

--Tone

phpbb boards are what I use and work with. I don't really like invasion boards. I would love to work with a VB board but... ehh.. time doesn't permit it at the moment.

If you do choose a phpbb board and are looking to install mods. I install them for a small fee. Depends on the install level and time mostly. More time than the install level. I saw a difficulty level of hard with a time of 2 minutes. well.. it only took two minutes but it was a pain in the tail..
Then I saw a difficulty level of easy time - 20 minutes. HaHa.. I want to meet the guy that did that in 20 minutes.. Shoot took me that long to copy the accompanying files.. another hour to edit the others...

well I have some ideas:

Price: I don't have the money for VB. As much as I would love to spenf those 160 USD this is almost my monthly wage in Romania. I cannot afford spending the money I need for food and home. So .. phpBB for me.

Features: VB has more built in features. phpBB out of the box is poor. But, there are also a lot of mods to be installed. I already have a profile mod installed (even better then the one I see in VB), the category mod (hierarchy), topic description and many others. For many of the VB features there are mods to be installed on phpBB. There are thousands of great coders who just make more and more hacks for the script.

Who needs features?
Don't laugh at me, I will detail this: I have a webmaster community and 4 other forums (2 martial arts related, 1 for music and women talk). My members can't even use the [img] tag to display an image and I have to write tutorials for this stuff. Why should I bother install mods or buy an expensive forum script so that I have people who use the forums as they would use a vanilla phpBB script?

It's not the script, but the admin.
I have seen so many AWFUL forums run on every script on earth. People need to realise that installing a script (paid or free) is not enough. It's just the beginning of a long journey of modding and tweaking. How many people still use default skins? How many install a skin they downloaded for free or paid some money? How many forums just look as other hundreds of forums?

I am sick of this "theory": phpBB is bad. No it's not bad. For some admins is ALL they need to have a small community of people to chat about something and that's all. Have I seen some Awesome phpBBs? Yes I had. I try make my own forum look unique (it does since I have recreated the entire header and modded everything I could there) and put all the features my members need and are able to work with. On my webmaster community I have a lot of things installed. In the other forums I have a minimum of features, because that's what I need.

Sorry if I sounded disrespectful, but so far my choice is clear. phpBB

I started as a phpBB user. Absolutely no complaints about it. It did everything I needed it to. I just find vB to be more powerful and robust. If I were starting up a new community, depending upon what it was for, I would not rule phpBB out completely.

Has anyone on here used www.communityserver.com? I am looking for some feedback on community server.

What is CS?

Community Server is the award winning platform for rapidly enabling online communities and includes all the integrated tools, such as: discussion forums, email lists, newsgroups, weblogs (blogs), file galleries, content management, and more to help enable you to create your community presence quickly and easily!

Community Server is built and maintained by Telligent a software company specializing in community and social networking technologies.

Check with Tekmaven in our ASP.NET forums. He uses a variant of it *I believe*

Some one said invisionpower board is FREE??? is that correct

I had almost forgot about this thread until, I had made a purchase of 5 (lease) licenses to migrate people away from phpBB.

I've come to learn that phpBB still uses a whole lot of old PHP3 Code and MUCH of the code is the same tired old code its always had. Olympus or what ever the code name is this week has been more anticipated and longer in delay than any product I've ever seen.

For that very reason, I'd honestly have to say that vBulletin is not just better "here and there" as in one feature over the other, its VASTLY superior than the tired old dog phpBB. I like Dani started out with phpBB and then found vBulletin. Its a lot like having your first job at McDonalds, eventually you will want to quit fast food and do something else.

I'd strongly suggest anyone considering vBulletin to consider a Leased Licenses which ultimately are a better value than an owned license. An owned license will cost you twice as much money in the long run when you compare each license against updates and support. Its very likely that a person would upgrade or update a vBulletin installation at least one time in two years.

Besides vBulliten templating is a lot easier than phpBB.

~ Jared

No doubt vBulletin is far best then phpBB but lets not forget that phpBb is free and these guys take lots of pain all just for Free of cost.

Anyways coming to comparision,,,

Vbulletin is far more then costly. if i am not wrong many guys here want to get started, i perfer for getting started try out phpBb make some good userbase. Once you see you have good user base you can go ahead buy the Vbulletin or might be if you are very lucky phpbb comes will better version and comparable to vbulletin,

One Q for Dani,

I was seeing your forumn is very organised. If i am not wrong you have changed it to some extend and so it does not looks to be default Vbulletin. Correct??? or you have just used some of mods etc etc.

Like the Directory its good and unquie of this kind, iam not sure if it comes by default with vBulletin...

