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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    1,018

    vBulletin vs Invision Power Board

    Hey all,

    I have been looking around for some forum software to use with my hosting business as another way of providing support. I don't really want to use phpbb or smf and was really interested in vBulletin and Invision Power Board. I have had a demo on both of them and they seem really similar.

    My question is: Which one is more powerful in terms of features, but which is easier to setup and use?

    Thanks for your help

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Middle England
    Posts
    918
    Well they are the market leaders, both are excellent and have a similar feature set. Management wise there probably isn't much between them either.

    Which one to go for I'd say is really down to which one you feel most comfortable with.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    1,018
    Thanks for the reply Bluedreamer. I do feel more comfortable with IBP, the admin area for vBulletin looks a lot more complex. But I hear a lot of great things about vBullein and I just wanted to make sure I did not make the wrong choice.

  4. #4
    Buy what you like or try PHPBB3

    vbulletin is professionally maintained, you get routine maintenance updates,
    rapid security releases, its featureset is very extended etc.

    vBulletin for me

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    1,018
    Thank you very much for your reply Maiijarb. From a fair few reviews I have read about phpbb3 there are still a large amount of bugs. It seems there maybe a big wait until it is actually ready to go live.

    Edit: I have just started another vBulletin Demo as it seems like the better choice. I am still waiting for other opinions too.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Denver, CO
    Posts
    728
    I'm biased as I've used vB since the 2.x days and I would STRONGLY encourage you to steer clear from anything remotely related or associated with PHPBB. Version 3 has more XSS issues than anyone wants to count and it's currently in "release candidate" status. It's terrifying that they haven't learned from past mistakes.

    Anyways, vB has knobs to tweak pretty much anything possible. It has an absolutely huge developer network (go check out vbulletin.org for a taste) and has a pretty aggressive release schedule (3.7 is around the corner, 4.0 will be here next year). With that said, IPB is a good product and like vB, gets a lot of developer love. You won't go wrong with either one but it really depends on which one fits your style/needs and which one you feel has the better developer community to mod/hack your board as you'll like it.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    1,018
    Thanks for your reply. You have opened up a few more things I will have to think about before making my choice. Such as the community each one has and how often each is updated.

    Thanks again.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    /roof/ledge
    Posts
    28,074
    VB for me. I simply hated the back end of IPB, and found the community and staff on thier forum was at the least unwelcoming. Contacting VB for assistance always got reasonably fast, professional results. Contacting IPB support always left me feeling like I'd interrupted them.

    Your experience may vary.
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  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Posts
    41
    I like VB. The admin panel looks complicated at first, but it become easy after you spent some time to understand it.
    Besides, for me as an user vB is much more handy.
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  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1,334
    vBulletin for me reasons: features, maintainence, security, reliability, mod/dev community.

    I would suggest that asking this kind of question will prompt a lot of 'fanboyism' that will distort a lot of reliable advice you might- so take things with a pinch of salt and try out the packages for yourself

    (I am not saying that everything everyone says stems from fanboyism, though!)
    .
    » Kayako customer service software and live chat software- your customers deserve better than helpdesk

  11. #11
    Checkout VB 3.7.X series announcement ... they've started building up features similar to myspace / facebook / orkut type social community.

    http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...63#post1450763

    If vbSEO is integrated with vBulletin, I doubt if anyone can beat this combination !!!

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    London, Arizona, Utah
    Posts
    654
    Always will be vBulletin for me
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  13. #13
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    1,018
    Thanks guys. It looks like its VB for me.

    Quote Originally Posted by FastNext View Post
    The admin panel looks complicated at first, but it become easy after you spent some time to understand it.
    You are right, when I very first created a demo, it looked very complicated, but when I created the second demo and played around with it a bit more, it does become easier to use.

    Quote Originally Posted by thewebhostingdir View Post
    Checkout VB 3.7.X series announcement ... they've started building up features similar to myspace / facebook / orkut type social community. If vbSEO is integrated with vBulletin, I doubt if anyone can beat this combination !!!
    It looks like VB would be a much better choice in terms of features. There are still somethings in that admin panel I have not even looked at yet!

