vBulletin vs IPB

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Posted by NameSniper, 12-16-2006, 03:17 PM
Can anyone please refer or tell me his own expirience with vBulletin and IPB based forums,which one is performing better and loads the server less ? Anyone have a forum with 1 GB+ database and which server config do you have ?
Posted by PersonalJ, 12-16-2006, 03:20 PM
IPB recently raised their licensing pricing, I'd go with VB, VB is also a bit more secure.
Posted by mitchlrm, 12-16-2006, 03:29 PM
but I don't have any experience with vBulletin. Along with the previous poster, I would say I'm dissatisfied with the new pricing. I also don't think IPB's anti-spam measures have worked that well so far. I can't help with your basic questions, except to say IPB's performance has been good for me. Definitely, look closely at the anti-spam tools both have. This has become a big problem on the Internet and you don't want to be wasting a lot of time deleting spam.
Posted by kris1351, 12-17-2006, 04:39 PM
VB is much more scalable and from my dealings it is much less of a resource hog than IPB. The VB support team blows IPB away also.
Posted by Nunim, 12-17-2006, 05:28 PM
I favor IPB over vB but I don't have the same amount of experience with vB. The only downside to IPB is the newly increased pricing. Both have many mods, but I perfer the IPB mod community at Invisionize, over any vB equivalent.
Posted by layer0, 12-17-2006, 05:43 PM
vB all the way!
Posted by GLucas, 12-17-2006, 05:55 PM
I was one of their really really old customers. When IPB was in Alpha stages, when the owner was working on a previous software. To be honest, IPB has gone downhill, it's bloated and it's not as secure as vB. I've been working with vB for some time now and I would say it's 10x better than IPB as for security and quality.
Posted by Woooo, 12-17-2006, 06:03 PM
VB for professional looking forums and IPB for social and casual forums. To me IPOB performed very better, or maybe I am used to it, But spam problem is a lot in IPB.
Posted by Plutomic-Andrew, 12-17-2006, 07:21 PM
You're all using vBulletin now. I would say vBulletin is also much more secure than IPB.
Posted by maxymizer, 12-17-2006, 07:50 PM
I used IPB for about 3 years on one site. I had no security or performance problems. However, I never required tech support or anything else so I can't be the judge of that and all the mods I did were my own. I have a database that's about mentioned size, the forum is performing extremely well, there are no slowdowns or load issues. Server is P4 3.06ghz, 1GB ram, 120gb SATA.
Posted by NameSniper, 12-18-2006, 08:15 PM
As far as i see,it seems that vBulletin is prefered over IPB Regaridng SPAM issue,did you meant that spammers bots are registering and spaming your board ? My solution was that i have created new group and set all new regsitrations to have that group. These users cant open new threads or use PM untill they have 10 posts. Once they reach 10 posts they are moving from spam group to usual members group. This way i almost dont see spam anymore.
Posted by NameSniper, 12-18-2006, 08:19 PM
Does anyone has link to IPB vs vBulletin performance benchmark ?
Posted by freak, 12-18-2006, 08:58 PM
IPB probably prices too much. The fact that most big sites are using vBulletin should mean something
Posted by pinball571, 12-21-2006, 01:47 AM
vB all the way!
Posted by WireNine, 12-21-2006, 01:53 AM
vBulletin, you can't go wrong
Posted by FrancoBollo, 12-22-2006, 03:18 AM
Are you interested in an alternative? Have you looked at SMF? Have a look at simplemachines.org. It looks good and the community is big. I haven't tried it myself but my friend swears by it!
Posted by VDRS Host, 12-22-2006, 05:53 AM
I would say IPB as i think it easier to mod, dont know how hard skinning is for vBulliten but IPB skinning is quite easy so you could make your own professional skin which could me miles better than the default one. Also the ACP in IPB looks more cleaner than vBulliten. But they are both good products for different reasons. One of the reasons why i didn't buy vBulliten was the price when compared to IPS before the costs went up for the new release of IPB. Last edited by VDRS Host; 12-22-2006 at 06:06 AM.
Posted by Ivan23, 12-22-2006, 06:26 AM
both are good, but one thing between both IPB is always increasing pricing very 4-6mo's .. for that reason i'll pick vb
Posted by HostiaWeb, 12-22-2006, 07:36 AM
I personally recommend IPB but vb is also very good
Posted by Webmaster7, 12-22-2006, 10:03 AM
Another vote for VB. As an admin and as an user. When I go to another forum software I feel a bit lost...
Posted by Keagle, 12-22-2006, 10:14 AM
I'd prefer to use vB.
