Hey all, I have a current community site that needs a new platform. Currently, it's running on Wordpress+BuddyPress+bbPress. From a feature standpoint, this was a good option for the site. The problem has been that performance isn't great, and we've had a huge amount of trouble keeping spammers out. This was a case of it looking good on paper, but a year later, not being what we'd really hoped (sidenote, we migrated to the existing setup a little over a year ago off of Ning).
At first glance, vBulletin seems like a good option for us. I've been around the block a few times, so I remember vBulletin from back in the days of yore, but my personal experience with admining forums is mostly limited to phpBB and bbPress. vBulletin was always the 500 lb. gorilla on the block, so I give them a lot of legacy respect. It looks like they're also still more feature-complete than competitors. So, I was hoping some folks might be able to field a few fly balls for me to help in the decision making process.
At first glance, vBulletin seems like a good option for us. I've been around the block a few times, so I remember vBulletin from back in the days of yore, but my personal experience with admining forums is mostly limited to phpBB and bbPress. vBulletin was always the 500 lb. gorilla on the block, so I give them a lot of legacy respect. It looks like they're also still more feature-complete than competitors. So, I was hoping some folks might be able to field a few fly balls for me to help in the decision making process.
- Migration tools. This is a big thing. If I leave the existing system, and have to dump all the content there, it's going to piss off users. Ideally, I'd be able to migrate over the forum structure, threads, users, and their blog posts. How much pain am I in for? Do bbPress migration options exist?
- Shared login. Right now, my existing community shares a user table with another, related Wordpress site (brother and sister sites, if you will). While not a must have, it would be really nice if I could maintain that shared process. Possible, or no? If no, what about Facebook/Twitter/G+/etc oauth type logins?
- Theme/design. One of the big things our current site has going for it is that it's nice and responsive. I see that the "mobile bundle" for vBulletin is an upsell. Does that mean the native interface can't be skinned or designed in a way to make it more responsive friendly? How exposed are themes, basically, to a developer?
- Security. I'd heard there were some security issues early in the 5.x line. Are you confident that's been addressed?
- Quality. This is a minefield of a question. In researching vBulletin, there's a whole lot of stuff out there implying that vB5 is less than amazing. But, most of those are from the perspective of people comparing to vB3/4. I guess what I'm wondering is, would you buy vB5 again at this point? Has it met your expectations and performed as desired? As someone looking to build from the ground up on vB5, I obviously wouldn't have the problems established sites faced, and that's made getting a good baseline opinion of the platform difficult.
- What do you wish you'd known before launching on vB5?
- What would you do differently if you could do it over?
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