phpBB are working on a new version of their forum software. It will have so many more features;

Super Mods
Attachment
Global Post
New Permission system (a lot more powerful)

...to name a few. It will definitely rival vBulletin, maybe not as close to VB 3 but probably the closest any board will be.

My question to you is will it be a choice for businesses, as at this moment in time, vBulletin has been the premier choice?

Test board for phpBB 2.2 is here:

http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB22/

Cheers,

Tim

The list looks impressive. Frankly which board to go with always depends a lot on what the use is. At least for me.

i dont know if it will be a close rival for businesses , but with every phpbb update the board gets better , alot better. I think the majority of businesses go with vbulletin for the support, not because they believe its the superior product. If you look at the phpbb board ... it has 50,000 members and near a 500,000 posts. This proves that phpbb can contend with the big boys , not to mention i have seen phpbb boards that are bigger. I see no point in shelling out ANY money when i can download free software that does the samething as software i must pay for.

Hi case,

You have a very good point.

But, and I'm not saying this is everyone's opinion" doesn't vBulletin shout out "professionalism"? I'm not saying phpBB2 is any less professional, hell I know they aren't as I visit there forums constantly. But the idea of paying for a product, and something that is mostly used by companies gives this impression.

A lot of users think that if a company is prepared to pay for their software they must be big, worth investing in, would this be an issue here?

I myself use phpBB2 and I have 11,000 posts and runs fine, and I have no need to change to vBulletin. I do admit I have a couple of mods on it to compensate. :)

Originally posted by Blackman
Hi case,

You have a very good point.

But, and I'm not saying this is everyone's opinion" doesn't vBulletin shout out "professionalism"? ...


Possibly, but some aspects of the vBulletin support registration process screamed out "unprofessional" when I looked into it a number of months ago. Whether they've changed it since, I do not know.

phpBB2 is looking good. They've shown they can add the features and produce a message board worthy of consideration. Now they need to show they will be there for the long haul if they want the truly big board users to use their software.

I never really been inside a phpbb, but can you change the alt colors? It seems you can't. But anyway

I'll choose vBulletin anyday. Its better to buy a product that comes already installed with features that would be used everyday. Instead of waiting for that feature to be released on phpbb, vB already has it. vBulletin is very easy to edit, and by far the best board out there.

But whatever floats ya boat.

if you can write it off taxes why not :) Vbulletin, otherwise free is free ;)

I still hate the skin.. Lol

The skin can be changed :)

True Dat.. :-)

Blackman,

You got the title wrong it should be "vBulletin Next phpBB?"

yike..i am late for the preview. It give me 404 Blackman

How many queries does phpBB 2.2 have? In 2.0 it was around 20, up until they can get that down to around like 10, it'll never compete with vBulletin. If WHT used PHPBB it would run so slow, and due to the amount of stress on mysql with that amount of queries.

Originally posted by inogenius
How many queries does phpBB 2.2 have? In 2.0 it was around 20, up until they can get that down to around like 10, it'll never compete with vBulletin....


Never is such a strong word. :D

phpBB is competing with vBulletin rather nicely at this very moment. phpBB is not competing in all of the markets that vBulletin plays in, but it is competing very effectively in the small- to medium-sized message board market. It is only the larger boards where vBulletin pulls ahead. But phpBB could narrow the lead with some SQL and database optimizations.

just view this thread looks like vBulletin is gonna have a rival


http://onyoursideonline.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=67

or jump straight to it

http://forums.360board.com/

360board looks nice!

I had to switch from phpBB2 to InvisionBoard. phpBB2 lacks many features that are critical to larger site. It also requires too many mods just to integrate it with your site. We all know how painful re-moding is (when new version comes out).

hn

Some of the mods that are written for it are shocking. Use so much cpu/memory

Alot of businesses like to use vbulletin, even if there was a better board for free, It looks clean and it looks profesional using payed software.

Originally posted by pattox
Alot of businesses like to use vbulletin, even if there was a better board for free, It looks clean and it looks profesional using payed software.

Hi pattox,

This is exactly what I'm trying to imply, does this mean if phpBB charge $160 per licence, will they receive more customers. If not better customers, as they will more likely be businesses who are also more likely to upgrade for security issues, features etc.

For those that want to see a feature list, screenies and general info; visit here:

http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=21

and..

here

http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=72574

yep and with the new vbulletin on the way it has paypal built in :)

Originally posted by RealityHost
yep and with the new vbulletin on the way it has paypal built in :)

Just wondering why you would need paypal built-in :)

Originally posted by Blackman

http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB22/


Hmm... Thats a shame, the link isnt working. Do you know of another example site?