Regards
Ajwani

Lots of the features here on DaniWeb are custom written. However, the core of the entire site is the vBulletin framework.

Firstly i must say, you forum design is reall cool. I have seen many vbull sites and almost all look same. You have something different.

thanks for your reply. I have now started with PHP and new design. installed all mods and security updates. Once i get users comeing in i will buy vbull as at this stage investing is fine but if its usefull then i can go ahead. But its hardly any users turn around and become active it would be useless to invest.

Also phpbb ver 3 will be out and they say it has many more features.

Regards And Thanks for your reply

Ajwani

Hi,
I'm planning to have a website built that integrates bulletin board functionality. I'm not a developer, but a product designer and project manager.

Some questions:
1) which bulletin board software (phpBB, vBulletin, or...) is better out of the box? Better = works out of the box, less tweaking for basic bulletin board functionality, less time supporting and fixing bugs and low/no cost.

2) More importantly, I'd like the user management/profile functionality and database of the bulletin board to integrate with that of the rest of the site. Which BB software's user management/database is easier to integrate with? The objective is login once for access to everything on the site, including the bulletin boards.

Note: the development environment is likely to be PHP, MySQL (maybe some Ruby on Rails) and hosted somewhere like DreamHost

Thanks,
dannoll

Out of the box phpBB is the worst. Still it can be tweaked so nicely ...

As an update; I have a VB license now. for my webmaster community. It does have many features, but I almost cried when had to import my unique theme I used for 1 week only on phpBB to the new VB script. The template system is what I hate the most. I want to download each file and mod as in PhpBB, not use that dreaded admin panel ... Arghhhhhhhh.

Anyway .. the script is solid and works oK. I still have to find many hacks to have the features I used to have on my phpBB.

Out of the box phpBB is the worst. Still it can be tweaked so nicely ...

As an update; I have a VB license now. for my webmaster community. It does have many features, but I almost cried when had to import my unique theme I used for 1 week only on phpBB to the new VB script. The template system is what I hate the most. I want to download each file and mod as in PhpBB, not use that dreaded admin panel ... Arghhhhhhhh.

Anyway .. the script is solid and works oK. I still have to find many hacks to have the features I used to have on my phpBB.

I am brand new to creating a forum but have recently just downloaded phpbb to my new hosting site. Before I become too invested in creating a custom look on phpbb I am concerned that Phpbb will not serve me well since it may be easily broken into.
Also I will potentially easily have several hundred members as the topic of bird conservation is a well known one.

Here is a current site where I know that several members (hopefully many) will also visit my site

Since users are already so familiar with this site created in vbulletin do you think it would be wise for me to use vbulletin as well? Are the log ins and basic membership priveledges and format quite different from Phpbb to v bulletin? I want my new members to be able to have great features and easy useage.

Still wondering about which to choose vbulletin vs phpbb.

Also the forum will simply be an integrated link from my website which I am in the beginnig states of constructing.....

Love to have some advice here folks!!!!!! Dani?

I am brand new here....

cheers

Don Kimball

phpbb is easy but every mods you have to install and too time comsuming ,VB is great for that every mods there you need,and easy to edit site payment options easy to install mods everything easy ,and best thing is security.

I really had my doubts at first, but I've really taken to vBulletin's plugin system.

Vb is good thats not the point but most people dont have the money to buy one.

Phpbb is good and for free.I was using a normal phpbb long time but now.Sorry i dont like it anymore.Its not up to date.And moding all day no thanks.Security updates you have to make on your own.
I've i have to choose again for a new forum i would take again phpbb Orion forum.

There a many good forum software out there but i guess i comes down to what you want to do whith your website.And how many cash you want to spend.

I prefer PhpBB. It is a nice software and free. Also it's open source so integrate it into your site and do really cool things. It has an active forum where the development staff remain quite active to help you with bugs you may encounter.
Demo : free forums

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I've used both and have licenses for VBulletin and I tend to agree that PhpBB is poorly coded. VBulletin seems cleaner visually. Under the UI I still find poorly organized and certainly confusing code. As I understand it the new PAID releases code is obstruficated so editing it is almost nil.

Since PhpBB is free its no wonder why its dominant in its use. Not to mention it is supported just as good if not better in some regards to VBulletin. I personally use PhpBB because of the ease of integration with other PHPScripts. If you were to do a search in some of the popular script banks like hotscripts or php.resourceindex you would find more support for PhpBB then VBulletin.

For myself
I'd like to see any example of a PhpBB board that is huge. 75,000 plus posts huge.

Jared.

This is a really good example : http://www.foto-magazin.ro/forum/
It has lots of posts and looks pretty decent.

Hey everyone, great place!

Been browsing for a good hour now and just wanted to say hello! :o)

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