Which is better out of the 3 and why?

The most important reasons im looking for is support and google index compatability. Tell us your experiences and why you feel one is better than the other?

I do realize phpBB is free and the other 2 are not but when it comes down to it which one functions best and is the best to go with?

I gave a nod to vB, as this is the board to which we're in the process of migrating over on IWDN (I'm sick of keeping up with phpBB security holes, and the database is starting to get a bit on the hefty size).

vB has a lot of great functionality built in, plus its processes are very solid and stable - it's a hard board to break. My only gripe about it is the templating system. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate it! I'm a coder. I want a cohesive document and a nice text editor to do all my customization. I like the phpBB .tpl system. It works well for me. The vB interface system is so counterintuitive from my perspective. Oh well - I'll live, I guess :)

If you're diligent about keeping phpBB updated (new patches come out every couple of months generally), and you don't mind doing some hand-modding for expanded functionality, phpBB is a pretty darned good option.

I have no experience with Invision.

Well as for myself the only experience I've had was with phpBB .. in fact that was the first php/mysql program i've ever played around with. Security patches do seem to be comming out almost on a daily basis now and I've already seen a wide variety of phpBB boards get hacked into and everything gone. The only thing it doesn't have that I like is the buddy list feature

For a free forum i'd say phpBB is the best however I see that vBulletin is the most popular paid message board system so I was kind of wondering what it was that it has to offer. I guess you answered my question then =]

For your money, you get better security, vastly more features standard (the two are almost comparable when you include phpBB mods, but there are inherent pitfalls that come with this), the database system is a little tighter, you get professional support from Jelsoft (I think) as well as forums and plenty of people doing vB mods too.

And you get their PITA template system :) On the whole, I think it's worthwhile. That's a very small investment to make for such a robust piece of software.

Yeah, how long does it take to mod out a phpBB to work as well as a vB?

Last time I looked at the sub-forums hack, it was like, a 20 minute install. :P

Edit: I don't think it was mentioned, but vB creates archives of all the content, which Google indexes very well.

lol the subforums hack is over an hour install but it installs in seconds with nutzys ezmod ...funny that you should bring up sub forums because I am making a new site and was wondering if vBulliten comes with sub forums? Also how do the templates work are they free? are they easy to install? I may consider buying vBulliten (tho im not even sure how much it costs yet) but judging from all of the big sites that use it it seems like the most stable out there.

The only reason stopping me from getting it is that I am soo used to phpBB and am so familiar with a ton of mods and therefore can add about 5 mods in under an hour. If I get vBulliten I kind of have to learn everything all over again because I am not a php / mysql expert.

Yes, I _think_ vBulletin can support unlimited subforums. WHT uses vBulletin.

I believe if you buy a template, you can just upload a ZIP or whatever and it should work.

I'd just go with phpBB if you're that familiar with it..

Yea I'm thinking of staying with phpBB...one of the reasons that was motivating me to switch tho is that vBulletin seems to work flawless with every browser but phpBB is having some difficulties with the aol browser after 2.10 I believe. It's minor as long as they click the box for cookies everything should be ok I believe.. but a LOT of my users will be using AOL browsers so I don't want any problems.

They both seem to have their ups and downs to me I guess I just have to weigh it all out and see

Have you considered Simple Machines? I've heard good things about that one.

punBB is another one to consider too. Very efficiently engineered on the front end (not too make XHTML1.1 boards out there).

www.simplemachines.org is my favorite free board, many features & easy to install....and it looks professional, not cartoony like phpbb.
www.punbb.org is also good...it is a bit plain & bloat free

I've used SimpleMachines, too. The templating system is different from phpBB in terms of, you need to have a very very basic grasp of PHP. The administration section also takes a while to get used to--permissions can be confusing.

definately Vbulletin, basically for the little things. But phpbb is great for a free alterantive.

IPB for me, 2.1 is coming out very soon, and one of the biggest features is a WYSIWYG editor.

Well for the project I am working on now phpBB will be the best for me since that is what I am used to, I have tested out simple machines and it seems ok, just too plain and gray for the site I am making and I didn't see a member search feature.

I am planning to add a few customized profile fields and a picture gallery also turn the message board into a portal for the homepage among other things. I have a better understanding of phpBB so for this project I think I'll be sticking with it. I will look into vBulletin for a future project maybe

WYSIWYG editor been on vBulletin 3's feature for a year already. vBulletin is ahead from others, superb community & support, so my vote definitely goes to vBulletin. For free alternative, MyTopix is better than phpbb.