Should I wait for vBulletin 5 relase to buy vBulletin

[feldon23]

No! Don't ever go down that road unless it's absolutely unavoidable.

Also depending on the free package you can sometimes find that passwords don't import, meaning your entire userbase need to have password resets.

Maybe vBulletin 5 will get with the program on that. XenForo did.

In short, don't do it. Cheaper to just buy vB4.

If it were me and I was starting a brand new forum and interested in vBulletin, this is what I would do.
Start your forum on a free script like phpbb, mybb or smf, then when vBulletin 5 is released purchase the script and import your forums to vBulletin.

I don't see how spending 150$ twice is any cheaper then spending it once..lol

Exactly. Should you spend $185 now and potentially another $100-200 this fall? For some, $185 is a significant investment in a forum that may or may not be successful. If vBulletin had not been available as a leased license, it would have been harder to justify the changeover.

Many successful forum communities have started with phpBB3 or SMF and successfully migrated to vBulletin. Those folks who end up not resetting their passwords -- were they really that active or invested in the forum? Also, it sounds silly, but by having a transition to new software, you give the impression that you are taking the forum more seriously and interested in its growing success. A forum that never changes style or appearance over several years starts to get stale.

[MRGTB]

A forum that never changes style or appearance over several years starts to get stale.

I wouldn't agree with that statement myself at all. Look around the web, there are plenty of old forums that's never changed the look from default doing well, and using both old and "free forum software". Here is one forum for you called Horse Gossip (take note of members online), and it's like that everyday using a free "ProBoards" can you believe. Yet, I visit other forums always trying to keep up-to-date using commercial forum software and do nothing. There is no hard and fast rule what makes a forum successful, and keeping up with the latest forum software means nothing really when all said and done.

Your average Joe doesn't care what forum software you use, or what build it is. It's the discussion taking place that draws them in.

[c0bra]

Wow Mark! You've sure changed your tune, you creeping for a staff job or something, or been brain washed? You never used to shut up putting vBulletin down on hundreds of other sites for many years.

I had that thought as I started reading this thread. I wonder what the hell happened that vBulletin 4 went from seemingly being the absolute worst product known to man, to becoming the greatest thing on the planet. Obviously today's current stable build is a hell of a lot better than what we got with v4.0. But still, what I'm reading in here is a hell of a shift in opinion.

No! Don't ever go down that road unless it's absolutely unavoidable.

It is unlikely that an IMPEX importer will be ready immediately on vB5's release. Even when it is, you then lose all the search engine rankings you have gained because all your old URLS will fail without complex rewriting rules.

Also depending on the free package you can sometimes find that passwords don't import, meaning your entire userbase need to have password resets.

In short, don't do it. Cheaper to just buy vB4.

I don't subscribe to that view.

Rewrites are not insanely complicated to handle. Your most important urls can be handled elegantly with a handful of lines in a .htaccess document. You won't lose much search engine traffic if you put the correct rewrites in place.

I've also yet to run into any forum > vbulletin conversion where we haven't managed to bridge the passwords. We've managed conversions for countless forums written in a variety of different languages such as PHP, ASP and Cold Fusion. It wouldn't be very expensive for vBulletin to support this out-of-the-box after an impel conversion tbh. I'm amazed they haven't addressed passwords after all these years.

Worst case scenario you convert to vBulletin 4 and then upgrade to vBulletin 5 if Impex support doesn't exist. And based on how badly it's supported these days since Jerry left, I agree it's unlikely Impex will be ready for vBulletin 5 from the day it's officially released. I hope we're both wrong!

All that being said, I personally wouldn't start a new site on a free forum. I've yet to find one I like working alongside in terms of managing and extending the standards features. Maybe it's just because I've been working with vBulletin for so long, I couldn't imagine launching a site on anything else these days.

[AusPhotography]

I'd go vB4 for now.
Even if vB5 were Gold in say September (unlikely) it would still make sense as you need to wait for skins and addons to be built/upgraded for vB5.
vB5 will be well tested by the time it's gold, but I'd wait for a bit before upgrading.

What would help is some form of vBSi vB4 special deal now, i.e. buy vB4 and get 50% credit towards vB5 or something like that.

Kym

[Syxguns]

Everyone here has made great statements, I just want to add another hard fact to the question at hand. vB4.2 has a lot of wonderful modifications for it as well as vB3.8. I heard from one of the mod developers that vB 5 has a completely different "Hooks" system and is going to leave all of the mod creators updating their mods and testing them for some time. Also as was stated in this thread, there are many people that still use old version of vB. They found a stable release, were happy with it, and never bothered to upgrade the board. There are still a ton of communities running vB3 out there.

I will purchase the updated version to vB5 so that I have it at a discount when it is available, but I do not plan to change to vB5 for at least a year.

