vBulletin vs. IPB

[Jerz]

If they are free from vb.org, any problem you have vb.com will tell you we do not support modified boards. If they are paid modifications, you can be easily left out in the cold.

True, however if I'm having a problem I just globally disable my mods and switch to the default style. It makes sense to me that it's not vB's fault if a bad mod is causing trouble.

Worse, with every vbulletin's new version upgrade can be a nightmare if you have a number of modifications. And many can be incompatible in part or in whole.

I find most maintenance releases don't break compatibility with mods... and feature releases haven't yet for me either. I'm using 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7 mods on my 3.7 forum.

Although I agree for MediaWiki integration, IPB has a plus here. NuHit seems to have gone down the hill, and IPBwiki looks pretty nice.

[Wayne Luke]

Worse, with every vbulletin's new version upgrade can be a nightmare if you have a number of modifications. And many can be incompatible in part or in whole.

I currently have 23 products and over 128 plugins installed on my own forums. I didn't have to modify any of them or have any problems upgrading from 3.6.8 PL2 to 3.7.0 RC1. While I am sure some products will need updating for new versions, the process is actually very smooth for most of them.

[Jerz]

I myself have 53 products and I'm guessing at least 200 plugins installed and only about three of the products didn't work when I upgraded to the 3.7 betas.

[Grover]

IPB doesn't really look better than vB, I think IPB is overall ugly
however vB default smileys and icons are truly ugly

I completely agree a 100%. Ofcourse, we can't argue about taste but since the introduction of vB 3 I totally hated the smileys and especially the icons. The big bulky [post reply] and so on icons are totally non-fitting with the rest of the style. A style that is -otherwise- very good. I very much like the default vB 3 style : it is sooo much better than the default Invision one.

Having said that, today I coincidentally checked the Invision site and to my surprise I found out that they changed the style of their Blog product. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least : Wow : this is what I am looking for...

What I said earlier :

I absolutely agree with both sentiments. A blog differs from the forum in the way that a blog is a personal space/area for the user. So that -in my view- makes it much more important that the user can personlize the Blog to her/his wishes. I never quite understood why a user should be able to pick a different style for the forum actually. Okay, liquid or non-liquid I can perfectly understand... it's a functional improvement/flexibility. But providing whole different layouts to your users for the forum? What is the point? You want users to have a certain experience which YOU think is best for your site, the site/forum is in the end created by YOU, the site-owner.

Blogs however are not owned by YOU, they are personal pages by your USERS. So just like you -as the admin/webmaster/owner of the site/forum- the USER -who is in fact the admin/webmaster/owner of her/his own Blog- should be able to create a personal style for himself. A user is able to express him/herself by the text she/he published in her/his blog; please let them also express themselves through the individual styling of their Blog. At the moment when I purchase vBlog ALL personal Blogs of my members will look exacty the same. That is no good. And to be honest... they not even look the same, they also do not look quite good.

The blocky 'table-like' layout doesn't do the readability much good I'm afraid. Look at this example. All the little replies inside those blocky squares... the presence of those blocky squares almost overshadow the text inside it. Especially when the comment is small and the user has no Avatar.

At this moment you can provide your users with different styles for your forum (which -like I said- isn't thát important really), but it is not possible for the blog oddly enough (where it is much much more important to be able to create really personalized pages).

Yes, please include this in vBlog.

What I said (in green) that the default style of the vB 3.x forum is great, but that it isn't really suitable for the Blog is now clearly proven by the new Blog style of Invision. Just compare this to this... what a difference! The latter is really what an easy-to-read Blog layout should look like, so compliments to Invision to have come up with this great style.

Hopefully one day vBulletin will follow... in my view a new -easy-to-read- style for vBulletin Blog is badly needed.

[Vtec44]

Worse, with every vbulletin's new version upgrade can be a nightmare if you have a number of modifications. And many can be incompatible in part or in whole.

I'm upgrading a forum from vB 3.5.x to 3.7.x, and so far all mods are working great. I have about 60 plugins and 30 products. Another forum is running 3.7.x and using mods from 3.6.x because a lot of them are still compatible.

Oh, PhotoPost vBGallery is compatible with both 3.6.x and 3.7.x.

Disable plugins, upload vB files, run installer, enable plugins. Done!

[NegativeSmoke]

Being a previous IP.Board license owner ( i owned a 2.2.2 license HOSTED with invision) and i have used IPB since version 1.1, i can easily say this:

I like vB alot more, they are quick with patches, as i've seen that guy's security post a few days ago and today they release 3.6.10 and 3.7.0 RC4....to me, thats fairly quick, but in Invision's defense, they also put out patches quickly in minor version upgrades...

I personally just like the feel of vB more than IPB...

[jkmcgrath]

I just purchased IPB and dissapointed

Thought I would share this being its spot on topic.

I recently changed domain names letting my old one go. Over the last 7 years I have used Snitz, phpBB and IPB. All free and never had to pay so it was nice. I allways wanted vbulletin but cost was allways a factor. And once you have so much design time in a site its hard to just make a change so I am using this opportunity to make that change.

