PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

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HiFiKabin
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by HiFiKabin »

HansonA wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:22 pm
HiFiKabin wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:27 pm There are no known security issues with phpBB and each version goes through a security audit before release http://www.sektioneins.de/en/index.html
Thank you . So is phpBB considered open source?

BTW, I have a programmer that will be doing all the work for me. I'm just doing my homework at this point.
phpBB is released under a GNU licence https://www.phpbb.com/downloads/license/
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by warmweer »

HansonA wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:22 pm ...
BTW, I have a programmer that will be doing all the work for me. I'm just doing my homework at this point.
That should shorten the list you'll be choosing from since most paid forumsoftware has very limited editing options.
Spelling is freeware, which means you can use it for free.
On the other hand, it is not open source, which means you cannot change it or publish it in a modified form.


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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by Ger »

Actually I've done a detailed comparison about a year ago or so for a large board currently running IPB. We needed to decide to either update to a newer major version of IPB or to switch to something else. I've compared IPB against Xenforo, phpBB and MyBB. MyBB was quickly discarded because of lacking several must have features for our board. Xenforo proved quite expensive and it was actually quite hard to find out if it supported (either default or with plugins) what we needed.

IPB had of course a major plus because it's the current running software. Paid support is actually quite good and of course it offers what we needed. However, over the years (since late 2007) it proved to give quite some headaches to maintain. Each upgrade required very much time to make all customisations work again. There is a plugin system, but about half of the plugins simply don't work in any next version. So you wait some time before upgrading, hoping the plugin is upgraded as well or you have to switch to something else, make it yourself or drop the feature. Converting custom data is also quite a burden. They simply don't give enough attention to keep customisations working, phpBB does a way better job on this.

And last but not least, there were quite some security issues, especially in the 3.x line. Granted, issues were fixed quite fast, but I've also seen some code that makes me question the quality of the developers. I mean, in 2015 there passwords were still being hashed with the weak MD5(). They honestly thought it was a good idea to use

Code: Select all

$hash = md5( md5($salt) . md5($password) );
Seriously guys, the internet has moved on since we realized is wasn't a good idea to use a algorithm aimed at speed to hash data that's likely to be brute-forced. We knew this 10 years earlier.

This is of course just an example and yes, they've fixed this since then. But it was one of those things that made us question the quality of IPB.
So we decided to switch to phpBB. phpBB may not have 10.000 features packed in the core but it's proven very stable and secure over the past decade. Everything offered is rock solid and what's not in the core is probably available as extension or is relatively easy created as one. I'm very happy with it.
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by AmigoJack »

I recently converted a vB3 installation and a lot of manual work had to be done - by this I also had to look at the horrible code and concepts (lots of eval(), lots of PHP code stored in the database...) which made it very difficult to even debug issues. For users the software might look nice, but under the hood it's a mess. No idea about recent versions, tho (phpBB improved from 2.0 to 3.0 drastically, so judging from old versions should be done with caution).
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by HansonA »

Hey thanks again guys. So while on topic, how often is phpBB updated?
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by HansonA »

warmweer wrote: Sun Feb 04, 2018 10:13 pm
HansonA wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:22 pm ...
BTW, I have a programmer that will be doing all the work for me. I'm just doing my homework at this point.
That should shorten the list you'll be choosing from since most paid forumsoftware has very limited editing options.
I'm sorry, I'm not clear on what you are referring to here? Can you expound a little please?

Thanks!
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by Mick »

Basically he says if you use premium software then your programmer will have less to do as editing code is limited with paid software.
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by david63 »

HansonA wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 3:39 pm Hey thanks again guys. So while on topic, how often is phpBB updated?
When it is considered necessary
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by thecoalman »

HansonA wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 3:39 pm Hey thanks again guys. So while on topic, how often is phpBB updated?
As of late about every 6 months but there is no given time frame.
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by bastones »

I won't lie, I kind of liked the simplicity of phpBB 2 when that was around, but compared to vBulletin and XenForo, phpBB is still an excellent choice and always has been. I have used XenForo and I quite like the software. I can't say the same for vBulletin though - the admin panel is just an absolute mess and unless you're seasoned in the way vBulletin works, you always dread when you need to modify something in the admin area. Using software shouldn't make you dread using it.

Upgrading vBulletin carries the same pain as Invision Board in some respects. A hosting company I used to work at faced a similar dilemma. They needed to upgrade vBulletin but from memory, there is no compatibility between vBulletin 4 and what they now call vBulletin 5 Connect (whatever that means). Instead of using the opportunity to upgrade to something better, like phpBB or XenForo, they decided to start again with vBulletin 5, losing most of the customisations that couldn't be migrated over.
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by noth »

as soon as you look at the Xenforo buy page the sum of $160.00 is already in the top right hand corner, the license, so your bill begins there
on top of that $65 for media gallery
another $65 for Resource Manager
and extra styles typically cost $25 - $45
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by stevemaury »

This topic is 2 yo.
I can stop all your spam. I can upgrade or update your Board. PM or email me. (Paid support)
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by JLA »

HansonA wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:49 am I'm going to build a new community and and trying to figure out what is the best forum software to use and advantages over each other.

Can you tell me how PhpBB compares to the other 2 I have listed please?

Thank you!
To be honest - not sure why anyone would compare any other platform with phpbb. phpbb is a great platform, truly robust, can be configured or customized easily for just about anyone's needs - and can be scaled. Our board is over 15 years old with over 500 million postings and it is the previous version of phpbb. Think that speaks for itself with considering the superiority of the phpbb platform.
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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by warmweer »

JLA wrote: Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:11 pm ...
Our board is over 15 years old with over 500 million postings and it is the previous version of phpbb. Think that speaks for itself with considering the superiority of the phpbb platform.
What the ...??? :o :shock: 500 mill...??
Not only a recommendation for phpBB but also for the host. Wow!!
Spelling is freeware, which means you can use it for free.
On the other hand, it is not open source, which means you cannot change it or publish it in a modified form.


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Re: PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

Post by JLA »

warmweer wrote: Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:37 pm
JLA wrote: Tue Feb 11, 2020 3:11 pm ...
Our board is over 15 years old with over 500 million postings and it is the previous version of phpbb. Think that speaks for itself with considering the superiority of the phpbb platform.
What the ...??? :o :shock: 500 mill...??
Not only a recommendation for phpBB but also for the host. Wow!!
Self-hosted
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