I'm recommending that my firm use vBulletin for our tech support forums. I've had good experiences using vBulletin based support forums on other sites.
I'm getting some push back on why not phpBB or InfoPop's hosted Eve/UBB.
Any articles, reviews or personal experience would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Malcolm
Well, from what I understand there is little to no professional support from phpBB, it is a free opensource product, and feature wise it is rather lacking in comparision
As far as i know the hosted eve/uBB is just that, hosted, you may not have access to the files its based apon to change the funcitionality of the software. But I am not sure how it works so I will comment no more.
What I do know for certain, is that we offer support 24/7 365, we are here to provide you support. If you wish to change the way vBulletin works on some level you are able to, however you do lose offical support from us, there is a large community at vBulletin.org that is avaible to help you if your hacked forums go wrong somehowand of course if you remove your hacks we can do our best to assit you again.
Zachery WoodsvBulletin Support TeamPlease do not PM me for support$this->hasFlavr() ? $nom->nom('nom') : $want->doNot()
If you go with a eve hosted solution (or any other hosted bbs) your files are on the company's servers. vBulletin allows you to have direct access to your data if you back it up with a dedcated server, or otherwise you have your choice of hoster, with a hosted solution like eve you are going to be very limited.
"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication. " - Friedrich Nietzsche
phpBB is a nice solution for those that may or may not be bringing in revenue from their website, though being free, you are not offered the same level of support as you are with a paid solution. The developers of phpBB also develop the product at their own pace and while customer feedback may be floating around, suggestions may never get implemented into the software.
With InfoPop (i.e. UBB), you are given a hosted solution and with that, little control. While most hosts will install certain modules needed to run more than just your forum, this may not be the case with a hosted solution where they cater to the average needs of the software, not primarily the user.
With vBulletin, you will need to find your own hosting solution to host the vBulletin software, though with that, you are also able to suggest to your host that they install other modules to run software needed for your website as needed. In addition to this, you are also given more control over the software in general, such as the overall look, where you want to place it (i.e. directory) and so forth. You are also given top notch support by the developers and the community as a whole. From the looks of the members area here at vB, support turn-around varies from 12-30 minutes, sometimes a little more depending on the nature of the issue at hand.
While phpBB offers a hacking database as well, it is not as large as the one offered with vBulletin, so if a feature is not already included in the software, you may be less likely able to add it as you would with vBulletin. I cannot speak for UBB as I am not sure if hacking is possible or how free they are with the files hosted on their servers with their hosted solution as I've never personally used their hosted solution, only UBB when it was a downloadable product.
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I see that Infopop also offers a non-hosted product and a hosted product...how does this compare?
Thanks
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