Invison Board vs vBulletin

[Shadow Duelist]

Yes, The battle between the champions.. Who has more features? Who is better?

That's what this thread is for.

I'm using IB right now, (No, not ikonboard, Invision Board, ) And, I'm starting to like vB.. I'm going to buy a license.. (Oh, joy!!! ^_^; And, I think that IB has a bit more features... I realy do love vB's skinning system. It's so easy to configure.. ^_^.

Who do you think is better? Has less features.. And other?

We discuss in here .

[LLFan]

IPB does not have more features--but less. IPB 2.0 might have more features then vB but it's still in alpha.

I have used IPB for about a year--the software is ok but the company is a joke. My site was in the midst of converting our board to IPB and Matt et. al. agree to do a conversion script for us to the tune of $300. Delay after delay--I kept getting tons of excuses as to why it wasn't started until finally they stopped responding to us. I then emailed Matt, Charles, and a few others telling them this was going on--it's been a year and still no response.

I don't want their company name associated with my site. And if you think this was a one time situation (as if that was an excuse) here's a copy of a post on IPB's forum that they quickly deleted (though not before I grabbed it).

I have finally lost my confidence in invisionboard.com. I called spoke to Craig December 11, 2003 at approx 2:10 PM at invision board that advises me that he is just the "middle man". My complaint is "JUST" I have complained that my bulk mail program has not worked since the date of my forum board being moved over to their hosting services which , get this now... almost three months! I have placed ticket upon ticket, I have heard every excuse in the book, I'm even told that I'm the only one with this problem. Not to mention advising me that doing bulk email is not a positive direction to use, when in fact my members of our forum board were used to getting a press release letter bi-weekly.

Now to start things off I was told that the bulk mail program will not work due to the type of servers their running and that a custom script would have to be written to make this work just for me, ummm remember I'm the only one complaining about this problem I'm told. I have waited for this script now for three months almost. I can go around the world a hundred times in this amount of time. I import coffee beans from countries around the globe, have shipments coming in each week and I can't get a script to by-pass their issue of the bulk mailer program not working. Is it my fault that I can't use a function that I'm entitled to use considering that I purchased the license fee for. If anyone else has this problem of their bulk mail program not working please email me at [email protected]. I would like to gain as much information as possible to see how many others are not being treated fair concerning this issue or any other issue with invision board for that matter!

If you have a licensed paid version of this software, hosted via them and you are encountering the above problems please do not hesitate to contact me via email. I feel that this has gone far enough. I have to admit that in all my years on the internet and I am pushing fifty years old that I have never seen such disorganization in my life.

I want the world to hear me! I want the world to know that this is not justified that their selling hosting server space which will not allow the bulk email function to work. In other words it's called spam by them from one of my conversations. I find that to be untrue. Our members enjoyed getting a news letter, giving updates. If invision board feels that it's wrong, that it's bulk mail I would suggest removing it from the software that their selling.

I could have went in and written a script to make this function run. I don't think it was fair for me to have to write something that should not have to be written in the first place, after all I pay for hosting and technical support! I again ask that if anyone has a problem with invision board to please contact me via [email protected]


Invision board you make promises that you can't keep. I have emails, I have the tickets, I have evidence that shows this is a problem on your end that was to be resolved months ago. I can't believe I called again last week to here Craig tell me that it's possible it can be corrected over the weekend. I gave them the benefit of the doubt again, even waited to call him a week later and of course I get the same thing, it's not done! I have posted this message on at least a dozen other boards in hope to find others with this same problem. If I don't stand up no one will. I will not give up till this is resolved and I will make sure my voice is heard around the world. I am also filing a letter with the better business bureau in their location inside the United States! I am also calling to check status if and how many others have ever filed such a complaint if not it will be their first!

So far I have been running vB for 1 day and can tell you--the admin cp is much more impressive as you can make modifications on the fly that you cannot in IPB 1.2 or 1.3. And 1.2 doesn't come close to vB 3.0.

[Steve Machol]

To tell you the truth I can see where this thread is heading. While we generally are very liberal in allowing discussions of competing software on our forums, we do try to maintain some sort of balance and not allow software bashing here. I'm going to close this thread since I can seeabsoultely nothing useful coming out of this for anyone.

Note: People on these forums tend to like vB best and people on other forunms tend to like the other guy's software best. No surprise there. These kind of questions are better asked on non-partial forums.

[Wayne Luke]

Okay. I will list what vBulletin has but will not be doing a compare and contrast post at this time. So let's go through the vBulletin control panel starting at the top.

vBulletin Options
vBulletin offers 251 options in 36 different setting groups for the person who wants complete control over their community. These settings come preset to enable the most used options and settings by default so you can leave them as is or fine tune the system to fit your needs and resources.

