vBulletin vs..

[George L]

Originally posted by sparky2
Can you estimate what the top-end would be, in terms of scalability.
Our forum usage has been spiking near 600 concurrent users lately, and the server is BARELY handling it.

really depends on what server OS, apache/mysql and php configurations and versions you use and whether it's a single server or multi server setup

also note (quoting myself LOL )

remember a few things

1. vB user online concurrently is based on default 15 min cookie and is different from mysql concurrent connections
2. vB currently only can use mysql as a backend but later there will be ports to sybase and postgresql way after vB 3.x has been publicly released
3. mysql, provided it has the right hardware and mysql, php and apache configuration is good for theoretically 1000 - 1500 mysql concurrent connections (latter figure with the mysql rpm binaries) based on single dual cpu server setup (excluding dual, quad p4 xeons which could handle more)
4. this means you can have 1000 vB users online displayed but they actually can use 200 - 700 concurrent mysql max connections since vB shows those 1000 vB users over 15 mins and not the exact same sec, you can have any combination

i.e.

300 members + 700 guests = 1000 vb users online past 15 min, with only 300 - 500 mysql concurrent connections in use

or

500 members + 500 guests = 1000 vb users online past 15min, with 500 - 800 mysql concurrent connections in use

both examples show 1,000 vb users online past 15mins but the latter example could place more load on the server due to more mysql concurrent connection usage

5. hardware isn't the only aspect which determines vB performance, you have to have apache, php and mysql configured optimally - left unoptimised especially mysql's configuration, then even the most powerful hardware will not perform well

6. if you set your vB timeout cookie higher than default 15 mins, you will show more vB users online - so set timeout cookie in vB admin panel to 30 mins, then the vB user online display will show users on in the past 30 mins thereby inflating the vB user online display - generally the higher the cookie timeout, the higher the vB users online to mysql concurrent connections ratio

[George L]

also if you're having problems post a thread in the server config forum and i'll take a look

[Catka]

Well I have to admit I've looked at fusetalk and am considering changing (not happy about it). Not due to scalability but because of the backend database. I've been waiting for VB to port to others for a long time (I know they are busy) and I don't think they will port to MS SQL first which is what I need. My DBA has some lovely words for MySQL but I won't repeat them.

I had a programmer take a look at doing a custom port for me and well I won't repeat what he said either but baisically he thought VB code was messy and didn't want to bother cleaning it up and doing a port since VB is constantly being updated. Which is a good point, a custom hack/port is a PITA when you have to deal with updates and possible changes to the db.

I love VB, I've helped many sites setup and recommended vb for their use but I wish they could somehow hurry up their database ports and give us some ETA. Yes I know a typical ETA for a programmer is soon which means don't hold your breath and RSN is often closer to not in your lifetime but I'm still hoping.

Don't take this as a flame to VB and yell at me, as I said I love VB and I think for the $$ it's amazing. I also love how they listen to their customers, rare these days but I need MS SQL.

[sornman]

As someone who does some work for HardOCP and their forums, HardForum.com, I have seen quite a large number of active members on at one time. Before removing the 'General Mayhem' section of the forums, there would regularly be 800+ users online at any time, with the most users at one time being somewhere around 1300+ I believe.

When the head administrator started working to try to get things running smoothly on the forums, he wen through several kernel/mysql/vbulletin tweaks to try to smooth things over, and things are running smoothly now. This is mostly due to the removal of one of the busiest forums, which was removed as server problems were getting out of hand. The forums are run on several load balanced dual machines with an abundance of ram.

Anyways, to get to the point of this post, if there was a PostgreSQL version of vB I know that Hardforums would be running it pretty quickly, as both the head admin and myself prefer PostgreSQL and the robustness it offers. Not to get into a db debate, but it is just our preference. As for popular forum software that uses PostgreSQL, only phpBB uses it I believe, and I am running that on one of my servers for a site, but would prefer a few more options for those of us that prefer PostgreSQL.

[sebe]

vbulletin code is messy, no doubt about it.. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out just by looking at the code. From what I heard vb3 has cleaner code, I'll wait until I see it before I judge it

[nuno]

vbulletin code is messy, no doubt about it.. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out just by looking at the code. From what I heard vb3 has cleaner code, I'll wait until I see it before I judge it

Then you should've said "vBulletin 2 code is messy".
You forgot to add the 2.
And even so, vBulletin 2 it's still the best out there.

