Hi,

I'm thinking of putting up a bulletin board on my site and was wondering what is the best one around at the moment.

Cost is not really to much of a problem (as long as its less than $200)

I host with hostrocket, so I would like to hear from people who host with them and have BB's already.

I also found this BB script which looks pretty good (also v.cheap)
http://www.4cm.com/guestbookpro/

What do you think.

I'm a fan of vB forums..... But if you wanna scrounge on money you can look at Toan's tForum at http://titan.spaceports.com/~typus/tforum - vB like and excellent.

For an ASP version, try Snitz at http://forum.snitz.com

UltraBoard and YaBB are also boards I'd recommend any time.

i second that tforum is excellent

But of the free ones, http://www.ikonboard.com is by far the best.

ikonboard really does suck. Sorry but theres nothing good about it.

p.s if you want to tryout my customised version of tforum try here http://www.flashtechnics.com/forum/ -username - meggy password - meggy . The customising isnt finished yet though.

Looks purdy enough. However, I couldn't post so I can't attest to the functionality.

What you mean you couldnt post?.

Here is another customized tforum

http://camdenlife.com/forum/

Marty

Oh yeah i see why id set it to admins post only. I screwed the board up anyways so gotta start again :(

Hi all, I thinl vBulletin really is the king of bbs's at the mo, cant go wrong :)

I use it at my site. http://www.e-tones.co.uk/index2.htm

Its got a lot goin for it, hacks, helps, support... wow :)

What does webhostingtalk use????

I read in one post that the get through about 9GB a day, for 1,000 page impressions. If thats right its downright scary - can't work it out myself though.

Anyway, I principally want something fast and functional - and not something that is going to burn my monthly bandwidth in a day.

I think hostrocket (my host) are bringing in a BB with the new control panel (not sert on that????)- Possibly should read up. If anyone on the forum is testing the new hostrocket CP and it does have a BB feature - I'd welcome some feed back.

Originally posted by chilliboy
What does webhostingtalk use????

I read in one post that the get through about 9GB a day, for 1,000 page impressions. If thats right its downright scary - can't work it out myself though.

I think you'll find that's 9GB a month. Were it per day I can think of some very happy little vegemites who'd have to retire somewhere other than Florida. *chuckle*

I'm still looking at Boardpower so you may want to look at that. http://www.akashik.net/boardpower/boardpower.cgi It's an older version that the current one but you get the idea.

Greg Moore

Chiliboy,

Your answer can be found at the bottom of each page on this forum.

'Powered by vBulletin version 1.1.3' (the latest current version is 1.1.4 at the moment).

I love vB... And if you can afford it even better :)

Thank you BC for tforum's link. I searched the most popular PHP forum at hotscrips but I didn't like any of them. They are Phorum, Neoboard, Forum except w-agora one. tForum seems a lot alike vbulletin, and best of all, it's free.

If you don't have your heart set on PHP, you can try The Perl Archive as well: http://www.perlarchive.com.

Have I mentioned yet:
http://www.phpbb.com
http://www.iwebsitesoftware.com/information/boardpower

both are decent and free free free :)

Is vBulliten easy to install and easily configurable? - I don't want to spend several weeks figuring the thing out.

Has anyone had a look at this yet http://www.4cm.com/guestbookpro/

??? I was considering purchasing this, then possibley upgrading to vBulliten later.

I'm not really up on bulliten boards and how to compare them - I'd be grateful if anyone could have a look at the above link and advise me what important features it doesn't have that v'bulliten has.
- Just a quick compare would be much appreciated.

vB is so easy to setup it's just not funny :D

Seriously it has clear instructions to get you setup (all web-based once you FTP everything to your server) and if you do get stuck then the vB staff are quite helpful.

(note : I haven't installed vB myself but a few of my friends have, as have quite a few in this forum).

chilliboy,

The link you posted, http://www.4cm.com/guestbookpro/ , is for a guest book, not a BBS. It is nothing like vBulliten, or any other forum package.

Aaaahhhh - I'm an idiot. Sorry for posting such a dumb error!!!!!!

Another nice php forum from Chicken, don't how good is it compare to tforum? I don't like the other, using perl.

Btw, I couldn't find the download file in their website, phpbb.com, what was wrong?

[Edited by Nam on 12-05-2000 at 11:17 AM]

I can't remember exactly where I found it, they do have a link to it *somewhere* on their site (in the forums somewhere). If you can't find it, shoot me an email and I'll reply with an attachment of it.

Vbulletin is so easy to set up, a drunk monkey could do it, seriously. I was shocked. If you need help, ask them/post here. We only bite when we're hungry :)

If you want sql-based, forget boardpower, but for just regular 'ol perl it's great (for a free board). If you know some perl then it's really easy to crack into and change things with. Maybe I'm just too used to it, but ubb was too much money, and ultraboard... well my personal experiences with it were shouting a few 4 letter words that would turn into stars if I posted them. ;)

As with so many things, there is no best when it comes to discussion programs. It comes down to preferences and what you rate higher in priority. The best program for my site's needs may not be the best for yours.

I spent a year (1998) looking at and evaluating forum programs before making my choice. In fact, the program I envisioned didn't exist until recently. I had chosen one of the best (by my criteria) and the author began incorporating new ideas and features.

There are more programs available now and some are better than they used to be. Some are even completely different than when I tested them in 1998.

One good source for links is David Woolley's site. The majority of programs are listed there, including some defunct ones. I have a link to his site, along with additional information, on the informational resource section of mine.

Hi Duster

Mind posting that link ?

