vBulletin 3.8.x & 4.2.x Differences

[CephiCefi]

Hi everyone! I have a few questions on the differences between 3.8.x and 4.2.x differences.

I want to say that I am coming from MyBB (I also own a vB5 license but I have not touched or tested it) and that I have been somewhat searching about the differences between 3.8.x and 4.2.x but I have only found topics on; vBulletin 4.2.x having a CMS when vB 3.8.x does not, that 4.2.x may run slightly slower than 3.8.x, and the horror stories of how the early 4.x.x versions made 3.8.x owners stick with 3.8.x


- Are there any features from 3.8.x that are not brought over to 4.2.x ?

- Are there any extra features that are introduced in 4.2.x that was not in 3.8.x?

- For vBulletin skins/themes/styles, which one would win in customizability? Which one would win in user friendly editing functionality?
I have looked around vbulletin.org and other paid vbulletin theme styling websites but it seems like all the offered free and paid themes for 3.8.8 are just slight variant re-skins of the 3.8.x default style/theme.
Are there any different themes (can be free or paid) for 3.8.x that is very different from the basic re-skin of the default vB 3.8 style?

- Which software would have more mods and themes/styles available (both free and paid)?

- If I decide on 4.2.x but I do not want the CMS, can it be easily disabled?

- Which (4.2.x or 3.8.x) is similar to MyBB in terms of forum functionality?


Thanks for reading and taking the time to respond!
If there are any questions that are confusing, please let me know so I can try my best to elaborate.

[BirdOPrey5]

Some interesting questions-

1) All 3.8 features are in 4.2

2) Features in VB4 that are not in VB3: Built in Blog, Built in Article System (Commonly called a CMS), Activity Stream, Forum Sidebar, Friendly URLs, Navigation Manager (Easily add/edit the tabs at the top of page- Forum / Blog / What's New / Etc...), Facebook Integration (Log in with/Publish To/Like Button), Advertising Manager (makes it easy to show ads to certain groups in certain places), Style Generator (easily make basic color changes to default style), Mobile API (built in.)

3) Styles - VB3 vs VB4 - A subject of great debate. I personally prefer VB4 - it is a bit more complicated with the introduction of Stye Variables but once you know what you are doing I believe it is more powerful than the styling options in VB3. The problem with finding custom 3.x styles is that so many 3,x style shops have closed up shop, it was so long ago. You will find a lot more professional 4.x styles out there in my opinion, at least easier. They tend to be more modern than VB 3.x styles. Yes there are VB 3.x styls that look very different but I wouldn't be able to tell you where to find them anymore- many people have made custom styles and never released them.

4) It's hard to say whether 3.x or 4.x has more current, working, mods or not, I would say it was close but both have many many mods. I would still say 4.x wins in this category as 4.x mods are generally newer than 3.x mods and have a better chance of standing the test of time as PHP continues to upgrade.

5) Yes you can disable the Articles (CMS) system and/or the Blog system by a quick setting in the Product Manager.

6) I believe 3.8 is closer to MyBB- it is my understanding MyBB was kind of meant to be a VB 3,x clone. However to be honest I have not used MyBB in many years.

[CephiCefi]

Thank you very much for your response Joe D.!
It really helps lessen the stress on my mind on choosing which softwares to transfer over from MyBB.
I'll possibly give VB4 a try and see if I like it. Thanks again!

[Riasat]

the horror stories of how the early 4.x.x versions made 3.8.x owners stick with 3.8.x

This is not true anymore. vB4 is definitely better than vB3 now (has been for awhile).

[Mark.B]

Indeed, vB4 is rock solid stable.

[CephiCefi]

@Riasat & Mark.B; Oh I see! Thanks for your feedback guys! I think I'll choose vB4 then I just hope I'll stick with it

[JacobSuth]

vB4 is rock solid stable yeah but no more real feature based updates are on the way so you're going to be stuck dealing with what you got and not expecting to upgrade PHP to any new versions once released for at least a year if not longer. vB 4.2.3 is PHP 5.5 supported but it's still only in beta and PHP 5.5 came out 20 June 2013. So it's rock solid and I wish more updates would come to it to keep it as a rock solid brand but they're way more focused on vB5 now days which is nowhere near stable in many peoples opinions and like vB4 would likely need a few years till that happens.

So I am assuming you being a vB3 user so far I am assuming you don't really care about every few month updates if so than you're ready to go and vB4 is the choose in my opinion especially over vB3 now days but be ware that vB4 is just about the same as vB3 far as updates go as of now.