phpBB sucks

[Glitch]

I just recently installed a phpBB forum on my server, and after a couple months of working with it, I've come to the conclusion that phpBB sucks.

I initially wanted to use vBulletin, but it wasn't free, but now I'm wondering if I should just suck it up and pay the price.

So my question is, is vBulletin worth the $160 plus the $30 fee for updates?

[andyrose]

If I heard right, phpbb isn't even updated anymore, someone told me that there's no support for it anymore.

vbulletin is definitely worth it if you plan on having a busy forum. It's the shit. I think it's a pretty good investment, because you can pretty much use it forever.

[Glitch]

Yeah, phpBB board are supposed to get hacked a lot, which only adds to their suckiness.

Does vBulletin require any coding, though? Any database management? Because honestly, I had trouble to begin with installing the phpBB forum and linking it to a database.

[andyrose]

vbulletin is about the same difficulty to set up, but it's actually pretty simple once you wrap your head around it. Set up your MySQL database with your webhost and get your database name, login, password, etc., transfer the files to your server, edit a config file to match your MySQL database info, and then go to the install.php file to get walked through the installation.

As far as database management goes, you won't have to worry a whole lot about having to go in and manually edit the database or anything, vbulletin has a ton of automated repair functions. You can even backup your database from the vbulletin control panel.

You don't have to know much about coding, but you do have to edit that config file, which has code in it. It's not that tough though.

[Glitch]

Thanks, man.

I'll go ahead and purchase vBulletin once I can scrounge up the money for it. My current forum is fairly new, so I don't think people will mind their profiles being deleted.

[andyrose]

Oh yeah, added bonus of vbulletin: It imports databases from phpbb. It's a free download from their website. It works pretty good.

[mollipen]

You also have Invision Board as an option. That's what I use, and I like it.

[Melf]

Oh yeah, added bonus of vbulletin: It imports databases from phpbb. It's a free download from their website. It works pretty good.

Yep. My boards were originally on Invision Free, which had a lot of good options but was really fugly, so we changed to phpbb. My biggest gripe with it was that it had fewer options than the Invision Free one had, even though it looked a lot better. I finally sucked it up and bought a VB license, as well as the neat plasma skin we have. We then transferred the old board over.

I love VB's tons of options, and I find it to be very user-friendly. It's a lot safer than phpbb too. Digital Press's boards are phpbb and they get hacked all the time.

Invision's premium boards rock too. I haven't used one, but they seem very complete from what I've seen.

Whichever one you go for, you should definitely upgrade. It seems like a lot, but it's definitely worth the investment in the long run.