Vbulletin vs. phpbb

[bsun]

My company is working on setting up forums for several new sites. Our main site uses VB, and our staff is quite familiar with it. However, our developers are adamant that phpbb is easier to develop for because it allows greater tinkering in the code. (no checksum issues)

I've used phpbb in the past and was totally underwhelmed, but version 3.x is supposed to be much better.

So why should we develop these new sites on VB as opposed to phpbb?

[RedeemedWarrior]

Now as a general forum "Junkie" I love the whole lot Vb, PHPBB2, PHPBB3, SMF, etc

Yet without a doubt the ability to modify VB and the sheer power of the Vb 3.6 or 3.7 is unmatched by PHPBB3

PHPBB3 has few mods that work as well as their PHPBB2 counterparts

I had a PHPBB3 forum.. I imported it into my VB 3.7

[ishansoni1]

vBulletin 3.7 according to my opinion is a version better then any other bulletin board out there.. IPB 3.0 and phpBB 3.0 will try to catch up to vBulletin which means vBulletin will always be way ahead of those two..

Well i might not make good sence but if you would go with phpBB you will come back here someday like most people do..

[Andy Huang]

You shouldn't. If your techies wants to edit the code, and make new features for you, and they cannot handle vBulletin, then it makes more sense business wise to not use vBulletin. Your techies will also hate you, and maybe even leave the firm, if you force vBulletin on them when they're stubbornly in love with phpBB. I know I did, when one of my ex-employer forcred another software on me... Looking back at it, and where they are now, I believe the decision they made on that software is a bad choice... but hey, they have their VC's and investors... and I'm getting way off topic :)

However, with that said, I'd like to point out that with vBulletin, there is no checksum issue to worry about. Yes, while the suspected file version tool in admincp uses checksum of files to verify the file integrity to help you locate edited files quickly to address possible security issues, vBulletin does NOT lock you out because of bad checksum of a file. Furthermore, with the plugin system, you would next to never need to actually sit down to edit files, you can insert code to do what you want in any of the over 900 code hook / template hook locations, and add features to your vBulletin installation. If those for some reason still aren't enough, you can always still edit the code any time you want... You won't be locked out of your forum because of the edits. As such, the checksum argument is kind of moot ;)

[pelican]

with vbulletin plugin system, you can easily restore back to the default vb forum from addon/customizing mod if ever there is any problem with your customisation.

i think your programmer just simply unwilling and lazy to learn how to create addon mod for vbulletin which is safer than phpbb. they are now familiar with modding phpbb thats why they said phpbb is easier. when they know how to create mod with vb plugins, they will know how easy and better than it is compare to phpbb.