PhpBB vs Vbulletin vs xenforo

warmweer · Post by **warmweer** » Tue Feb 11, 2020 5:29 pm

JLA wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 5:11 pm Self-hosted

OK, you are hereby authorised to self-host my board any time

Lumpy Burgertushie · Post by **Lumpy Burgertushie** » Tue Feb 11, 2020 5:30 pm

let's not forget all those little guys running back and forth around the world delivering the messages and the replies.
they are working their little asses off for sure.

robert

JLA · Post by **JLA** » Tue Feb 11, 2020 5:33 pm

warmweer wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 5:29 pm
JLA wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 5:11 pm Self-hosted
OK, you are hereby authorised to self-host my board any time

Since 2004 - we have absorbed into our site a few old phpbb's that decided to give up.

Post by **Mick** » Wed Feb 12, 2020 9:27 am

I joined a sports board two weeks ago that was using Xenforo. I’m biased but I found the experience ‘hard work’ for want of a better phrase. I wouldn’t use it if it was free but, as I said, I’m biased.

Post by **Kailey** » Wed Feb 12, 2020 12:13 pm

JLA wrote: ↑Tue Feb 11, 2020 5:33 pm we have absorbed into our site a few old phpbb's that decided to give up.

That's not a fair statement - he just wanted to get out of the hosting business.

GaiaBudz · Post by **GaiaBudz** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 12:00 pm

Naturally I have to go with phpBB, having had experience with my fair share of phpBB and vBulletin powered forums phpBB is definitely better. I don’t know much about Xenoform, but I am sure in comparison phpBB would still be preferred for me.

Frankly, as far as I am concerned all three do the exact same thing. The available extensions or themes available personally are irrelevant, if you have the knowledge you can code your own extensions and designs your own themes. If you can’t? Then it is as easy as hiring someone to do it for you. At the end of the day, it comes to the fact that phpBB is free software, and forum software like vbulletin, ipb, and xenoform are not.

Anything they can do, in the right hands phpBB can do. So why would I spend money on licensing for forum software, that I can code myself or pay someone to code anything those paid forum software can do as a standard that my free one can’t? For convenience? I call paying for convenience being a sucker, you’re just too lazy to learn how to make those features yourself, or have someone make them for a fraction of the price it would cost to purchase that license. Buying forum software is like throwing money away when you can learn how to do everything I just went on about for free as well by just using google. That’s how I did it

72degrees · Post by **72degrees** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:10 pm

<Small Voice>
Kunena (Joomla plugin) is also free.
</SV>

I've been going through this exercise for an existing forum that is thinking of going away from phpBB. Others considered have been Discourse (as now used by the MX5 Owners Club) as well as Xenforo (Vincent Owners Club). I'm not sure what Thumpertalk https://thumpertalk.com/forums/ uses but it's pretty impressive (it uses an AWS clone for attachments after server side image compression for example).

It depends a lot if the organisation wanting to use a forum have people sufficiently IT savvy to install, maintain and administer it.
phpBB is great if you do (kunena isn't bad either). The 'turnkey' solution offered by Discourse is superficially attractive if money is no object.

Still working on my report. The organisation relies a lot on a commercial website supplier and just volunteers for the forum (except mySQL level and server script FTP level access, which complicated things).

JoshyPHP · Post by **JoshyPHP** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:22 pm

FYI Thumpertalk uses Invision Community.

72degrees · Post by **72degrees** » Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:50 pm

JoshyPHP wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:22 pm FYI Thumpertalk uses Invision Community.

Thanks. The head honcho there is very helpful.

WWu777 · Post by **WWu777** » Mon May 11, 2020 6:01 am

GaiaBudz wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 12:00 pm Naturally I have to go with phpBB, having had experience with my fair share of phpBB and vBulletin powered forums phpBB is definitely better. I don’t know much about Xenoform, but I am sure in comparison phpBB would still be preferred for me.

Frankly, as far as I am concerned all three do the exact same thing. The available extensions or themes available personally are irrelevant, if you have the knowledge you can code your own extensions and designs your own themes. If you can’t? Then it is as easy as hiring someone to do it for you. At the end of the day, it comes to the fact that phpBB is free software, and forum software like vbulletin, ipb, and xenoform are not.