Posted by NameSniper, 12-22-2006, 08:03 PM
I have looked over SMF,it seems to be much lighter and SEO friendly but its not as user friendly as IPB or vBulletin but maybe it has just seemsed me so as i didnt had a chance to look over it in details.
Posted by FrancoBollo, 12-26-2006, 11:46 PM
Before you say SMF is not user friendly, why don't you try it. It's free to try! It's like when you buy I car, before you make a decision, you have to give it a test drive first.
Posted by John West, 12-27-2006, 12:27 AM
I like the IPB its alot easier for me to use has i have been using it for years.
Posted by attroll, 12-27-2006, 12:39 AM
I have been using vB for over 4 years now and I absolutely love it. The support is awesome. I have never had to use their actual support other then reading through their support forums. There are so many option in vB that it is amazing. There are so many add-ons it is unbelievable, but keep in mind that vB does not support the second hand add-ons. Like someone else mentioned before, when I log onto other forums that are not run with the vB software I feel totally out of place and unless I have to I will not go back to them again. I would totally recommend vB. As others have said vB all the way.
Posted by maxweb, 12-27-2006, 01:10 PM
It's pretty pointless to ask which forum is better if you don't state what type of forum you want to create, what's the intended audience. Each forum has a particular spirit and would suit a different purpose. Some communities are better served with really old but very efficient forum software, take a look at pmwf dot com, it's a watch aficionado community. The style and design might be an eyesore to you, but the users actually have nixed many suggestions by the owner of changing over to something more modern. And you don't have to go the prehistoric way, you can choose something like Vanilla forum, take a look at medialayer.com for instance, they use vanilla for the forum. Personally I find that success comes when the look and usability of the forum matches the type of community and user you want to attract. IPB looks to me more toy-like, Vbulletin is sort of dry and corporate but neutral/professional, Vanilla is artistic-friendly, SMF is quite sleek and feels speedy (SMF has been integrated into Joomla.org, look at that for a great use of SMF and it's free but not as in free speech, free beer only). People say the killer application of the Internet is the forum, but actually the "killer" is the community itself. If you want to establish a community, please take a look at Drupal, it's a complete solution and highly customizable that includes a forum system that may look simplistic but it may be what you need to get your community started. IBM has chosen Drupal if that gives you an indication of the quality of Drupal, which by the way it's free speech and free beer. vBulletin rules the bunch now as far as commercial forum software, but it's behind the times, the forum of the future will be more like MySpace, with social networking stuff, and in that respect vBulletin is old, and the developers don't want to include something like phpFox. Know what type of community you want to establish, then feel the forum software and make your choice.
Posted by Navid1, 12-27-2006, 01:31 PM
Hello , I have a forum with 15k users and normally 100-300online users ,,, we use VB and we are very happy with it .. lots of Quality mods .. skins and a lot more features !
Posted by timdorr, 12-27-2006, 02:14 PM
Wow, that's totally incorrect. I've dealt with many large-scale boards running vB and IPB, and in all cases IPB is the clear performance winner. I've got boards with 2000 people online (15min interval) and that's running on 2 web servers and 1 DB server. If you had to do that with vB, it'd be at least 4 web servers to get the same amount of performance. It even shows up in the benchmarks: http://timdorr.com/archives/2005/09/apc_and_eaccele.php Also, I don't get why you guys are saying vB is cheaper. IPB's license lets you use the software indefinitely for $149. The same thing prices $160 from vB. The vB yearly license requires you pay $85 per year to continue using the software. So, 1 year from now, if you wanted to continue to use the software, it would already be more expensive than either vB's owned license or IPB's license. Plus, the IPB license includes free phone support ($60 if you do it with vB), a free installation ($135 from vB!), and free upgrades (I don't know if vB even offers this service). So, it's basically $355 for vB's equivalent to what IPB gives you for $149. Seems like a no brainer to me...
Posted by grabmail, 12-27-2006, 04:26 PM
for goodness sake, get a REAL forum software - PunBB. Best and Fastest in its class
Posted by NameSniper, 12-27-2006, 04:52 PM
maxweb as of community feature then there is a plug in available now Zoints. Maybe IPB is a little better than vBulletin from the point of performance but both still has a big way to pass and it doesnt seems that they will ever get much better and that will stay resource hogs.
