The Ultimate Webmaster's Debate

[Koroku]

The ULTIMATE Webmaster's Debate


...which is best forum?!


Invision Power Board (IPB) <-- http://www.invisonboard.com
phpBB <-- http://www.phpbb.com
vBulletin (vB) <-- http://www.vbulletin.com
MyBB <-- http://www.mybboard.com/
Yet Another Bulletin Board (YaBB) <-- http://www.yabbforum.com
Simple Machines Forum (SMF) <-- http://www.simplemachines.org
[JKaizer reserves the right to take/add more forum software as they are PMed to him.]

Say your opinion, give your facts, and duke it out! >P

[PichuSecretBase]

I'm too lazy to PM you so http://php-post.co.uk

Uhm anyway I like myBB the best. It's easy to work with. SMF looks pretty cool though

[Morkula]

Well, of course almost everyone's going to say vB's the best. But out of the others it's either myBB or IPB, IMO. SMF is absolutely the ugliest thing I've ever seen. phpBB is pretty, but that's it =/

I'd say myBB will be the best when it goes Gold, but for now I'll stick with my IPB.

[Claire]

I've only used the top 3 on the list, but i prefer vBulletin out of all of them ^^ the mod/admin panels are easy to use, and you have a lot of freedom ^^

[Koroku]

Hmmm, vBulletin isn't all that good. It's really bulky, and some places, like the Forum Manager, take forever to load if you have a lot of forums.

I've always liked how phpBB looks...

SMF has awesome usergroups, though it's not as open as vBulletin.

IPB sucks overall.

And myBB looks like it'll be real good when it hits Gold. ^_^

[Kipkip]

I really don't like any of them. They all have things I like and things I don't like. But I like phpBB because 1) it's open-sourced 2) hacks 3) has nice themes.

[AZSupraT]

Um, this shouldnt even be a questionable subject in my book. vB hands down.

[Umbreon14]

phpBB is the easiest to use IMO.

[PichuSecretBase]

I don't like vB. Most of them are too complicated. In fact.. does anyone know a very simple forum software..? With PMing for sure!

[Koroku]

No, not really. o_O;;

phpBB would work for something simple like that. :P


And like I said, I like vB for the most part, but it's really bulky.

[PichuSecretBase]

phpBB is anything but simple @_@

[Imakuni?]

vBulletin - #1 i <3 its skinning sustem
Invision - was the best free
SMF - currently the best free one

[ChibiChibiPichu]

I like phpBB the best.. but then again I'm lazy and my server automatically installs it for me :D Ah, hail the laziness!

[Morkula]

myBB is good because it's almost exactly like a vBulletin, but free. It's a little bit buggy now, but it hasn't hit final release yet.

[kyo]

i don't like phpbb, ipb i love it i personally think is the best but now is paid only, smf is good but still prefer ipb, never used vbulletin c-panel so i don't have anything to say about it, mybb is good but still prefer ipb, yabb i liked is easy to skin, so i go with ipb.

[Koroku]

phpBB is really simple. o_O How hard can it be? O_o


And vBulletin easily takes #1 for skinning. It is soooo easy. =3

[kyo]

thats the thing is too simple, is lack on features, and you got to kill time to make it great, people even need to add a hack so you can make somebody super mod,i just hated.

[Koroku]

SMod is easy, just mod them in all the forums. XD

[PichuSecretBase]

For my forums it's just a very small quaint forum so thats why...

and phpbb has a ton of files >>

[Spectrum]

vBulletin, hands down. It's a shame I don't have the money to buy it. xD

[IceKitten]

I like free ones XD

But someone told me IF is easy to link to porn, I never knew that, did anyone else?

[Charizard Master 2003]

phpBB- http://www.myfreebb.com

this one is very cool.

I'm also too lazy to PM anybody.

[AZSupraT]

How can people say that vB is hard to use? Its easy as hell to set up and sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo easy to customize... I dont understand how you guys can think that??

[Spectrum]

Don't worry, Casey. They've probably never even used the Admin CP of vBulletin before. xD

[Rukario]

hmmmm... hard choice here..
Paid: hands down vBulletin, of course!
for a free board, i'd have to say phpbb but only cause i'm somewhat familar with it.. (if php isn't an option, i suggest you use YaBB Gold)

[Lightning]

Aino, you can easily play around with an Admin CP at the official site. x3 They give you a day to tinker with one. :3 And it is incredibly easy to figure out. vBulliten hands down for me.