Anything they can do, in the right hands phpBB can do. So why would I spend money on licensing for forum software, that I can code myself or pay someone to code anything those paid forum software can do as a standard that my free one can’t? For convenience? I call paying for convenience being a sucker, you’re just too lazy to learn how to make those features yourself, or have someone make them for a fraction of the price it would cost to purchase that license. Buying forum software is like throwing money away when you can learn how to do everything I just went on about for free as well by just using google. That’s how I did it

Actually there's one important thing that phpbb cannot do yet, and that is create permalink URL's with topic titles or keywords in them. Xenforo can do that, so their threads will be ranked higher than phpbb threads which only have numbers in them. I've tested this before and permalinks usually rank higher than non-permalinks for sure. It's a major factor in Google search engine ranking (SERP).

I've searched for a mod or extension on phpbb that will rewriter URLs to make them permalinks, but haven't found any. Are any in development or planned? This is definitely a major factor in SEO. Has it been discussed?

Is it possible to even create a mod or extension that will rewrite all phpbb topic URL's into permalinks with topic titles in them?

sakm · Post by **sakm** » Mon May 11, 2020 10:05 am

72degrees wrote: ↑Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:10 pm <Small Voice>
Kunena (Joomla plugin) is also free.
</SV>

I've been going through this exercise for an existing forum that is thinking of going away from phpBB. Others considered have been Discourse (as now used by the MX5 Owners Club) as well as Xenforo (Vincent Owners Club). I'm not sure what Thumpertalk https://thumpertalk.com/forums/ uses but it's pretty impressive (it uses an AWS clone for attachments after server side image compression for example).

I found myself doing a similar exercise! I was looking at invision and managed to have a good play about with it but pricing was way too much plus a 6 monthly renewal!

I just stuck to what I know

Post by **Kailey** » Mon May 11, 2020 11:04 am

WWu777 wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 6:01 am I've searched for a mod or extension on phpbb that will rewriter URLs to make them permalinks, but haven't found any. Are any in development or planned? This is definitely a major factor in SEO. Has it been discussed?

Is it possible to even create a mod or extension that will rewrite all phpbb topic URL's into permalinks with topic titles in them?

If you have an extension you would like to see, please post in the Extension Requests forum. That being said, a quick Google search came up with this, however it was created for 3.1 and 3.2. If you decided to go this route, you will need to seek support from that user at GitHub.

david63 · Post by **david63** » Mon May 11, 2020 12:47 pm

WWu777 wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 6:01 am Has it been discussed?

Over and over again.

AmigoJack · Post by **AmigoJack** » Fri May 15, 2020 1:43 pm

WWu777 wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 6:01 amcreate permalink URL's with topic titles or keywords in them

I've got news for you: based on how URLs work it is possible since day 1, and it is 100% customizable. Example:
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2457961&z=PhpBB+vs+Vbulletin+vs+xenforo

As you see you can add as many parameters plus their values as you want and it still takes you to the topic whose ID is provided.

TexTHKM · Post by **TexTHKM** » Fri May 15, 2020 2:56 pm

If you have the money for it, go for Xenforo. I built my last project with it, and it's fantastic to work with. No regrets. Tons of third party addons to chose from as well so you'll be able to customize it for your community pretty easily. Since phpBB is free, it basically has 0 market for large & extensive paid addons. Sure, phpBB has some fantastic addons, but you also have many going abandonware/never getting out of development, as they are free and developers lose interest/it doesn't pay the bills.

Since most large addons on Xenforo are paid, it can actually provide a living for the developers, which means that they are supported and continuously updated. Making sure that you have the safety of it staying up to date and working, on your forum, for years to come.

That said, phpBB is the best you can find for free (by far!), and I do enjoy working with it on my mini project I have now, where free is sufficient =)

And to be honest, it isn't a fair contest. One is making lots of money, and can invest into improving it. The other one is entirely free and made by fantastic people working together on their free time.