[selfsufficientme]

I just waned to say I have found this thread the most helpful out of all the infinite stuff I squeezed out of Google over the past two weeks.

Yes, I did end up purchasing vB4 for all the reasons stated and now I'm just getting on with working it all out (Vbulletin manual...geezus!)

So, thanks everyone.

[Syxguns]

I just waned to say I have found this thread the most helpful out of all the infinite stuff I squeezed out of Google over the past two weeks.

Yes, I did end up purchasing vB4 for all the reasons stated and now I'm just getting on with working it all out (Vbulletin manual...geezus!)

So, thanks everyone.

To be honest with you that vB manual only goes so far! You will find that there are a ton of things that you will have to do that the manual only gives you tips on. Most of it is trial and error. I would highly suggest you purchase another domain name to use as a test page for all your setting up and any mods that you may want to install. There is a lot of coding that you may have to deal with, there are constant template changes that you have to make with mods that you install, and on top of that you need to most definitely have PhpMyAdmin to access your database for any errors you may receive in the database. MOST importantly make backups of both the database and the forum. This is especially important when you are new to a software, and bound to make mistakes, because trust me when I say, "YOU WILL"!

I started out with a free board, phpBB, and had to do so many code changes it was unbelievable. The good thing was that it gave me a lot of knowledge on recognizing things that take place and how to correct it. I had my forum set up, needless to say I wiped it out a couple of times and had to start from scratch, but the forum didn't have the modifications available to do all that vB had to offer. After around 9 months of working with phpBB, I did some research and found that vB seemed to be as close as I could get to the best forum software available for me. I wiped out vB twice without a backup to go to before I decided to set up a temporary forum. Now I do all of my testing and code changes on the temp site to ensure that when I place the changes and or modifications on my live site that it will work. You can get a temp site set up for around $2.50 a year, plus very minimal domain cost. You don't need space, the site is only for testing purposes. Trust me when I say that it is worth the money.

[selfsufficientme]

MOST importantly make backups of both the database and the forum. This is especially important when you are new to a software, and bound to make mistakes, because trust me when I say, "YOU WILL"!

You can get a temp site set up for around $2.50 a year, plus very minimal domain cost. You don't need space, the site is only for testing purposes. Trust me when I say that it is worth the money.

Thanks for scaring the pants off me!

Seriously, I will definitely ensure I have backups. The test site is a great idea, which I wouldn't have thought of, I'll investigate this option and am grateful for your tip/s. I'm going to try and not stuff with the board too much initially; although, there are still many things I need to change and it feels very daunting for a non-coder like me swimming through all this info. A forum is quite different to a blog (which I do have some experience with), however, cut & paste html isn't hard and back-ups are automatic via the host. Running a forum (if successful) is going to be a big challenge for me.

Cheers for your advice.

[BirdOPrey5]

Your average Joe doesn't care what forum software you use, or what build it is. It's the discussion taking place that draws them in.

I could not disagree more... All the time people on my forum complain when they get a link to a non-vbulletin forum- they hate everything about them. When JeepsUnlimtied closed their off-topic in 2008 several of us started new forums to take in everyone who was displaced. I won. Was it because of my good looks? Unsurpassed sense of honor? Stunning intellect? No... It was because I was the only one to spring for a vBulletin license. Trying to start a new forum is difficult enough- but starting with free forums (or even some crappy paid forums) is making your job 10 times harder.

People are used to vBulletin, they are comfortable with it- even with custom styles they feel "at home." There are many out there who will avoid non VB forums- and if not avoid them completely because there may be required info having a VB forum could be the difference between making them an active member as opposed to someone who just searches for what they need and never posts.

[coolnessm]

i reckon you should

[zero477]

This might be off-topic but vbseo is a super plugin ... (very necessary) ... Maybe if I buy vbulletin today I will also have to buy a double licence for the new plugin ... or maybe it wont be necessary to buy vbseo.

[Zachery]

there is not a single third party addon that is "required" to operate vBulletin. Many people have addons they like, and they prefer to have. But having, or not having vbseo or any other addon, would not prevent you from running the forum.

[Dustin L.]

This might be off-topic but vbseo is a super plugin ... (very necessary) ... Maybe if I buy vbulletin today I will also have to buy a double licence for the new plugin ... or maybe it wont be necessary to buy vbseo.

I personally wouldn't say it's necessary at all. Perhaps if you'd like quite a few more SEO-related options, then yeah, it's helpful, but necessary?



Dustin

[Mark.B]

vBSEO is useful for some sites, it seems. I certainly don't believe it is 'necessary'.

I think they convince people of the need to solve a problem that does not exist. Just my opinion. Some sites swear by it though.

[soniceffect]

vBSEO is useful for some sites, it seems. I certainly don't believe it is 'necessary'.

I think they convince people of the need to solve a problem that does not exist. Just my opinion. Some sites swear by it though.

I actually bought it and came to the same conclusion