markwebb

This is not really a road cycling thread - but hey this category has 200+ viewing and the others have 12. I gotta go where the readers are.

Bike Forums uses VBulletin as it's forums software, I think. My son needs to set up a forums board for a project (not bike related at all), and we're wondering if VBulletin is the best, or if there's a preferred software for running a forum.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

Willks

There are 2 main forum softwares running at the moment. VBulletin and PHPBB. There are also a ton of others but these 2 have the largest support community / addons / hacks / mods. You can't go wrong with either.

markwebb

vBulletin looks like the way to go....now we need a reliable host service (VPS?) that can support a ton of traffic.

smellygary

Maybe your son shold find out for himself.

cydewaze

I've set up many forums, and my two favorites are vBulletin and Invision Power Board. phpBB doesn't even come close.

Hard to chose between VB and IPB though. Each have a ton of features in common with each other, and a few that are unique to themselves. Keep in mind that they both require licensing. IPB is around $70/yr, and I don't know what VB is. I think phpBB is free, but you get what you pay for.

JayC

Vbulletin is $160.00 per license.

I administrate about 20 VB forums and I wouldn't use anything else. They are quick to close up any security holes that surface and their customer support is pretty good for the most part.

There is also a huge mod community that supports VB, that helps for adding extras to your forums.

If you're looking to get out cheaply tho, it's hard to argue with PHPbb.

cydewaze

IPB has a huge mod community as well. Can't go wrong with either package.

The only problem with modding is having to reinstall the mods after forum updates. Too many mods and that gets to be a pain.

JayC

The new plugin system VB introduced in 3.5 really curbs the amount of work you have to do on an upgrade. I dont know if IPB has something like that but a lot of mods for vBulletin now essentially require no work other than clicking "Add Plugin" and clicking on the "upload" button.

3.0 was a nightmare on upgrades.. 3.5 has become MUCH more manageable.

cydewaze

Basically with IPB, the ACP tells you if an upgrade is available. If so, you click a link and it takes you to where the upgrade is so you can download it. This part is clunky because you have to log into the client center. Once you do, you download a zipfile, extract it, and upload the contents to the webserver. Then you visit your-forum-url.com/upgrade/ and follow the prompts.

It's not bad, but the part I don't like is if you have mods that required you to modify files by hand, and those files are included in the upgrade. It's a pain to have to reinstall mods after upgrades, especially when the mods haven't been tested on the new version.

A few mods is no problem, but I've been on boards that have a boatload of mods, and that can't be fun at upgrade time.

ramtaajogi

i use VB...and think its VERY easy to use.

7rider

This is key whenever you're using a popular program running php. The script kiddies are always looking for vulnerable sites, so close up the security holes ASAP once they're announced. Speaking from experience.

JayC

Yea.. I constantly see forums getting hacked and taken down.. most of them are using free software tho and I think holes get closed up relatively slowly in most of those packages. Kind of like WUFTP.... I got rooted so many times because of Wu.. I finally just had to dump it and go to SFTP.

I run forums for a living.. if there was something better than vBulletin, I would be using it.