Thanks

CRego3D - http://www.thinkofit.com/webconf

Agree with Chiken, I installed vbulletin Lite, so easy. Another one as BC mentioned, tforum, is a good too, the author's name seems like Vietnamese also. I've installed tforum to my domainspot testing site since it's free.

I installed tforum today ( http://www.3dwizards.com/forum/index.php ) .. having a blast .. :)

tForum looks pretty good but there seems to be a problem gettng it. Going to the homepage (http://titan.spaceports.com/~typus/tforum/) and clicking the download link, takes you to 404 page with the previously mentioned annonying pop-up windows.

Anybody know what the scoop is with tForum or where the current version is available for download?

Rob ..

I downloaded the files yeaterday and it worked fine, after I read your post, I went back and clicked "download" and it still works fine .. if you have problems let me know, and I'll send you the file

Rob,

tForums site is hosted on free service that has php and mysql support. It has problems at times that causes the error that you encounterd. Go back a try again.

Originally posted by CRego3D
I installed tforum today ( http://www.3dwizards.com/forum/index.php ) .. having a blast .. :)

Crego3D, very nice color scheme, how does my forum's color look? http://www.domainspot.com/forum/

The password from users are showed on the Administrator section. I don't like that, as I don't need to know user's password. Does vBulletin board does the same? I better be careful next time when register as I use only one password

Not bad Nam :)

I'm having a blast with tforum, but after using vBulletin for so long in various forums, I am now a little undecided, should I pay the price and go with vbulletin or not, tbulletin does almost everyhting .. but there are a few things that it does not .. :(

Anybody have alicence of vbulleting for sale ;) (cheaper)

Marty, I have tried different days, different times, as this was not the first time. Thanks to Carlos for sending me the files and as mentioned in his post, I hadn't realized one of the things missing in fForum is the "Forum Jump" ability.

This is one of those "must have" features for me and without it, I will give tForums a pass and keep on looking.

I just put up a phpBB forum on my site. It took a little bit of figuring out, but I have it running pretty well. I customized the backgrounds, fonts, etc.

I like the price too ;)

http://www.rotohost.com/phpBB

http://www.phpbb.com

Jim, according to phpBB.com, there is no version available for download. Pray tell how you managed to get one? :confused:

P.S. Just checked the link from your BB to your home page and I'm getting an error msg. (in Netscape) for an invalid link to: <link rel="stylesheet" href="dp11c.css">

[Edited by Website Rob on 12-09-2000 at 02:01 AM]

It looks nice too, yeah, how did you get it? Their homepage just has changed since the time I visited in Chicken's post (Chicken has it also?). But they said that there is no public available at this time, rotohost is beta tester, peharps? was that how he got it?

Btw, I have that phpbb will be intergrated with PHPnuke very soon, very nice plan.

You can log into there CVS and get the latest files :). The owner TheFinn, keeps releasing the latest tarballz or zips, on the site.

Website Rob, I've emailed a copy to Nam, so I'm sure if you can't find it, just email one of us and we'll shoot it over to you (speaking for the whole group) - or at least I will gladly send it. Be lazy, just email :)

sitting here at my desk, I pondered and pondered ... is vBulleting worth 160 bucks ? .. I installed tForum and it's nice .. but .. not quite the same :(

And then there was the issue of .. "my wife will have a stroke when she sees another bill (she's the accountant)" .. then .. it hot me ... hold on !! .. my wife will have a what ???

vBulleting is now intalled :D

And just *when* should we be expecting her to pop onto the board *again* and tell you that you're in trouble *again* ??? :)

soon .. very soon :D

Tut tut, Carlos :D

speaking of vbulletin .. what do you think ?

http://forum.3dwizards.com

I personally like UBB and vBulletin. Both of these are the best. UBB is easier install than vBulletin, I think. I guessed because I don't know anything about mySQL then :)

I currently use UBB and had ultraboard which isnt very good.

Another you may take a look at is:
http://www.e-zonemedia.com/fusetalk/example.cfm

though its not free. Has anyone used this board?

I like this vbulletin board and may have went with it had I known about it before I purchased UBB

I am wondering why not so many ppl like phpbb ? I am using it now, seems quite nice after I fixed some spelling mistakes.

Since I haven't tried vb or tforum can someone tell me:
what's missing from phpbb
what's missing from tforum that vb can do

Thanks

I've played around with most of the BB programs out there. Free and "pay". Don't ask me why...I prefer phpBB. It gives a nice clean layout. It's pretty simple to customize once you get the install right. I like the cost :) I guess it just seems to fit best with my site. Anywho......Happy Holidays!!!

Hi,

Does anyone know which one of these forums use the least system resources? If I'm not misstaking, that should be UBB since it prints HTML files for thread views!?

Saeed

That's not quite correct, as *all* of the forums display HTML pages. UBB does it slightly differently, but because it utilises a lot of Perl processes and calls/forks, it tends to use a lot of CPU, particularly if it's very popular.

Most PHP/MySQL forums like phpBB, vB, tForum, etc. rely more on RAM, but aren't big users, so they tend to be a better choice, particularly if you get the dreaded msg from your host saying :

'Your site has been shut down due to excessive use of server resources' (as in a lot of cases with UBB).

Thanks,
I have put all pros and cons together and the best choice seems to be PHPBB! The reason for this is that it looks like having the same features as UBB and VB and it's FREE (unlike $200 for UBB and $160 for VB).

By the way, I was very chocked when I heard UBB doesn't use a database backend.. *shaking*.. :P

Saeed

LOL! :)

I have put all pros and cons together and the best choice seems to be PHPBB!
It always makes me nervous when a business whose business is communication doesn't take the time to proof read and spell-check their webpages.