Styles & Templates
vBulletin 3.0 provides you with the most comprehensive skinning system on the market. Colors are selected in a point and click manner. Changing the location of any graphics is as simple as filling in a form. You can control everything down the colors of your smilies for a particular style. The template system allows unlimited children styles which inherit settings from their parents as needed allowing for unlimited control. Also since the templates are stored in the database, they can be cached and retrieved with one query instead of multiple file reads and you don't have to worry about file permissions to edit the templates.

Add to this other features like Find and Replace thoughout the templates, Template Conditionals and Finding Updated Templates on the vBulletin.com Server plus more features and you can create a community to fit your personal needs. You can also share styles with friends or other webmasters using an easy XML file transfer system.

Languages & Phrases
New to vBulletin 3, Languages and Phrases allows you an easier means of offering multiple languages to your community. In the past you needed a new Style for every language but not anymore. Now all you need is to create a language translation or download one in an XML format that can easily be added to your system. Since our phrases are stored in the Database as well, you can pull everything you need for a page in a single query and only get the phrases you need which lowers memory usage.

FAQ Manager
We provide a fully configurable FAQ manager with multiple levels of FAQS and a complete search facility. No longer do you have to hack the system to add new FAQ entries or read each one to find what you are looking for.

Announcements
Allows you to post static announcements globally on your system, by category and by forum. Sub-Forums inherit their parent's announcements.

Forums & Moderators
Here you can set up your communities structure with unlimited sub-forums and categories. You can assign moderators and set their permissions on a forum by forum basis or assign them to categories and have sub-forums inherit their permissions. You can also fine tune permissions for each and every usergroup in the system using an inherited permissions system that gives you complete control. You can also preview permissions based on user group here.

Calendars & Moderators
If you need multiple event calendars we provide it with recurring events, multiple day events and a complete Holiday manager. You can assign moderators to the calendars to keep them clean and on topic. Also each member gets their own private calendar for personal events. You can add new fields to individual calendars to track special events like concerts or conferences.

Attachments
Control your attachments. Here you can add new attachment types and control them by specifying height and width for images as well as maximum file size. You can also specify the storage system you want to use. Place attachments in the database for ease of backing up everything together or place them in the file system for expandability and smaller database files.

Users
vBulletin comes with a complete User manager including a timed banning system. You can edit users, add users, check private message statistics, search for users on any field in their profile, email user groups based on profile fields or usergroup and a lot more.

Usergroups
Create unlimited usergroups with custom permissions. Members can be members of multiple groups including moderated public groups where they have to apply for entrance. You can also set up group promotions which move a user from one group to another (possibly with added permissions) based on posts, length of registration or reputation. This is the core of the vBulletin security system and as with everything else, you are in complete control. Each user group has over 70 different permissions and settings to give you control over your community. vBulletin ships with 6 groups covering the most commonly needed settings but you can add as many as you need. You can also override each usergroup permission on a per forum basis in the Forum Manager.

User Titles
You can assign unlimited user titles based on their post count. New titles are assigned automatically.

User Ranks
Assign ranks in either text or images to users based on their usergroup, posts, length of registration or reputation in the community.

User Reputation
Control the User reputation system here by specifying the different available layers.

User Profile Fields
Add unlimited new fields to the user's profile. Profile fields can be text fields, text areas, radio buttons, checkboxes, multiple select dropdowns or single select dropdowns. Customize the user profile based on your communities needs without editing any files. You can also use profile fields to control user options using Template Conditionals so this is an easy way to add new features to your community without editing any files.

Subscriptions
Create subscription accounts offering more features to users in order to gather funds to pay for your community.

Avatars / Post Icons / Smilies
Manage your communities custom graphics such as Avatars in multiple categories. Add new ones singly or a directory at a time. Also control Avatar storage options which include database storage and file system storage.

Custom BBCodes
Add custom BBCodes to the system without editing the PHP code. Your choices are pretty limitless as any valid HTML can be turned into BBCode. You can assign Parameters and Options as well. You can even tie your BBCode into the WYSIWYG editor by supplying a custom Icon to be used.

Scheduled Tasks
Create scheduled tasks to maintain your community on a regular basis. This feature doesn't require access to CRONTAB and works on all operating systems without interaction with the underlying system or root level access.

Statistics and Logs
Keep track of your community here. Statistics show you how things have progressed over time. The logs show you what your fellow administrators and moderators have been doing to keep things working smoothly. Or if there is a problem, you can track it down here.

Import and Maintenace
Rebuild counters and various indexes here. You can also repair all your vBulletin tables as well as run SQL Queries to maintain your database properly.

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I'll try to go through the front-end features for the user in another post later. This is just a quick overview of the Admin Control Panel and many subsystems would require whole chapters to describe them in depth.

edit: While writing this reply, I see that the thread was closed so while I will leave my reply, I am not sure if I should go further.