As for free ones... I've never much cared for phpBB since it doesn't come with enough features and hacking takes too long in order to install enough of them. ^_^; I really liked IPB, but now it's not free anymore. I'm not really too familliar with the free ones since those are really the only two I've ever used. o_O

[Spectrum]

I know that, but most people don't bother to even do anything in it. They take one look and think it's impossible to use. xD

[HellishHades]

If you can program at all, it doesn't matter which piece of software you use. I've modded a few of the forum types listed, and I don't really see much difficulty in use, installation, or modification in any of them. With a fair bit of programming skill, which every webmaster should have, any BB can be modded to fit your needs. VB has more features initailly, but phpBB can easily have its programming altered to be just as good or better, for example.

[Lightning]

Oh, I agree. I just like extra features and whatnot, so it just makes more sense to me to get a bulkier forum as opposed to a phpBB and hacking it. Like I said... somewhere before, why spend all the time hacking one thing when you can download another pre-loaded with all the things you want? =x

[PichuSecretBase]

I just think vB is too complicated. I mean c'mon it has 100 files >>

[HellishHades]

I just think vB is too complicated. I mean c'mon it has 100 files >>

Would you rather it be disorganised, clustered into one, obscenely large source file?


why spend all the time hacking one thing when you can download another pre-loaded with all the things you want? =x

Why spend the money for one thing when you can better the code of another for free with all the things you want? I'll opt out of using "=x" in my response, though.

[Koroku]

Aye, why spend money for something that you can just hack in?


The good thing about phpBB - it's still free. =3

[Geometric-sama]

I <3 SMF. I'm biased because I was the first PC member to discover it though. :P

[PichuSecretBase]

SMF Rules *was playing aroundwith one*~!

I was the first person on PC to find and use a myBB XD

[Kipkip]

This is from my point of view of who likes what forum.
Developers seem to like phpBB more probally becuase of easy modifacation and it's open sourced. People who have money likes vB. And everyone else is evenly broken out amoung forums.
Oh, I agree. I just like extra features and whatnot, so it just makes more sense to me to get a bulkier forum as opposed to a phpBB and hacking it. Like I said... somewhere before, why spend all the time hacking one thing when you can download another pre-loaded with all the things you want? =x
That's the exact reason I like phpBB. It doesn't have a lot of stupid usless crap. I call it SUC. I have not yet to figure a way to incorpate a K in there. :laugh:
With phpBB, you get it for free and you get to have stuff you actually want. Some features in like vB are not used properly if used at all. Just like MS Word. And those non-used features could slow the forum down or get annoying. Of course, this is my opinion.

[Imakuni?]

phpbb is... phpbb. its horrible, from its name to its features. for free SMF is the way to go

[Nitrus]

Hmm... Well I want VB but don't ya need to pay XD

[Morkula]

Nitrus, myBB is the closest you're going to get to a free vB. It's got almost the same features and even looks like vB.

[Luigi-San]

phpBB- http://www.myfreebb.com (http://www.myfreebb.com/)

this one is very cool.

I'm also too lazy to PM anybody.
Unfortunately, they're not accepting hosting at the moment.

My free phpBB hosting reccommendation: http://www.galacnet.com

[Koroku]

This isn't for advertising free hosting. <_<;;

[DarknessMonkey]

Uhhh...
Ok I Tried To Sign Up For MyBB And It Wont Work I Cant Find The Sign Up Button...
I Want To Make A New Forum...

[Poke-Amph]

Free - PHPBB
Paid - Vbulliten

But still, I'd rather get bb software for free than for money, especially when they can do the same exact things. :\ I don't like the way PHPBBs look, though, because of the cellpadding/spacing.

[Koroku]

Uhhh...
Ok I Tried To Sign Up For MyBB And It Wont Work I Cant Find The Sign Up Button...
I Want To Make A New Forum...
This isn't hte right thread. -_-;

[Luigi-San]

This isn't for advertising free hosting. <_<;;
Then look at this:


phpBB- http://www.myfreebb.com (http://www.myfreebb.com/)

this one is very cool.

