phpBB or SMF with Joomla

[drewtown]

I am running a website that I feels would benefit from some community interaction and I enjoy forums. But I'm kind of at a cross-roads here. I have been a long time user of phpBB and with 3.0 on the way it does look promosing. But SMF also has many great features as well but I haven't really used it.

So basically my question is, is SMF as great as some people say or is phpBB the way to go, especially with Joomla.

EDIT: also, don't say XX board that costs a lot of money, I don't have money to spend on a BB, yet.

[Jared]

Hey I registered specifically to answer your post.

I was in recent discussion with some guys about boards and what we all agree is that the perception of phpBB is that although its improving a bit it is still the perception that it is junk. No COMMERCIAL forum I've ever seen uses phpBB and there must be a reason behind that.

SMF however, I've stumbled upon a few commercial boards here and there but again its another one that is just not used commercially.

phpBB and SMF are beautiful to use for hobby type sites or personal tinkering if you dont expect the forum to live long. Lots of people use those because there is no risk involved with trying out something that does not cost them anything other than time.

Commercially and professionally, I'd only suggest one board and that is vBulletin because EVERY major board I'm a member of (even this very board) all go commercial and all go vBulletin. There must be a reason right?

I hope that helps you in your forum decision.

~ Jared

[drewtown]

I realize that Vbulletin is technically superior than any free board is going to be. I guess I just haven't rationalized if my site is going to be able to make the $160 price tag that comes with that.

Thanks for going through the trouble of registering

[Jared]

Actually drewtown, the best option is not to purchase vBulletin but to lease it.

You spend as much as 4 times the money on a purchase than you do a lease which is why I have 15 or so lease licenses for clients and such and no owned licenses.

If you take into account that a major release is almost a guarantee every 12 - 18 months then two years leased is only $5 more than a single owned license which affords you ONLY a years worth of upgrades and support. Why not spend the extra $5 and get two years. This way your initial cost is only $85. Thats less money than two tanks of gas in my H2 so to me its cheap. Besides a few well placed sponsors could fund that purchase in 15 minutes. I did one for a mortgage trader that presold ads to the tune of $1,200 to his associates.

I hope that helps

~ Jared

[drewtown]

Thanks for the advice, I've always really liked Vbulletin and I think I will try it out sometime in the next week or so, hopefully I can find some sponsors.

[kiviniar]

Hope this is able to convince you..... :-)

http://forum.joomla.org/

[Jared]

Yeah Andy did a beautiful job on that SMF forum. Its one of the nicest SMF forums I've seen.


~ Jared

[kiviniar]

well i myself have my forum running on SMF http://free-stuff-forum.koollog.com .. the coolest admin interface and the easiest... also lot of mods coming this way..

Plus the community support is nice had all my queried resolved wiithin hours

[drewtown]

I'm actually thinking of starting with SMF and then switching to Vb when I have more funs, Im entering college right now and I think that $85 could be better spent.

[MykeXero]

If you are going with free go with SMF.

If you go paid, vBulletin and Invision are both splendid. (I personally prefer Invision because their internal code is setup in a way i prefer for modding, but both are great)

[Costin Trifan]

@ MykeXero:
I'm sure drewtown will thank you for your reply (posted 1 year later)

why not start reviving 3 or 4 years old threads ? I'm sure they will be thankful for that!

[MykeXero]

Yikes, how did i end up in this thread then haha. I never surf past page 1 on forums hah.