Picking a type of Forum

[Spit-wad]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking into creating a forum that would ideally receive a large amount of traffic. The site would only consist of the forum, so I need a high quality forum.

It seems that the main ones available are:

vBulletin Forums (used by Tech-Forums)
Invision Power Board
Simple Machine Forums
ZetaBoards
phpBB

I'm looking for some input from people who have experience with forums, both as a user, and an administrator.

It's nice that SMF, Zeta, and phpBB are free, however my first impression is that vBulletin and IPB are worth the money - they definitely seem to be very stable and easy to navigate.


I know that phpBB is used a lot because of it's ability to be integrated and customized.

I do not know PHP, and don't want to do a whole lot of coding for this - I have a knowledge in HTML and CSS, but don't exactly want to create a whole style sheet by myself. (However, I do have a theme in mind, and would want to make sure I could have the correct theme on the forum)

I've always liked IPB a lot, but maybe some Tech-Forums staff could tell me what they like about vBulletin?

Are there any other ones I should be considering?
Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal for me, but all of the forums I've used or administrated in the past were not owned by me (or were small enough that I didn't care) - so I feel like I should do some research before paying $200 for a forum.

Any type of input by anyone here is greatly appreciated.

 

[Trotter]

My experience lies with vB, but vB is built from php. Think of it as a standardized and supported version with a lot of people using it... and it is not free.

My clan's website is built from from scratch, but utilizes php. The old site was based on phpBB that was heavily customized. Our webmaster will quickly tell you he would love to have vB if he could afford it as it is the Cadillac of forum software.

vBulletin can import posts and info from other forum softwares, so you could start with one of the free ones and then move to vB later on since it costs $195 for just the forum software.

 

[KSoD]

I have used all the boards mentioned. I administrated on everyone of them. vB and IPB are by far the easiest to work with and the best to use. They are worth the money. If the funds are available i would say go with vB over IPB as it is far easier to use and administrate.

IPB has jsut updated not long ago and has some very nice features. but overall i prefer vB to IPB in every way. The free ones, phpBB, SMF and Zeta are alright for smaller sites. They require a lot more work to be done to them to get even some of the basic features that vB has. Like the new posts. That is not in those forums by default and require you to add a mod to get them.

Other things like SEO and that have to be added. By default vB and IPB offer much more up front from just a install of the forum software. It will take you more time to install the free ones, find the mods you want/need and install them to get the site to how you want it than it would with vB/IPB. not to mention that the updates are done more often and as such those mods are broken till a update is done.

If the updates to the mods are not done quickly you lose that function or could lose other functions of the forum until you remove the Mods waiting for the update, if it comes. the free ones are so based around the community's input to keep things running on it that it doesnt make it worth while for larger sites.

IPB and vB also have user sites and Mods, but those are more for things that you think will be cool or add some new features that you like. Those updates are done a lot faster than anything i have seen with the free ones.

I think you get what i am saying. Yes it costs money to get vB or IPB, but it is well spent.

 

[Spit-wad]

Thank you both VERY much. Those were exactly the kind of responses I was looking for - I appreciate the detail you went into.

vBulletin can import posts and info from other forum softwares, so you could start with one of the free ones and then move to vB later on

I found this part very interesting, and might be ideal for what I'm planning to do. Are there particular ones it imports from? Some better than others? Are there known to be problems when importing? (For example, would it be better to start with SMF and then pay for vB when the time comes, and the import would be easy?)


I'm glad to hear that you think IPB and vB are well worth it, Mak - that confirms my previous assumptions.

Now since you were talking about having mods for these forums, would it probably not be necessary for me to have a knowledge in php, even though they are built in php?

 

[KSoD]

No. I have no knowledge of PHP and i do it.

As for the export to vB you may want to check out which ones it is the easiest to do it with and which is the most compatible. phpBB might be the best one as i know it can be done with that one. But that was also like 4 years ago. XD

The best tip, research, research, research.

 

[Spit-wad]

Yep - this was part of my research, since I trust the intelligence of people here

 

[madtear warrior]

yea i have ipb and it sucks dont get it and am goin to change to vbulletin cause it is good like you guyz said thanx

 

[HexFinder]

It is pretty much advised above. I have used all of the above and vB is the top. If you do not have the 200$ to invest into it right away I would recommend phpBB over the others to begin with. The board itself utilizes phpBB to do the forum but no coding is required unless you need customization.

My recommendation would be to begin with phpBB and once it is a decent sized forum and you want to remake the forum, at that point you can always move to vB and import the database.

 

[Spit-wad]

I tried out IPB and was amazed at how many options it was lacking compared to vB.

Thus, I have chosen to go with vB - thanks for all the input guys.
(although I am also running a smaller forum on phpBB since I didn't want to spend any money, and it seems fine for a free board)