Posted by TieuDieuTu, 12-28-2006, 12:23 AM
Gotta agree with you on the pricing. Invision changed their pricing yet once again and a brand new licensing system, and I don't like it. I just know about it via this thread. I purchased a perpetual license in Jan of this year for $185. Based on the pricing, it lays in between $149 Standard license w/ semi anual renewal fee of $25 and $299 Business license w/ semi anual renewal fee of $50. Where as before, the 185 Perpetual license you have support for a year and upgrade forever. What's up with that? So now I have to contact the IPB folks regard my license if I have to pay renewal fee or not since I purchased it almost a year ago. [Buyer Beware] Based on price alone as I don't know how the IPB 2.2 is like, I would advice people to use vBulletin. Their licensing system and pricing has been the same since forever. vBulletin 3.6.xx is much, much better than IPB 2.1.7. The support and service from vBulletin is just as good as it comes. Note: I have 2 vBulletin lifetime licenses and 1 IPB "perpetual" so I know what I'm talking about.
Posted by TieuDieuTu, 12-28-2006, 12:33 AM
For a free alternative, SMF has my vote, too I did some testing on it a while back and like it a lot. Currently I am helping a friend of mine setting up an SMF forum and things go along very smoothly. I'd say the current SMF 1.1.1 matches with IPB 2.1.xx very, very well. SMF has one feature that I really, really like over both IPB and vB is the built-in mod_rewrite for dynamics links. With a single click from your Admin CP, you can transform all of your forum's urls into static .html extensions without the need of an "Archive" such as vB or "Low version" in IPB.
Posted by James-Fagan, 12-28-2006, 01:08 AM
Take a look at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=570826
Posted by ImAlex, 12-28-2006, 01:09 AM
You are so wrong. First of all, a life time vBulletin license is $160 dollars and updates are $30 per yer. While IPB is $149, it does cost $25 per 6 months to get access to upgrades and that becomes $50 per 1 year! Lets summarize this: vBulletin: $160 one time fee (owned license), $30 for 1 years of updates = $190 for 2 years Invision Power Board: $149 one time fee (owned license), $50 for 1 years of updates = $199 for 2 years = $9 difference, and it becomes more each year for IPB. Also vBulletin includes 1 year of upgrades and IPB only 6 months with purchase. So there is no way Invision Power Board is cheaper, also the yearly vBulletin license is just a nice optional thing to buy, it is better to buy the owned license anyways. IPB have gone from free to more expensive than vBulletin. Amazing. Also, the support is much faster and better for vBulletin, but I like IPB too. vBulletin feels more robust too. For example, IPB's licensing system is crap, they are just trying to have the same as vBulletin. Also they remove features such as the Card feature which was a great feature. They only offer email support and they don't even have a pre-sales forum, they prefer the slower email. The phone support is free though. I like them both, but I think vBulletin is best of them. Last edited by ImAlex; 12-28-2006 at 01:16 AM.
Posted by CoreFusion, 12-28-2006, 01:41 AM
ImAlex, you are being a little biased in your calculations. You decided to do the pricing scheme for two years. Obviously, IPB would have an advantage for one year because the base price for just the software is lower. vBulletin catches up in price only over longer periods of time. And again, you didn't factor in all the stuff that IPB gives you for free like phone support, which is a big plus. I've been using IPB for almost two years now and I really enjoy it. Ticket based support is superb and they fix my board within two days regardless of how much I screwed it up. I agree with Tieu that the new pricing is kind of asinine and I don't see why they changed it. Luckily I upgraded all my old yearly licenses to the old perpetual licences before they changed the pricing. The thing that isn't too great about vBulletin is that the best value tends to be the most expensive one. You have to renew your license for the full 85 bucks after a year at their baseline price, while IPB's license lets you keep on using the board even when you subscription expires. So, compairing the leased license, you end up paying $190 for two years when you 199 for something that you get to keep using if you decide to let it expire.
Posted by Dmain, 12-28-2006, 03:11 AM
IPB has more exploits! =D
Posted by attroll, 12-28-2006, 05:14 AM
There is one other option for vBulletin. You can lease it for one year for $85 and get all the updates included with the lease for one year. This will give you one year to decide if you like it or not. If you like it you can continue to lease it or buy it. Of course it would be better and cheaper to buy it in the long run. I hear all the IPB people talking about how it is cheaper, but it is not the price that counts. It's the the quality of the software that matters. Corefusion also mentioned that you can not keep using vB after the lease expires. If you like it then it is to you benefit to either renew the lease or purchase the software. If you want to run a successful forum and your worried about the minor price difference of initial cost and renewal fees then your not really thinking about having a successful forum. You need to log onto an IPB site and then onto a vB site and move around and see what they both do and how they do it. That should be a good desiding factor. I have not look at the ADMIN side of IPB so I can not speak for it. I had a friend once that came from out of state to visit me once and I should them the ADMIN side of vB and they would completely amazed at what it did. They said that IPB does not have all that stuff. I don't know what they meant by that, but they were blown away by what vB could do.