    Thanks for your replies. I am just heading over to vBulletin now to have another 10 minutes playing on my demo and then I am going to buy.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Posts
    101
    As an owned of an IPB license, I have to say that vB is better. Though their feature sets are very similar, vB's user interface, in my opinion is much better than IPB's and the administration interface is much, much better.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    62
    from my experience with the forums the IPB is better in finding good plug-ins for it and actually I see it has several features that is not available in VB .

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Posts
    522
    Having used both, I must say I hated IPB, I'm sure by now they have fixed most of the SQL injections, it only took them like 10 whole releases. It actually scared me that they were that oblivious to their own flaws. vB however, was RFI city for quite the amount of versions. Not to mention that IE/vB XSS exploit related to the header of images. That affected many versions, I reported this when 3.6 was released, and they waited until 3.6.7 to fix it.
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  17. #17
    Also having used both, I'd definately reccomend vBulletin. A while back IPB's price went up, but the support quality went down. Coupled with the fact that in IPB you've gotta take 20 different steps to do something that would take 1 step in vBulletin.

  18. #18
    I realize this is an old thread, but it means anything to anyone, I used to run Invision for 1 year, then I converted to VB (ran it for about 3 years). I will be shortly converting back to IPB. Reasons? IPB is ahead of the game in terms of code and I am currently having development done with my site, so it is important my developer codes for the newest rewrite, saving me money in the long run. (VB has yet to come out with 4.0 which would be a complete rewrite, but IPB is already out with version 3, being a complete code rewrite as well). Not to mention, IPB has always seemed faster and less bloated to me. The reasons I switched to VB in the first place was the search engine friendly URL's, and the modifications. IPB now has a search engine friendly hack integrated with it (1 step ahead of vbulletin, since VBSEO is an addon). And as far as coding your own plugins, I believe IPB is now easier to learn with 3.0. As for mods, I personally don't need many hacks any longer (just the shoutbox, and a pager would be nice), because I now have a lot of custom coding done. Thus, in my case, an interface that is not only more efficiently written, but also easy to learn and code for is more important to me.
    Last edited by chopin2256; 06-01-2009 at 04:22 PM.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    164
    Front End: IPB
    Back End: VB

  20. #20
    vbulletin is really good you can also add a portal i just find it more easyer when it comes to designing wise to

  21. #21
    Its depends on your choice. If you think IBP is better for your site, feel free to use IBP. If you think VBulletin is better for you, feel free to use vBulletin.

    which will works fine for you is the biggest factor you only really
    need to consider.

  22. #22
    I'm a huge vBulletin fan. Been running it since 2004.

    I've never ran IPB so I can't comment on it. As a user I am more inclinded to sign up for a forum when it is running VB.

    I've taken a liking to SMF for a free forum as well - the admin panel is fantastic and the forum is very customizeable.
    USNYR Hosting

  23. #23
    vbulletin is easier to design and edit.

  24. #24
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Posts
    31
    I prefer vBulletin, but there isn't really a "better" system. What vB is good at is IPB's weaknesses, and etc. For example, vB has the awesome plug-in system, but IPB has the module system, so you can easily add in the blog, gallery, etc.

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Croatia
    Posts
    142
    Quote Originally Posted by t3od0r View Post
    I prefer vBulletin, but there isn't really a "better" system. What vB is good at is IPB's weaknesses, and etc. For example, vB has the awesome plug-in system, but IPB has the module system, so you can easily add in the blog, gallery, etc.
    With v3 of IPB a lot of advantages vB had over IPB are slowly but steadily disappearing. IPBs code is way ahead of vB now and most modifications will no longer require editing of core files making upgrades painless.

    @N1CK3RS0N: I hope you're joking. vBs ACP has always been years behind IPBs.
    I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.

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