phpBB & VBulletin

Gordon

I'm putting up a wee forum and am thinking about what software to use. The price of vbulletin is a tad much for now as I'm not sure how well the site will go (quite slowly I imagine!).

I'm thinking about starting off on phpBB and moving on to vbulletin if all goes nicely. If I do eventually upgrade - how easy is it to cross over from phpBB to VBulletin? I found this thread on this forum but after reading it I'm still not sure!

If it's a pain in the arse I'll just pay the cash and go for vBulletin as I understand from reading this forum that phpBB is a bother for upgrades and hacking.

Thanks.

Rollo Tamasi

i'm converting from phpbb to vbulletin tomorrow night so i'll let you know how it goes.

mneylon

It's not too bad, but I'd recommend reading the docs carefully. I think I ended up with a couple of duplicate users and some very odd permissions on users. It was easy enough to fix, but confused the hell out of me initially

DOLEMAN

I use both PHPBB and vBulletin.

I really don't see what all the fuss is over vBulletin. Everything I want to do, PHPBB does nicely. I've also found the PHPBB code is nicer (easier to edit) and the templating system is grand.

Just because PHPBB is free doesn't make it crap!

mneylon

DOLEMAN wrote:

Just because PHPBB is free doesn't make it crap!

No. The security holes it seems to attract do though...

dahamsta

I find phpBB very limited and slow on the development side after vBulletin, I'd only use it for very, very basic requirements. I wouldn't let a customer use it unless they agreed in triplicate to update it as soon as new releases come out.

But anyway, to answer the question: You may end up with a few oddities, but generally the importers work quite well, as long as you follow the instructions to the letter. If you don't follow the instructions to the letter, you'll end up with a very odd looking vB.

adam

Ph3n0m

The simple guideline is vbulletin costs money because you have people constantly working on it, fixing any security holes, improving features and creating new add-ons

phpBB is grand for an open source forum - but dont expect any kind of instant support. Security holes are only fixed as and when they are found

Gordon

Thanks guys, I'll start off with the phpBB first then.

Do you, that have vBulletin, have an owned or a leased licence? It seems to work out cheaper on the third year of use as far as I understand.

Serbian

Gordon wrote:

Thanks guys, I'll start off with the phpBB first then.

Do you, that have vBulletin, have an owned or a leased licence? It seems to work out cheaper on the third year of use as far as I understand.

There are other alternatives too. I would personally use Lussumo Vanilla ahead of PHP BB as it looks pretty nice out of the box, it's free and is bound to be more secure (even if it's not, it's not actively targetted for hacking like PHP BB is). The only downside to this is the threading structure is not what people are used to and can be a little confusing at the start.

Another decent one is Invision PowerBoard. It's not free ($185 for a perpetual license) but it looks better than vBulletin. It's probably updated regularly but I have never actually administrated it so I can't be sure on that.

dahamsta

Vanilla really is a lovely looking BB, I find myself digging for the URL every time I want something basic, but always end up with phpBB simply because I can't find it! However there is the problem of forwards compatibility, as last I looked there wasn't an importer for vB.

Invision is really a matter of taste and requirements, it's functionality is very similar to vB on the surface, but on the admin side there are a few extra features, and a few missing features (as compared to vB). I can't agree on better looks, never liked it tbh.

Gordon, it depends on the application imho: if the forum is guaranteed to take off, an owned licence is logical; if it's not a given, I prefer to go for leased at the outset. Bear in mind that you still need to pay a fee for update access with the owned licence.

adam

mneylon

Gordon wrote:

Do you, that have vBulletin, have an owned or a leased licence? It seems to work out cheaper on the third year of use as far as I understand.

All licenses we have are owned.

Steveire

Don't forget simple machines. That's what I think I'll use (eventually)...

http://support.simplemachines.org/demo/index.php
user: test
pass: test

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127760
I presume impex is the same thing that is used to convert phpBB.

dahamsta

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/impex

The Muppet

Gordon wrote:

Thanks guys, I'll start off with the phpBB first then.

Do you, that have vBulletin, have an owned or a leased licence? It seems to work out cheaper on the third year of use as far as I understand.

Have a look at Phpbb Plus. It is a pre modded version of phpbb and has some additional features in the Adminstration section that may be useful.

Sparky

Gordon wrote:

Thanks guys, I'll start off with the phpBB first then.

Do you, that have vBulletin, have an owned or a leased licence? It seems to work out cheaper on the third year of use as far as I understand.

I have a leased licence of vB, but come november I'll buy it, but all depends on how my forum progress's

I started off on phpBB and used vB's import product called Impex.
You will need to set up your vB database and have it working, then enter your source database details and target details in the config file.
It sounds complicated, but its piss easy.

I modded phpbb alot and I found it harder than vB. You need to edit the actual file in the directory on most phpbb hacks, where as vB either uses a plugin, file upload and a bit of style editing(which can be done from the adminCP)
Style editing in phpbb results in you actually editing the file, so if a messup happens you have to re-upload a cleanfile.
vB files are easy to reverse.
Hence why vB is used more and is payable.

Gordon

That's nice to know. I've edited the phpbb on the overall header quite a bit, ie - taken away the top menu links and replaced them with my own styled links. I gather that upgrading phpbb will mean that I'll need to drop this code in every upgrade so it'll be nice to not have to do that with vbulletin. (thankfully it's a simple code block drop and paste though as opposed to little niggly pieces all over the gaff).

Having lots of hacks on phpbb must be a pain in the arse to upgrade with though. I put a small welcome hack on the forum and that took a bit of finding and replacing, I can't imagine how annoying it must be to do that with hacks all over the place.

dahamsta

vBulletin used to be like that - which is why I never ran any hacks - but they introduced a hacks and hooks model where hacks are external and hook into the vB code in hundreds of places provided by the developers. It's a nice system. I still don't run many hacks though. It's just asking for trouble imho. K.I.S.S.

Gordon

heh, "creeping featurism", got to use that phrase soon!

Sparky

The other thing that makes vB great is the fact that the header your on about can be easily intigrated.
And if its wrong you will get an error, so that you dont mess up the whole forum.
You can also revert everything you do.

Gordon have you had a go at the admin demo on vb.com?
If not you should, Im sure you'll be well aware of some of the functions.
http://www.vbulletin.com/admindemo.php

Gordon

Yeah, I've seen the admin utils when they made me a smod and forgot to set correct permissions for us! It's much better than the phpBB definitely. However, phpBB has a decent enough cp for a small board. (Boards used to be phpBB didn't it?)

I just did my first phpBB update and at least that was pretty painless. I have customised the header to remove the initial user options/menu and replace them all with a css menu/header. Was pleasantly surprised to see it all working when I imported my custom template upon update. Shame you have to reconfigure the board's general settings though. Got to love open source.

Sparky

I think Boards was UBB to start with.

Anyway whats your site? Without shilling it

Gordon

I'd love to put it up to get feedback but due the amount of people I've banned on this site and the number of them that may want to hack my site, I'd rather not risk it!