Posted by Webmaster7, 12-28-2006, 07:28 AM
Why lease it, when you can buy it for $160? If you want updates it only prices $30 per year. If you don't want them, you just pay $160 once, and you can use it for all the time you want. A good price in my humble opinion... 1 year cost you $160 2 years cost you $190 3 years cost you $220 4 years cost you $250 compare that to the leased version. This way the license is mine, and even if I close a forum, I can use it in another one, for life!
Posted by Biju, 12-28-2006, 08:05 AM
I have used it before and it is worse bb ever i have seen.
Posted by Nitin Gupta, 12-28-2006, 08:38 AM
With the amount of resources ( plugins, themes, hacks etc ) available, i will vote for VBulletin
Posted by grabmail, 12-28-2006, 12:43 PM
Please ppl. PunBB? No pun intended.
Posted by Ivan23, 12-28-2006, 01:19 PM
vb or ipb ?
Posted by layer0, 12-28-2006, 01:45 PM
That is for vB.
Posted by Webmaster7, 12-28-2006, 02:01 PM
Thank you layer0 Yes, it's for vB. IPB doesn't have a leased version, and their license's renewal cost $50 a year ($25 per semester) if you want updates. On the long term it will be more expensive than vB. 4 thumbs up for vB Not because of the price, but for the software itself!
Posted by attroll, 12-28-2006, 02:08 PM
Now it is time to put this to rest with this voting poll that I created titled "If you had a choice, VB or IPB?", so lets all vote.
Posted by mesobob, 12-28-2006, 02:39 PM
Each to their own I guess. I`ve always used IPB, it suits it`s purpose for what I/we need. I`m not too keen on their new pricing structure, but the software it self is just perfect for us. Everyone has an opinion on forum software. Judge it by what you need, not by what others say `is the best`.
Posted by host plugin, 01-01-2007, 10:10 AM
I'm still using the last free version of IPB and so far I'm very happy w/that. But if I have money I'll spend my $150 on VB. IPB just doesn't worth $150 IMHO.
Posted by Jame$, 01-01-2007, 12:11 PM
In the earlier days IPB 1.3 was always my choice over the VBulletin. I'm not that keen on invision 2, VBulletin has been always good and is probably the "standard choice" now.
Posted by zoid, 01-01-2007, 01:00 PM
Considering their apparent business practices I would stay away from vbulletin as far as possible.
Posted by donniesd, 01-01-2007, 02:35 PM
But in the end they did the right thing. Vb people are just on a power trip.
Posted by grabmail, 01-01-2007, 03:20 PM
Can anyone tell me why nobody is considering the opensource alternatives, specifically PunBB? It loads and feels faster than vBulletin and IPB.
Posted by maxymizer, 01-01-2007, 04:09 PM
Because you're on the safe side when you use software that's proven and which has tech support in case something goes wrong. And to pay $150 / $200 for forum software for a website that earns you over $1000 a month is nothing. Open source forums are ok but since it's not proven effective on variety of sites, people won't trust it. Would you run site of WHTs magnitude on an open source (free) forum?
Posted by NameSniper, 01-01-2007, 05:29 PM
vBulletin has better support,thats what i have confirmed in last few weeks. Anyone has a perfromance comparision chart ?
Posted by HostingFroggy, 01-01-2007, 05:54 PM
Well, I figured I'd chime in on this issue. I have owned numerous forums. Lately all of them being on vBulletin. I perfer them over any forum software, by leaps and bounds. I started with Proboards, where you get what you pay for. Nothing. Then I tried IPB which is nice. But vBulletin's features out do it by far. vBulletin is just the way to go. It handle thousands of members and visitors. It can be upgraded. It can be modified and customized to fit your needs perfectly. Anything you want for vB, can be done. Never have I experienced a problem with overloads or anything with vB either.
Posted by zoid, 01-01-2007, 06:40 PM
Yes, but only after heavy intervention by the owners and members. However whatever the outcome was, only the fact that such an issue arose should be a huge warning to go with them. One day you might end up with a revoked license for a product you actually paid real money for because the developer did not like the topic of your forum. Correct and thats the thing to worry about. Right, but this doesnt mean it has to be a commercial application. Correct, but not every forum makes that much money a month. Are you talking of punbb in certain or of open source forums in general? In the former I might agree with you, in the latter definitely not. Sure, why not. After all its most probably running on an open source operating system as well.
