I was wondering why so many people pay for vBulletin boards when there are so many free alternatives that offer the same or more, greater features?

Originally posted by Kyle Babich
there are so many free alternatives that offer the same or more, greater features?

Please list them, free ones that have more/greater features ...

cheers,
:beer:

Originally posted by Kyle Babich
I was wondering why so many people pay for vBulletin boards when there are so many free alternatives that offer the same or more, greater features?

very brief but reasons to choose vB

1. backend admin management superior to nearly all known freeware forum scripts :)
2. backend template management and user management beats other freeware forums hands down :)
3. mysql MD5 password encryption for secure member passwords

sure freeware forums MAY look the same or nicer from a user end point of view but from a forum admin point of view vB is just alot better :D

Woltlab.de (Burning Board with an interface near to vbulletin) , openbb.net (OpenBB) also with similar interface.

Openbb has a great admin control panel. Wltlab has great appearance.

Also we will have phpbb2 (see http://phpbb.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/index.php )

I am sure that phpBB2 will heat vbulletin.

Mac

The one thing about free BBs mentioned above, the developers don't get paid, so their is no reason for the to not just stop developing it someday, or if a security problem arises. And with phpBB and openBB, both are slopply written, IMO. SQL queries are huge...

I personally like the code in vB, its well written and easily customizeable..

vBulletin rocks principally because of what eva2000 said. I run a board and its a vBB one.

For the other Scripts that have been mention, i must say that they are not bad, in fact, for being freee they are pretty good. And maybe in a future it does heat vbulletin.

We must not say that because they are free they suck, i mean, they are "now" .. butif i were a board developer, i will first give it for free, and once it has a good reputation i will turn it a pay forum.

www.ikonboard.com is probably the best free board out their. It has all the same features as VB and its free! Awsome support through their online forums and simple upgrade process. MySQL support on new ib3 and new services coming out.

A great alternative to the people who dislike vB.

Jim

ikonboard certainly doesn't have all the features of vB (and nor does any other free board).

iB doesn't have a powerful template system like vB, and it's only recently become MySQL based.
No board can match vB's powerful admin interface - every single line of HTML code is customisable from over 400 templates, and there is very little you cannot change.

I'd be very interested to hear how people think phpBB and iB are 'beating' vBulletin, when clearly vB has more features, more powerful backend and solid corporate backing.

but IB is probably the best alternative to vB.

Jim

Just to clear this up, iB3 does have a complete template system in its current version. Every bit of CSS, Javascript, HTML, etc. can be modified via the Admin CP.

Also, Just because iB is not a comercial, it doesn't meen we don't have a backing. Ikonboard is backed by JEG (http://jarvisgroup.net/) and the programmers clearly can't just walk away if they get bored.

-Woody

Originally posted by JamesUS
ikonboard certainly doesn't have all the features of vB (and nor does any other free board).

iB doesn't have a powerful template system like vB, and it's only recently become MySQL based.
No board can match vB's powerful admin interface - every single line of HTML code is customisable from over 400 templates, and there is very little you cannot change.

I'd be very interested to hear how people think phpBB and iB are 'beating' vBulletin, when clearly vB has more features, more powerful backend and solid corporate backing.

I am using Vb because,

1. The support.
2. The depth of admin options. (Vb owners will agree with me)
3. Every single word/layout are customizeable (Even the main forum frame)
4. Easy upgrade. (Upload the new files and hit a few buttons and done)

Im new to Vbulletin and Upgrading it has caused me problems every time so far;( Other than that i really like it
I also have a UBB board which has honestly been great so far
Course Ive also been lookingn at Infopop's new product UBBThreads.PHP/Mysql powered Looks great except for the damn 250$ price tag;( I wish they would let me trade in my UBB license for a UBBThreads license.

Ive tried several of the Free boards out there
Honestly I think the cost of Vbulletin and UBB was worth it.I dont have to deal with rude children in the support forums.When I need help I get it quickly and without being called an Idiot(In not so many words)
Tho on the opposite side I do have respect for the guys that spend all the time coding the free boards and expect no cash for it;)

Upgrading never caused me a problem during a year.

Originally posted by York1
Im new to Vbulletin and Upgrading it has caused me problems every time so far;(

Originally posted by klisis
Upgrading never caused me a problem during a year.

Really?? I have heard of more than one that experienced difficulties when upgrading to v2.2.

Well mine was going from 2.2 to 2.21 It changed everyones password It may be my fault but I followed the upgrade steps word for word.Could have been worse At least it didnt like wipre out the entire board;)

Yeah, really. I haven't had any problems yet.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
Really?? I have heard of more than one that experienced difficulties when upgrading to v2.2.

I tried phpBB..
I tried OpenBB..
I tried w-agora..
I use Burning Board.. :)

Burning board gets my vote, apart from couple of grammatical mistakes in template and admin area it certainly is very very flexible. Though those huge template files can be a pain to edit but it works wonders.. you can definately compare it with vB.

Originally posted by The Prohacker
The one thing about free BBs mentioned above, the developers don't get paid, so their is no reason for the to not just stop developing it someday, or if a security problem arises. ...



Hmmmm... your comment applies pretty much to the entire open source community.

I have yet to be convinced that developers who do not get paid write poorer code than those who do get paid.

Look at the security and bug infestation problems of Microsoft software.

If a developer working for free didn't want to do the job, they wouldn't. If they do want to do the job, they do the best they possibly can. If a developer being paid to do a job didn't want to, they would do the job for the money, but do a poor job. And if a developer was being paid to do a job that they wanted to do, they would have the good life, lol. :stickout

well vbulletin hmmmmm

for a year i used ikonboard

then switched to phbb due to it lagging horribly with the amount of trafic i had

our server crashed with no backup
and i had no backup of our forums

and with all the changes i had made to phpbb
it would have taken me hours to edit it back to what we needed

so rather than due all that we went with vbulletin

and it is the wheel reinvented.


the functions and capabilities outperform any other board

best 160 bucks i spent

(Well expect for that night in vegas with those hmm....... lets not bring that up)

1- I installed both OpenBB and Burning Board on the same server but it seems burning board is slower than OpenBB.

I am not sure if this is because of slow code (SQL etc) or volume of files being downloaded on my 56k connection.

What is your experience.

2- The most important point for me (even more than bandwidth usage) is server load.

How can I measure and compare server load on two boards.

I think OpenBB has better performance and less CPU load. Who has tested this and is sure of results?

Mac

I like tforum, http://www.tforumhacks.com ..

Still being worked on by a lot of happy users and getting more powerful by the week. The code has been made much easier to customise and it's a pretty powerful board.

I use openBB and get on fine with it.