Bulletin Board Options - Vbulletin the best?

[HostingGuru]

There are several forum packages out there, of course there's vBulletin, which everyone swears by these days, but is it worth the cost? PHPbb and SMF seem to be coming up in the ranks as far as their features, customization and overall features, and they are free. What are your opinions?

Personally I like phpBB because it seems to be the closest to vB without the cost. You can customize it rather easy now (I remember when you had to go in and edit all of your code by hand) Add-on availability is growing more and more - overall it just seems like a major player in the forum wars.

[paul]

I agree with you, IMO, if you've already having an established forum and you've budget, you can consider to switch over to vBulletin otherwise PHPBB is just fine to continue with.

[WH-Garry9]

One could definitely choose phpBB or SMF if VBulletin is out of question due to the licensing factor.

If you have cPanel with Fantastico, you will be able to install phpBB or SMF with a few simple clicks through Fantastico

[Sanersone]

For the newly launched forums, phpBB or any other freely available forum packages are just fine. It would give you a good experience of managing forums. After you are quite familiar with forum management and your forum is large enough that these freely available packages ain't able to handle the load, you can upgrade to paid one. Indeed the paid one are best, so is vBulletin

[malvps]

I'd advise anyone seeking forum software to stay clear of vBulletin.
They have major issues with their latest version. 4x.
They have lost many longtime clients because of the problems.
Many have switched to IPB (Invision) as an alternative.

Unfortunately you won't be able to see the Licensed Customer Feedback section of the vBulletin forum otherwise you would soon see for yourself.

The 3x series up to vBulletin 3.8.5 is fine. The same can not be said for the latest v4x series or indeed the direction the owners IB are taking with the product.

IMHO and as one who is testing the vB4x software.

[paul]

I'd advise anyone seeking forum software to stay clear of vBulletin.
They have major issues with their latest version. 4x.
They have lost many longtime clients because of the problems.
Many have switched to IPB (Invision) as an alternative.

Unfortunately you won't be able to see the Licensed Customer Feedback section of the vBulletin forum otherwise you would soon see for yourself.

The 3x series up to vBulletin 3.8.5 is fine. The same can not be said for the latest v4x series or indeed the direction the owners IB are taking with the product.

IMHO and as one who is testing the vB4x software.

Thanks for the update, as per the vBulletin 3.8.5 release note, it has covered few mandatory fixes of vBulletin 4 conversions however I think it's better to use vBulletin 3.8.5.