Forum Software Comparison Chart

Here is a forum software comparison chart. This is for those of you wondering what the differences are between online forum software and/or looking to create a clan website and are currently undecided as to what to use.

http://www.forummatrix.org/compare/Invision-Power-Board+phpBB+SMF+vBulletin

Personally...

Paid Options

If you want to put the money into it...

1) InvisionPower Board (very powerful all around - although you need to be technically in the know as support resources aren't excellent, it's improving!);
2) vBulletin (they're treating their customer base more like BETA testers with vB4.x - vB3.x was easier to work with).

Free Options

1) SMF (easier to Mod, although the new version is a bit different to get your head around);
2) phpBB (very complexed permissions system and tabular control, powerful if you want to hack it apart).

Everson, on Dec 20, 2010 - 07:08 AM, said:

QFT thus we still use the latest vB3.x

IPB is on 3.1.4 and they have 2.x series listed. More or less they should also add Xenforo once it's released.

They should also consider, add ons provided by each company.

Everson, on Dec 20, 2010 - 07:08 AM, said:

HSMagnet, on Dec 20, 2010 - 05:36 PM, said:

Have either of you used vbulletin 4.x?

As a member of a vbulletin based community that has stuck through vbulletin 4.x since its inception it certainly felt like that in the beginning though that was sometime ago. I'd say since 4.0.2 its been great. Worst part was having no themes ported for 4.x when it was first released.

Plus vbulletin.org is a great community with all sorts of mods/plugins/themes. You name it they have it for vbulletin there. With that said I'm pretty happy with vbulletin 4.1.0 and the support for the product.

Yeah and then got fed up of being treated like a BETA tester for a product which was inadequate for release and always seemed to have a shed load of bugs, which never got dealt with. 4.x has broken more times then a chocolate fireguard has melted.

A few exploits, the time the CMS (where it wasn't installed) broke profiles and other areas of the sites, non-compatibility with older themes - general pain in the butt to theme with it's new CSS and variable methods.

3.x had my support now IPB has it but VB and IPB have always been in different leagues.

Did you know vB4 is a code development of vB3? Not once has vBulletin, since it was brought out years ago, being recoded from scratch.

And now vBulletin's parent company got bought out by another firm: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?369419-Hellman-amp-Friedman-LLC-acquire-Internet-Brands

Everson, on Dec 21, 2010 - 02:41 AM, said:

The same can be said about Windows. If you guys love vb 3.x so much I wouldn't think you would mind.

My worst experience with vbulletin wasn't the direct result of of them but rather a pay theme/style design company I've gotten burned by. I won't mention their names because I'd rather not advertise them, but they use to offer themes for both vbulletin and IPB, and slowly started lapsing on their vbulletin theme updates, and then just stopped completely stating that they would redo all their themes when 4.1 rolled out. Well 4.1 rolled out and they announced they were dropping vbulletin all together, leaving their vbulletin customers high and dry, many of which weren't upgrading their vbulletin suites because they were waiting on promised theme updates.

I really have no experience with the other side of the fence here, because once you invest in one package you really have to stick with it. With that said I can only comment on my experiences with vbulletin, and while I have had problems, I'm a satisfied user.

You should have filed charge back on that company. I had purchased IPB skin from them and support was horrible. They even removed my testimonial. I had asked them few things before I purchased there skin and during pre sale question, they said they would help me and once I purchased the skin no one was giving much support. Finally after many days, Oliver made tutorial for it.

Overall, I am pretty happy with IPB. I like the new version IP.Gallery, IP.Download and IP.Nexus.

Xenforo is also pretty interesting. http://xenforo.com/community/threads/server-load-vb-xf-joomla-proof-is-everything.8073/