phpBB vs vBulletin vs Invision Board vs YABBSE?

Worker Joined: Sep 01, 2004 Posts: 105

Which of these four do you think is the best? Here are my opinions:

phpBB: Most popular by far. Very secure. FREE! I can tell if it's phpBB at a glance. Love it. Never used anything else.

vBulletin: Very popular, but not free. I've been told that it's secure and stable but I haven't hosted a website with it. It's a cool forum if you're a member of a site with it. I think it may have more errors than phpBB.

Invision Board: Very popular, free/not free ?. I cannot tell if it's Invision Board or vBulletin at a glance because they look VERY much the same. I'm not entirely sure why. I've never hosted a site with it, but it looks stable.

YABBSE: Not as popular as the above, free. Eh, I haven't had much experience with this one.......no real opinions on it lol.

What about you?

Hangin' Around Joined: Jan 31, 2004 Posts: 31

Well as far as A USER and Looking at these, I'd have to say that vBulletin with vBIndex looks the best (most profesional) IMO. I have no idea on how modular it is or how easy/not easy to administrate it is. so I can't say about that. Also unlike most (I think at least) I don't actually like the way nuke handles articles.. I like articles (at least for my needs) to be actual posts in my forums so that if people want to make comments all comments are part of a board that they could browse straight through instead of looking at comments on articles.. looking at posts on forums.. etc. etc.. etc..

registered · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 7:21 am

I posted in your "poll" concerning this subject, and I know I am going to sound like a broken record....but......Burning Board is cheaper than vBulletin, but just as robust and a dream for an admin to maintain and configure!!! And it loads a lot more quickly than phpBB as well!

http://woltlab.com

New Member Joined: Jul 01, 2005 Posts: 1

I've used them all.

vbulletin is nice, but the admin area is not as user-friendly as phpBB or IB. Plus paying for a forum software that isn't any better than the free ones, kinda sux. Plus very few free themes.

YaBB is nothing special in my opinion. It was the first forum software I have ever used. Seems to be fading out.

Invision Board is very good, but as with vbulletin having to pay for a forum software is blah. Especially when there are others that are just as good or better.

phpBB is my all time favorite. I have been playing around with it since the early 1.x versions. The admin area is the most user-friendly of all the forum software out there. Plus it's free and 99% of the themes available are FREE. I've installed and edited probably close to 100 phpBB forums for people, and everyone that I installed for, loves phpBB and wouldn't change. Except maybe to phpnuke which uses phpBB for it's forums. =)

So, I guess my vote goes to phpBB, LOL.