Originally posted by DangerMouse
Hmm... Thats a shame, the link isnt working. Do you know of another example site?

The one & only working example. Just give it time. phpbb is so popular that the server for the new version gets overloaded

Hi DangerMouse,

Just created one for everyone to see. I thought it appropriate to make a sub domain:

http://area51.rcinfo.co.uk :D

Although you may be able to see it, I cannot as the dns has not updated in my area yet. I have IP access only which does not allow me to log in. :(

Once I can I will add more forums to show off some of the features. :)

Edit: Remeber, this is CVS so a lot does not work.

Originally posted by Blackman
http://area51.rcinfo.co.uk :D


comes up fine for me, thanks!

Although i did notice at the bottom of the page it said phpBB 2.1.1 . Shouldnt it be 2.2?

Nope, this is the stage at which they feel it is necessary to make it v2.1.1

Once they make further milestones it will become closer to phpBB 2.2

Ahhh. right.

Thanks Blackman. :)

For myself, the major problem with boards such as php.bb and vBulls is the difficulty of customising. I shouldn't have to learn php just to modify the template. So for the moment I'll stick with YaBB SE because of it's friendly customisation options. VBulletin does have some interesting extra features, but really unless you're hosting a very large site mostly they won't be an issue.

its pretty easy when you get the know how :) sites like

www.vbulletin.org
www.vbulletintemplates.com
www.vbpanel.com./forums/
www.vbpanel.com
www.podesign.co.uk/vb/
www.podesign.co.uk/

are great for brginners and pros alike :)

I wish phpBB add a static (plain html) Archive tooo, becuz of search engines... like some other boards...

You can go to their boards and post the comment. I am sure they will look at it in future. They seem to be dedicated to maintaining the code, and if it's a hotly requested feature, I am sure it will be added.

You never know what corporations will do. Sometimes I wonder.. like with the company I work for, the general vibe is that they would rather shell out 30K or even up to 500K for an application rather than taking a free one.. whether it be because it runs on JSP rather than PHP or that it comes with the comfort of technical support of a professional application rather than that of free software. With this in mind, phpbb may go over well with smaller companys, but I'm not so sure with some of the larger ones who would rather spend their money.

I requested the mod, and they all agree on it, but I dunno when they release this mod...

Speaking of which, it's been requested many times on VBull home boards for a YaBB SE conversion. I'd actually consider paying for a vBull as my own site expands, but being told to convert from a YaBB SE to a php.bb and then to a vBull just to buy their product is taking the michael just a little.

Besides, there's also the customisation issue - some people would like to make small but proud tweaks to their own forum templates. With HTML it's easy. some PHP programmers seem to forget that not everyone can write PHP.

Hi I, Brian,

You don't need to know PHP to style a phpBB2 forum, I don't have a clue how PHP works but I was able to customise my forum easily.

The template information is held in .tpl which only only html, there is nothing PHP about it.

The only thing it doesn't have is easy editing via the forum itself you need to actually use the files themselves.

Originally posted by ehsan
I requested the mod, and they all agree on it, but I dunno when they release this mod...

Whenever someone, such as yourself, wants it bad enough to do it on their own.

Or you can make use of mod_rewrite. Either way, you can have a soltuion in a night or two if you do it yourself.

Originally posted by Blackman
You don't need to know PHP to style a phpBB2 forum, I don't have a clue how PHP works but I was able to customise my forum easily.

The template information is held in .tpl which only only html, there is nothing PHP about it.

Very true, a large portion of the code is very simple to modify. Plus with their new push (finally!) to move towards xhtml, content is being seperated from layout even more. (See, I told you all xhtml had a purpose.)

Originally posted by RealityHost
just view this thread looks like vBulletin is gonna have a rival


http://onyoursideonline.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=67

or jump straight to it

http://forums.360board.com/
W000! Go 360 Board! :D

To me,360Board looks like a very hacked-up and disguised IPB - the templates everywhere but the main page look virtually identical, with little tweaks here and there. Also, I couldn't actually download the board. They mentioned that they had released another version before it, but I can't find the download link. Their site barely works at all - they have placeholders for very simple features like Last Updated Topics, etc. I don't like the look of that place, it's unprofessional and suspicious, and if I was you I wouldn't trust it either.

Personally I prefer the free InvisionBoard (http://forums.gottadeal.com/) but phpBB 2.2 looks promising.

"hacked-up and disguised IPB"

Interesting...how does one copy a php forum script and magically make it written in perl? Similar templates in no way make scripts the same.

360 Board cannot be downloaded because it is not finished yet, nor is the site finished. The index clearly states the software is not yet available for download.