After a debate for several weeks with myself I decided to buy IPB. That was on Monday this past week. Primarly because I was familar with it having used it for the last 4 years.

Their first patch came out for a DST fix the next day, then followed a patch from 2.34 to 2.35.

Keep in mind I have a clean install and have just been "sampling" features and added a few skins to see what I liked and disliked.

Well the first upgrade from 2.34 to 2.35 will not even install correctly. Missing links for the "New Features" they added. I am talking their default skins. When I contacted their ticket system I was told you must "manually" make the skin edits even on the default skins! What hell did I pay them for? And every post made in their customer support forum I have made has been moved to "peer to peer support" HUH?

I am sorry but if IPB cannot patch their own product and have their default skins functional then I am buying vBulletin as soon as this is posted.

[whitetigergrowl]

Thought I would share this being its spot on topic.

I recently changed domain names letting my old one go. Over the last 7 years I have used Snitz, phpBB and IPB. All free and never had to pay so it was nice. I allways wanted vbulletin but cost was allways a factor. And once you have so much design time in a site its hard to just make a change so I am using this opportunity to make that change.

After a debate for several weeks with myself I decided to buy IPB. That was on Monday this past week. Primarly because I was familar with it having used it for the last 4 years.

Their first patch came out for a DST fix the next day, then followed a patch from 2.34 to 2.35.

Keep in mind I have a clean install and have just been "sampling" features and added a few skins to see what I liked and disliked.

Well the first upgrade from 2.34 to 2.35 will not even install correctly. Missing links for the "New Features" they added. I am talking their default skins. When I contacted their ticket system I was told you must "manually" make the skin edits even on the default skins! What hell did I pay them for? And every post made in their customer support forum I have made has been moved to "peer to peer support" HUH?

I am sorry but if IPB cannot patch their own product and have their default skins functional then I am buying vBulletin as soon as this is posted.

This is more on a person by person basis. I have a Perpetual IPB license and have never had that problem. I believe it's more on a personal level (server configuration, mods added, etc.) and not reflective of the product. I see similar things happen with VB as well.

I do agree their support sucks. I tried talking to them about that, but it really didn't matter. They are stuck in their ways. Most of them are nice people. But I do agree their support does leave a lot to be desired and I believe is hurting them more than helping them. I do like their product. The support needs help though.

[jkmcgrath]

This is more on a person by person basis. I have a Perpetual IPB license and have never had that problem. I believe it's more on a personal level (server configuration, mods added, etc.) and not reflective of the product. I see similar things happen with VB as well.

Like I said its a clean install NO mods and 100% their scripts.

Has nothing to do with me personally

I now own VB as well and setting it up

[Floris]

I can't believe this PRE SALES thread is still active .. It is a a vs b thread now, and more of a chit chat thread than pre sales. It's already clear what the thread starter wants.

[badblu01]

well move this thread is the simple answer or close it

[Fusion]

It sounds like you have your answer, Floris. Shall we nudge you further along?

[MicroHellas]

If third-party add-ons is one of vbulletin's strong sides, it is also its weakest side.

I've seen a few third-party sellers closing down in the last months, their products discontinued and support no longer available.

For me it was vblogetin first. Now vbfreelancers has closed down their forums and it is only the download or sales areas available. Though I'm not sure, I think that some other called vbgeeks have gone the same. Others?

There are so many reasons for it, that I really don't know which to list first.

1. vB has very often updates/upgrades. That's good and I support it. The problem is that nobody knows what changes they did. So, imagine a developer to try to find among xx files these changes. A few days before starting developing mods for vB I've read a post at vb.org from a developer who has published a very nice web mail mod. He droped it for this reason. Still remember his disappointed writing "How to support my mod, with 15,000+ lines of code, when there are so often (hidden) updates/upgrades from vb?". My fault was that I didn't paid the right attention to this post at that time.
2. Price. A good PHP script will be best seller if it's priced less than $100. If you name the price of a vB mod over $80 (in a market less than 5% of PHP's market), you've lost the game (sales).
3. Currency. Many developers like me, are locating in EU. We're living with the cost of life of an EU country, we pay taxes according to EU (high I believe) standards, but (most of us) are selling in USD. So, a mod $50 is less than 35 Euros, a totally low price.

As for vBulletinFreelancers that you mentined before, even if I'm not belong to their team anymore, I've to inform you that they didn't closed their site, but they did a big mistake on moving their site. They registered their new nameservers with a typo, that's why their site was/is unavailable. As I know, yesterday night they found their mistake, and most probably now their site is/will be visible.

Maria

[Chousho]

I actually think it's good to have this thread open. It seems that people who have experience with both VB and IPB have been having a good discussion in here, so we get to see things on both sides of the fence (and to help enforce our decision to use VB in the first place).

I think healthy discussion is an awesome thing ;D This thread has made it this far without any real flames

[Ejecutor Hanzo]

My opinion in simple words:

IPB, programming structure, admincp and styles editing are a really nightmare to understand.
VB: A child of 12 years old can administer this.