[msimplay]

I started up a conversation at Anandtech Forums about them switching to vBulletin.

here

I was asked "Sengir, what are some examples of forums with the traffic that AnandTech forums have? 2500-4000 simultaneous users, 6 million messages. I'd like to see them"

I thought when I posted that I had been in a forum the size of Anandtech.. But I haven't. (Will come clean on that soon..) I was wondering if anybody knew of a forum that size using vBulletin and how well it performed??

I prefer the use of vB by far over Anandtech's current forum.

Thanks.

Even though i love and have a Vbulletin board, asking them to move over to Vbulletin at it's current status would be a downgrade i have compared features toe to toe and the anandtech forum seems to have what Vbulletin has only just included in Vb3

and ideas for modules and so forth they still have not implemented and will not in the near future
then again their board costs more so i guess is fair trade off

i had a look at their List of fusetalk features they seem to far outweigh an unhacked Vb2 board

Features
Performance Features

• Extensive database Support (Microsoft® SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft® Access)
• Linearly scalable from a single forum to thousands of forums: from a handful of users to tens of thousands of users
• Full clustering support (FuseTalk can be installed on as many clustered servers as you require with proper licensing)
• Built on a supported platform (ColdFusion), backed by Macromedia
• Fully compatible with all common firewalls

User Features

• Custom external user authentication
• Extensive forum personalization
• Select personal style sheets
• Choose degree of profile privacy
• Powerful search (Boolean and keyword)
• Intuitive interface
• Private messaging
• WAP support for easy wireless access
• WYSIWYG editor to help compose messages
• Flexible subscription and message/topic notification system to ensure users receive what they want to see
• Locale settings so users interact in their own time zone
• Multiple file attachments
• Post to the forums using e-mail
• Receive messages via e-mail
• Buddy list to keep track of community friends
• Attach formatted text to messages
• Author icons so users can create an online “persona”
• Add “emoticons” to messages to illustrate opinions and feelings
• “Today” page automatically displays subscriptions, hot messages and category, moderator announcements etc.
• Simple, clear documentation and online help

Administration Features

• Complete and intuitive administration console
• Custom external user authentication
• Fully customizable GUI integrates seamlessly into your brand’s look and feel
• Multilingual interface – add your own language packs easily
• New JAVA-based reporting engine
• Completely modifiable forum user agreement
• Extensive interface customization through dynamic CSS
• Workflow approval of messages and users
• Create custom profile
• Create custom support messages
• Extensive banning capabilities
• Ability to verify passwords and email addresses
• Establish automatic, scheduled tasks
• Full censorship engine with flexible word scanning options
• Moderator logging (complete log detailing all moderator activities)
• Support of both threaded view (tree) or linear view (flat) messaging modes
• Full user/group permission based security system
• Control private message storage use
• Control archive storage use
• Customize emotion and rating icons
• Dynamic survey engine (add forum specific fields to the user profile)
• Password protect categories
• Archive on a per category basis
• Enable HTML on a per category basis
• Integration and synchronization of forums with e-mail subscriber lists
• Specialized moderator/reporting features for optimizing forums for delivering customer support

Moderator Features

• Full-featured moderator toolbox
• Move topics/threads
• Edit messages
• E-mail individual users or groups
• Delete messages and threads
• Lock threads
• View user profiles
• Ban users by username, name, IP address
• Robust moderator administration area for more extensive moderation tools
• Moderator private messaging
• Ability to attach poll and surveys to forums and categories and report on results

Integration Features

• NT/Challenge Response based security integration
• External user database integration
• External login integration
• Branding “look and feel” integration

Thing is some of those features are only just coming into play with Vb3 and some it still does not have and will not have

i'm not bashing Vbulletin at all i am just lookin at a feature comparison personally i love my Vb board and i put a lot of work into it with Varios hacks and things but it would be interesting to see what we make of this ??

[Freddie Bingham]

Did you forget the cost and system requirements for Fusetalk?

[msimplay]

Did you forget the cost and system requirements for Fusetalk?

i'm sure i did say it costs more
however since they have the costs and requirements sorted my point would simply be that why would they want to come to a Vbulletin board ?

[Arkham]

i'm sure i did say it costs more
however since they have the costs and requirements sorted my point would simply be that why would they want to come to a Vbulletin board ?

Apart from some of the backend features, that list doesn't seem to offer much more than vB. ???

You can't realistically compare enterprise solutions like that with vB. And I still find Fuse forums (and Lithium... and Open Topic) to be sluggish, and awkward.

[JamesUS]

I believe Zuni from AnAndTech (forum administrator) is one of the developers of FuseTalk, so I doubt they'd be very willing to switch anyway.

[Sengir]

Heh yea that would be one reason not to switch..

[UHN_ED]

Well going back to earler discussion, I have had over 1800 on my forum concurrently once.