The version before this was never released publicly either, because a decision was made to re-code it

Originally posted by Chris Marks
The index clearly states the software is not yet available for download.

Well, the big image on the index page that says, "Download Now - Version 2.0 Beta 1" makes it a bit misleading and I certainly noticed that image before I noticed any small bit of text on the homepage saying it wasn't available for download.

Invision Board is good stuff!

doesnt vb have a backdoor to its software so they can check for licensing ? I dont know about anyone else but im not to keen on having some company have access to my server.

case, think vb does that to check for pirated copies of their software. I don't run vb anymore, but I bet the software send the domain and URL where your copy of vb is installed. Not exactly a backdoor

Invision Board is good stuff!
Agree with TotalChoice. Invision Board is the best (free) alternative to vb. Heck, Invision Board is better than vb in some aspects

hn

Originally posted by case
doesnt vb have a backdoor to its software so they can check for licensing ? I dont know about anyone else but im not to keen on having some company have access to my server.

vB software does check to see if your forum is valid or not, but they dont actually have a backdoor access to your site that im aware of, just a portion of it that calls back home, and checks to see if your license is valid. ::cough:: spyware ::cough:: :D

well i heard vb has access to wiping out certian files on the server .... i have heard of people with valid licenses having thier forum wiped out because of errors on vb's part.

I havent heard anything about that. Lot of sites I admin and mod for use phpBB and only one site that uses vBulletin so far it runs just fine

Originally posted by ehsan
I wish phpBB add a static (plain html) Archive tooo, becuz of search engines... like some other boards...
Which boards feature the static URLS?

In terms of features invisionboard already beats VB and phpbb is closing in.

Originally posted by Chris Marks
W000! Go 360 Board! :D

Umm, just the fact that its written in PERL means it will never challenge vB.

i like yabbse Altough its not feature rich, it loads fast and is really easy to mod.

well i heard vb has access to wiping out certian files on the server .... i have heard of people with valid licenses having thier forum wiped out because of errors on vb's part.


Nothing against you case but your sources have to be wrong, people couldn't afford to take that sort of risk! I know I couldn't and I only run a hobbiests board.

I think the 3 main boards at the moment are :

vB
Invision B
phpBB

Basically coming down to:

Speed - phpBB, vB, Invision
Support - phpBB, vB,
Features - vB, Invision
Resourceful - (server load) vB, Invision, phpBB

This is obviously just my opinion.

Just thought I'd bump this as you can actually post on the test board now. :)

http://area51.rcinfo.co.uk

vBulletin does have a "call-back" or "call-home" feature, which simply records the URL that the forum is being run on and checks against their license database, nothing more. Your name, address, and such are not checked nor anything else so I do not feel this is a big issue at hand. It comes down to them not wanting their software pirated and this is one method to control it (somewhat).

As for Invision Board, while it is nice, no doubt, once vBulletin 3.0 comes out, there will not be feature competition as there is now. Of course, there is not direct competition as they are both in 2 different categories of boards (i.e. Free & Paid).

On to phpBB, I don't use the software so I cannot comment too much, but the fact that the templates need to be edited offline throw me away from wanting to use the software alltogether. I much rather prefer editing the templates via the Admin CP in both IB and vBulletin.

Hi ViperHost,

I agree with entirely. And the description of how vBulletin combats piracy makes sense.


On to phpBB, I don't use the software so I cannot comment too much, but the fact that the templates need to be edited offline throw me away from wanting to use the software altogether. I much rather prefer editing the templates via the Admin CP in both IB and vBulletin.


This will change in phpBB 2.2 as you can pretty much change the whole code, images and colours on-line.

May have to look at phpBB if that is the case, may be worth checking out then. I admire their work, but if that is integrated, I will give them even more credit :).

phpBB's development is seriously mislead. Their latest update (which was required as there was a major security hole) made the forums not work with AOL (because aol will change ip mid session.) Originally (they have since changed their stance), their fix was to call AOL and demand they change... Hahahaha yeah. That sealed our switch away from phpBB.

Also as someone else pointed out, there are way too many mysql calls per page and most mods seems to be written only for people who have a board with minimal users. phpBB currently just does not scale well.

Chet

Greetings all, My first post here.

phpBB never demanded that aol should change their stance, they pointed out that aol chose to implement a proxy farm setup at odds with common sense. They also clearly stated the potential solutions for all users affected by invalid_session. "Whether users chose to try and follow those suggestions or simply whine and moan was and is entirely up to them."

The queries... at worst phpBB comes out at even, at best phpBB comes out ahead. 2.2 will make it even better. (with vB.. I have no idea with ibf.)

[Most of above post quoted from a source!] :)