36 replies to this topic

[CarlU]

The 3 main competitors in the forum software battle.

VBULLETIN: commercially sold, probably the most well known and popular forum system.
INVISION POWER BOARD: used to be free, now commercially sold, very popular forum system.
PHPBB: free and very popular forum system.

What is your pick and why?

personally, I used to be an Invision Power Board fan but have switched to phpbb.
I really like it's range of skins and most of all it's free!

[jlhaslip]

Wait until the new one hits the Release Stage.

http://www.trap17.com/forums/phpbb-3-0-bet...are-t41292.html

[hype]

Alright, to choose the right board for your needs, you just have to follow some guidelines...

vBulletin: Its a very professional board and its the best for business forum if you're running a business that are attracting lots of buying customer..

Invision Power Board: Its a very good paid boards that are not professional looking enough than vBulletin but are the most flexible board with the number of modification and hacks available for it..

phpBB: The only free board that can match up to the standard of the paid ones.. However, the Olympus version of the board is still in beta and the old version still has lots of security issues...

[wappy]

i haven't tried vbulletin yet but i prefer ipb to phpbb its much much better, phpbb2 is ok when the file attachment and a host of other mod's are installed but invision boards are so much more sleek and nice to use, with many more nice little touches. I also installed the beta2 version of phpbb3 which i admit is a great improvement, but i can't be using an unstable beta as my main forum. I look forward to the release of phpbb final.

[rldowling03]

I used to be a PHPBB man for several years as it is the only free one that was decent but once I learnt more about Bulletin Board systems I started to use the Invision Power Board free one (1.3) and got used to it and liked it very much and now it's what I use for my sites forums.

I personally like Vbulletin the best but they dont have a free version of their forum and im not willing ot pay $100+ for it just now, so I will stick to IPB 1.3 UNTIL my google check comes for $100 then I will most probably buy a VBulletin board but I not made up my mind if I want that, or proffesional hosting for a year!!!

[ProtoMan]

I go for Invision Power Board , it is secure and easy to use , and the Warn level looks interesting (oop , sorry for saying that ) , but I think Simple Machines will beat all of them , it is the easiest to install and use out of them all

[rldowling03]

I tried Simple Machines Forum but it didn't really suit me.. I tried it for about a month before I got rid of it.

I did like it though the fact that you can install mods and upgrade it all automatically through your cpanel. I think if more forums did this, they would be almost perfect

[AeonLan]

yeah, SMF from simplemachines.org rocks. But stability was not that good at SMF. I have to be careful just to update the SMF Board.

About the topic, I would chose the free one due to the undeniable fact that it is free!

[Saint_Michael]

All three are great they have their strong points which are obvious and their week points which are still as obvious. It just a matter of preference on what board oyu want and willing ot pay a ton of cash for, minus the free one.

[contor]

Vbulletin always, if you know how to use it perfectlty , is my favorite, a free opcion is simple machines, which have a lot of opcion better than phpbb