Posted by Ghostu, 01-01-2007, 06:57 PM
I used to use IPB, but eventually switched over to VB. Both were good but in the end I preferred VB especially because I liked how the template system was set up much more.
Posted by attroll, 01-01-2007, 07:16 PM
If your hosting a forum for the right reasons and are not stepping or walking a fine line between right and wrong you will never have to worry about your license being revoked. If you hosting a forum that s borderline of what it right and wrong then you should not be hosing it at all.
Posted by zoid, 01-01-2007, 07:40 PM
Thats exactly the question. Who is in the position to determine what is right and what not. In this case a customer purchased a legal license of a product but got this license revoked just because the forum's topic is not appreciated by the developer although it is completely legal. Correct me if I am wrong but such actions border to fraud. And this doesnt even take into account that such a decision would not be even up to the developer if it were illegal content. In such a case the owner could be prosecuted by the jurisdiction but this could never be a reason to revoke a paid license.
Posted by attroll, 01-01-2007, 08:43 PM
You are absolutely correct in what you are trying to point out, they should not have done anything and I think they have learned from there mistakes. What I was trying to point out was that if you are trying to run a ligament forums that is not in question morally or ethnically then you should have nothing to worry about from any direction. Other then that, in my honest opinion vBulletin is far superior then any other forum software and if you read all the reviews on this site most every that ran other software that switched to vb do not regret it. You do not hear much about users that stopped using vb going to other forum software.
Posted by zoid, 01-01-2007, 09:18 PM
I wonder however whether they consider this as mistake and didnt just reactivate the license due to the many complaints and negative publicity. Somehow I doubt it. Also it would be interesting where their moral and ethic starts. Next time they revoke a license perhaps because the forum is about a certain political direction, animal rights or some other topic not appreciated by them. The technical point of view is of course another matter. I have to admit I do not know the internals of vbulletin, therefore I cant make definite technical statements but considering its popularity especially on high-traffic sites I guess one can assume its code quality isnt that bad. Again this statement is based on an assumption and not a code review. But saying this only applies to vbulletin would be probably a bit biased.
Posted by NE-Andy, 01-01-2007, 09:23 PM
And how quickly have we forgot about how IPS bluntly abuse their free users for testing their 2.0, claiming it will be free, and then take it off within 24 hours of release only to announce commercial license, no downgrade path, and no future bug fixes for those that upgraded and helped tested their software the whole time...
Posted by donniesd, 01-01-2007, 11:02 PM
And every other forum software can do that. Thats nothing Vb specific. And scripters charge more to do vb then they have when i asked for the same thing on IPB or PHP.
Posted by maxymizer, 01-02-2007, 04:44 AM
Great point Andy. I was one of those who used their 2.0 unlimited trial version and it was such a pain to upgrade it to the current version.. Both of the mentioned (vB and IPB) are really good but since I've read what vB have done to hongfire.com, it made me think a bit more about forum software as I was planning to use vB on one of my client's sites. I think I'll give PunBB a try
Posted by akoulini, 03-17-2007, 02:49 PM
i need your opinion for vbulletin vs inviosn about Server Load.
Posted by NameSniper, 03-17-2007, 04:05 PM
There are generaly the same
Posted by LinuXice, 03-18-2007, 04:06 PM
I find IPB more readable (code wise) than vBulletin. Almost everything is based on classes which makes the code a little more organized. than vB. I've to admit that vBulletin has better template management than IPB, better plugins/mod manager as well.On the contrary IPB has an improved template cache system which makes it behaves a little faster than vBulletin when printing out the page. Ah, the last thing.. vB has its years, dedicated community, people working daily for mods/hacks at vb.org. IPB doesnt or its not as big a vBulletin, being a reason of why arent there a variety of mods unlike vBulletin. Last edited by LinuXice; 03-18-2007 at 04:17 PM.
Posted by Jame$, 03-18-2007, 04:47 PM
Yeah, IPB does have a more friendly feel to it, Frankly I'd be happy with any of them.
Posted by IsMyLittleName, 03-19-2007, 09:16 AM
If your wanting a good fast bulletin board, then i suggest PunBB its low on server load but it does not have all the features on it such as private messaging, poll ect, but there is another site for it that has all the modifications on that you will need. been using it for about 2 years now and loving it, good community there that will help out alot.
Posted by NameSniper, 03-19-2007, 02:38 PM
Correct,get punbb if you want lower server load and less features
Posted by mikey1090, 03-19-2007, 02:53 PM
i recommend vb any day, its great. I recently bought it, its amazing
Posted by ruland, 03-19-2007, 03:09 PM
i agree with you.