Blind Bandit Posted September 30, 2008 Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 I hope this is in the right section. So like many I'm struggling to nail down the right forum software. I have been very heavily considering moving from Proboards to a self hosted forum with MDD. So what forum software do you have experience with or what forum software do you enjoy? The software packages I've looked at. V Bulletin- the standard is forum software. Has a huge amount of features and has very big mod / theme community. Is very expensive for most. IPB- also considered a standard of forum software. Has a lot of features. Is like Vb expensive. PHPBB- A main stay in free forum software. Has a decent number of features a very large modding /tempting community. Its free and open source. SMF- is a newer player in free forum software. Has decent features but seems to be adding features rather slowly. Has a good modding / theme community. Its free. I do feel slowness on adding features can cause problem for some as well desire to not be bloated. SMF is community to be a forum software but dosen't push a bigger package like software providers. MyBB- a very new player in the free forum software game. They seem to have been inspired a great deal by VBulletin. The software is feature rich especially for a free piece of software. But the modding and theme community is still lacking. Being so new may be a determinate for some. Please don't' take this as anything official this is just my take on the forum software I've looked at. So tell me me what dose everyone else think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael D. Posted September 30, 2008 Report Share Posted September 30, 2008 I like phpBB3 for non commercial sites like inlandr.com but for a commercial business I think one should go with vB or IPB. vB is a bit ahead of IPB feature and mod wise but IPB3 is going to blow vB away :-) Hopefully others will have some input as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 I like smf, ipb and ocportal (it is a cms and yes it comes with its own forum that you can use or use a different forum lik ipb and smf). Oh and by the way SMF has been around a long time. It was called Yabb se Before they changed the name. I used it back when it was still called yabb over 4 years ago. That was also back when IPB was free. March 31st, 2004 - From its first conception in November of 2001, to the current 1.5.5 release the path has been one of great learning and evolution. Starting from an idea of a port of the Zef Hemel's popular YaBB Perl software to growing to a team of close to a dozen people, hundreds of community released mods, and a great community. While today we are officially putting the YaBB SE project to bed, we promise that the ideas and premise behind the project will not die. The team that has brought you YaBB SE has moved on to develop the next evolution in forum software, SMF. We have rebranded ourselves under the name Simple Machines and continue to strive to release the best free forum software out there and are ready to compete with products of the commercial caliber. To learn more about SMF please visit the Simple Machines website.Thanks for all of your continued support and care,The YaBB SE TeamYou may download a supported version of SMF here:http://www.simplemachines.org/download.php You may download an unsupported legacy version of YaBB SE version 1.5.5 from SourceForge here:http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57105 You may still view our community forum with read only access to our archives of information:http://www.yabbse.org/community/index.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blind Bandit Posted October 1, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 I like phpBB3 for non commercial sites like inlandr.com but for a commercial business I think one should go with vB or IPB. vB is a bit ahead of IPB feature and mod wise but IPB3 is going to blow vB away :-) Hopefully others will have some input as well! thanks mike. You made a good point the big communities or business communities tend to go with either IPB or VB and not much else. For some reason I just can't warm up to phpBB as a poster and if I can't warm up to it as a poster then I don't think admining it would be any better. I like smf, ipb and ocportal (it is a cms and yes it comes with its own forum that you can use or use a different forum lik ipb and smf). Oh and by the way SMF has been around a long time. It was called Yabb se Before they changed the name. I used it back when it was still called yabb over 4 years ago. That was also back when IPB was free. Ya I saw that its and interesting turn of events. Proboards is actually based of the Perl version of YABB. Thanks what do you prefer IPB vs SMF? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael D. Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Between IPB and SMF it's a hard decision. If money is an issue I'd not have a problem at all going with SMF but if you have the money I think I'd go for IPB. Check out http://www.inlandr.com/ it's a phpBB3 board for which I am an administrator. I think the user-side is ok but the administration side is a bit convoluted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 PHPbb is a nightmare, I help manage my brothers site and he was using that before he got AEF. I have a site that is running smf http://oc4themes.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael D. Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 I wonder how much Victor wants for that vB license *shoots over a PM* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Who is victor? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael D. Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Who is victor?"Lucky Me" on the forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Oh and why did you want to get vb from him? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael D. Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Oh and why did you want to get vb from him?Going to give it to my friend for inlandr.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Oh I see. Good luck on getting that done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael D. Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Oh I see. Good luck on getting that done.If Victor doesn't want to part with it that's fine I'll likely just save up and buy a copy of IPB for him When I get some extra cash. He's been a tremendous friend, so it's the least I could do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kittycat Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 I like going to sites with IPB, easier for members. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 1, 2008 Report Share Posted October 1, 2008 Wow your a good friend. I just thought of some thing I want to add to this. I see that people say vb has more mods and features - although I have looked and see no evidence of that.I got IPB do it it having the features I want and vb did not. As for mods - guess it depends what you want.As of right now Vb has no rpg system and IPB has 3 maybe 4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blind Bandit Posted October 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Wow your a good friend. I just thought of some thing I want to add to this. I see that people say vb has more mods and features - although I have looked and see no evidence of that.I got IPB do it it having the features I want and vb did not. As for mods - guess it depends what you want.As of right now Vb has no rpg system and IPB has 3 maybe 4. I think their refereeing to none official mods or it could simply be a generalization. One thing I was wonder though. Are VB and IPB heavier on a sever compared to SMF, PHPBB? I don't want to overgeneralize but I' heard this and I'm just curious to know its true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 From my experience smf uses far less resources then IPb. I am unsure about vb or phpbb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael D. Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 From my experience smf uses far less resources then IPb. I am unsure about vb or phpbb.Realistically they're all heavy when it comes to database usage, beyond that I can't really say too much about them as I've not compared them directly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 2, 2008 Report Share Posted October 2, 2008 Ah for me I was comparing the bandwidth, database and speed.IPB puts all the skins in the database so it grows much faster and the database also takes up more room for posts and topics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blind Bandit Posted October 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 Ah for me I was comparing the bandwidth, database and speed.IPB puts all the skins in the database so it grows much faster and the database also takes up more room for posts and topics. Hmmmm interesting. Guys I've got another piece of forum software everyone might want to look at . MyBB a forum software inspired by VB or so I'm been told. http://www.mybboard.net/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunnykins Posted October 6, 2008 Report Share Posted October 6, 2008 I remember when Mybb came out.When it came out it looked like IPB and could use some of IPB's mods. I think How ever after a disagreement they based a newer version on VB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blind Bandit Posted November 3, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 I remember when Mybb came out.When it came out it looked like IPB and could use some of IPB's mods. I think How ever after a disagreement they based a newer version on VB. Ya that what I've heard as well. I've also read that VB required Mybb to change some of its code. I noticed this while posting on the admin zone. this kind of worries me. Not necessarily the number of advisories but how many vulnerabilities there were. http://secunia.com/advisories/product/4479/ But this also from what I understand three versions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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