I'm also too lazy to PM anybody.
That's what I did!

If you didn't, you'll have to scroll down ;)

[Koroku]

-_-;;

We're talking about the software, not the hosts here. -_-;;;

[Cool Cr@cker]

Simple Machines Forums Look Great.But alex told me they are hard to install...
East or West VB is the best if you can afford them but it takes you some time to understand the system...
Invasion board is stupid!!!PHPBB is much better!

[Koroku]

SMF is indeed quite challenging to install. <_<;;

vB is nice... though the admin panel is uber slow. @.@

[MalafeX]

for me is not, i just upload the tar.bz2 zip, and extract the file with cpanel file manager, than just put my mysql information, than everything is done, i don't even need to chmod the files beceause the installer do it for me, is really easy, but i am using mybb right now, is really easy to skin.

[Morkula]

SMF is really easy for me to install.
*logs into CPanel and clicks Fantastico* :P

But I don't really care much for it- it's ugly and the admin panel isn't very expansive.

[MalafeX]

i don't know, but for me is not ugly, it looks great, and especially the classic skin.

[Koroku]

myBB is easy to skin - it uses stuff very similar to vB.

vB skinning is easy as all get out. :D


...and I agee, SMF default is ugly :X


...SMF normal installer is confusing. It wants FTP stuff. o_O

[Geometric-sama]

I like SMF default. And it has to FTP to chmod!

[Koroku]

That's the thing... it's annoying. Why not let us CHMOD ourselves? >_>

[Geometric-sama]

I find the auto thing much easier. But if you hate it so much, put in wrong details and then it'll tell you what to CHMOD I think.

[Koroku]

No, remember when we installed RXN? It threw a fit when it couldn't connect. :>

[Imakuni?]

i just chmod on my own, no need for auto chmod

[Geometric-sama]

Yeah... but it worked fine when we put in the base FTP stuff.

I had to put in my base stuff when gatomon was installing the YI forum too, come to think of it.

[Koroku]

That's what bugs me... why should we have to?

[Trikip]

My favorite is myBB. It has great features and a great default skin.

[Morkula]

myBB is great, it's just that it's buggy as all heck in its beta stage.

[MalafeX]

soon the gold version will be out, so there will be less bugs.

[Morkula]

Still, that's been pushed back to January now. So I'm still stuck with IPB. -_-

[Cool Cr@cker]

MyBB is Really Good ~~The best for anyone who cant afford VB!Can anyone tell me how much VB Costs BTW!And VB is top class No Forums Can even near it.

SMF is Awesome but tooo confusing to install.We wanted to have it for DRI Forums But Alex dropped it cause its tough.
*Wonders how JA Installed it*

[Koroku]

I installed it hte first time. ;)

[Scyther]

i agree it was Very difficult i couldnt do it

[MalafeX]

i don't know, but it was realy easy for me.

[Morkula]

Well, now that Kyle's shocked me to the point of spitting my drink all over everything, I am now convinced that vB is the absolute best. :P

[Corrupt]

Simple machines Becuse you can modifiy it more and i have only tryed smf Invasion and mybb

[Geometric-sama]

Maybe they're secretly collecting all our base FTP data. -__

[pokejungle]

I like vB. Of course, if I had enough money to buy it, I'd like it even better.

vB just seems to have a nice, clean interface, and is very easy to use. Is it sucetible to the php bug? I don't think so, but just checking x_x

[Morkula]

I <3 my vB. It's definitely worth the money. I'm probably going to have to renew the one that Kyle bought me sometime this summer, and I'll probably get a full license.

[pokejungle]

If I actually get a job, I'll be upgrading PJN's forums to vB. Of course, then I'd spend more time on the site to. I wish keeping up a site weren't so hard, especially when there's PC to consume all my time >>

[Morkula]

Maybe you and Tommy could split the cost of one?
I know. PC's so addicting, it's hard to take time to work on our sites. :P

[pokejungle]

I kinda forget about Tommy. XD

Ya, it would be nice if he payed half. But, I don't know if he would...=/ He doesn't use CC that much anyways.