vBulletin vs. phpBB

Jazzee · 11-22-2004, 09:24 AM

Anyone know where there is a good, easy to understand comparison between vBulletin and phpBB? Or even a side-by-side features list?

littleFella · 11-22-2004, 09:57 AM

neither full nor systematic comparison, but perhaps of use to you.

Jazzee · 11-22-2004, 10:06 AM

That's a help, but I'm hoping for something that compares vBulletin 3.

**fishfreek** · 11-22-2004, 12:27 PM

I have been in search of this for years. A good unbiased compairson of the two including performance specs.

Jazzee · 11-22-2004, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishfreek

I have been in search of this for years.

I guess that means I'm not going to find this..

gariben · 11-22-2004, 03:27 PM

If you have the money, which you probably do, go with vBulletin.

If not, go with phpBB.

Functionality aside, people do somewhat insinuate the software against the quality of the board.

**fishfreek** · 11-22-2004, 03:44 PM

Most of what I find is biased. Vb users put VB over the 'free' phpbb and phpbb users will put it over VB. I have only admined and istalled phpbb so the usage difference as an admin I cant attest to. I have used both as a user and I have to say they both do the same thing just are layed out a litle different when it comes to the user control panel and the like. Personal experence tells me that everything VB does phpbb can either do or can be made to do with a mod install. With the emergence of phpbb 2.2 in the future it is supposed to have many of the VB features standard vs having to mod them in like with the current 2.0.X tree.

As far as performance they both seem to work good. Its hard to guage performance and server load as each server setup will perform somewhat differently and each forum will have slightly different performance carteristics depending on what features are enabled.

Jazzee · 11-22-2004, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gariben

If you have the money, which you probably do, go with vBulletin.

If not, go with phpBB.

Functionality aside, people do somewhat insinuate the software against the quality of the board.

The information isn't for me. I was basically looking for information to show someone else the benefits of using vBulletin over phpBB.

littleFella · 11-22-2004, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jazzee

The information isn't for me. I was basically looking for information to show someone else the benefits of using vBulletin over phpBB.

I think you may use the list or reasons v7 Inc. used to switch to vB

Spiral · 11-22-2004, 04:58 PM

If you have a small forum, there is no reason to use anything other than phpbb. If you plan to have a moderate sized forum (this one) vbulletin is probably best, but the largest forums on the net complain about vbulletin's bulk of useless features and bloated code.

I personally will use phpbb on every site I'm in control of.

**fishfreek** · 11-22-2004, 05:19 PM

This site ran phpbb up until about 2 months ago. Ran just fine. I have a site running phpbb with several thousand members and several hundred posts per day with no issues. I know of other forums like the phpbb forum itself that you would say is fairly large.

I think once you start getting 100+ users on at the same time you need some good robust hardware reguardless of phpbb or vb.

edbarton · 11-23-2004, 12:41 AM

Here are a few resources.

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/review-vbulletin-3-0
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/show...ar#post1141887
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...9&page=1&pp=15
http://www.phpbbsupport.co.uk/ftopic1337-0.php
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/archi.../t-110429.html

They might be slightly bias but then it is next to impossible to get a totally unbiased review. Anyway, there ya go.

Jazzee · 11-23-2004, 06:19 AM

Thanks

I, Brian · 11-23-2004, 03:28 PM

The security issue is another pointer - how many phpbb admins here have had their phpbb's hacked?

Compare that to the zero number of vb3 admins who've suffered the same.

edbarton · 11-23-2004, 03:31 PM

Yeah, I've even had PHPBB test forums hacked (e.g. 1 registered user, 2 posts), but thats never ever happened with vB.

**fishfreek** · 11-23-2004, 04:58 PM

How about the many phpbb forums have NOT been hacked.

thebassman · 11-23-2004, 05:12 PM

Yeah, as long as you do the updates, you're generally ok, I would assume. It's the people that don't do the critical updates that have the problem...

**fishfreek** · 11-23-2004, 06:36 PM

And the exact same would hold for VB users if/when such vunerabilities are discovered. No application is fort knox.

I, Brian · 11-25-2004, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishfreek

How about the many phpbb forums have NOT been hacked.

I make it at least four v7 member phpbb forums hacked - including claimed up-to-date ones:

Pimpen:
http://www.v7n.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14629

Samer:
http://www.v7n.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13500

ATLien:
http://www.v7n.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12489

Leon:
http://www.v7n.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3454

I have only *ever* seen one example of a "hacked" vBulletin, and that was when one of the rackshack staff were careless with their password for the company forums a couple of years ago.

Pimpen 2010 · 11-25-2004, 10:30 AM

Mine got hacked, cause I'm too lazy to upgrade.

What I wanted to do was to install a fresh 2.0.11 or whatever it is then use the backup of my forum on the new one, but I tried that on another site and it didn't work, so I dunno what to do now. There are a lot of updates that I've missed.