UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Suggestions and Feedback vBulletin 2.0 vs. wwwThreads

This question is for those who have looked into both wwwThreads and vBulletin.
From an unbiased point of view, which one is better, faster, and has more features?

A quick search can give you many results on this subject, such as this one.

Mateo Byler
CruceDeCaminos.com

The feature set is similar really... vBulletin appears to be from a UI point of view, a clone of UBB, with similar features and an almost identical design. However, vBulletin (and every other forum product I have seen) lacks the threaded/flat option on both the forum indexes and on post pages. Some have a mix of the two, but none do it as well as W3T.

I don't use any vBulletin forums frequently, but you should look at the display preferences here in your profile... I haven't seen a forum with more options to customize your viewing experience; from threaded/flat options, to style sheet choices, posts per page, e-mail notifications, etc.

Everything within W3T is very easy to use and works smoothly. I think a lot of that is thanks to the great support forum here, and most options are either thought up by the users here, or if not, feedback is given (and usually changes made) if a feature doesn't work properly/smoothly.

As far as speed goes, W3T is really quick. I use the PERL version and provided you have a server capable of handling your traffic, it will be very fast. So far I haven't ever visited a forum as fast as mine is now (on a dedicated server; not necessary unless you have a large user base and lots of traffic).

I always watch the new programs that come up, and some have some nice features, but none are dazzling enough to draw me away from W3T... in any price range.

_muhammad :: imc_

I purchased vBulletin shortly after its arrival on the scene. At the time I was running wwwthreads 4.01. I liked the idea of changing to a PHP forum as I could modify it to make it the way I wanted it. I did an import script to convert my wwwthreads db to vb and installed in a test environment with limited access so I could compare performance. Vb would almost bring the server to its knees. Resources were eaten up like crazy from the amount of querries made to the db to load a thread. I could not have run it as my day to day forum without optimizing the code, a task I could have done, but didn't feel I should have to. I think the template system is nice but they should take them out of the db and put them into flatfiles. This would ease the strain on mysql. I really like vb but to run it on a heavily used forum you would need to be on a dedicated box. I haven't watched the developement of vb and I'm sure some of the load problems are being addressed. If they are it will be a very good product.
Wwwthreads is a mature product and has proven itself to be one of the best if not the best forum software available. I'm always up for something new and maybe one day someone will come up with a better product and I will switch. I said that 2 years ago when I purchased my license and so far nothing has come out to make me switch and now that there is also a PHP version switching is highly unlikely.
Bob
Just noticed this was about vb2.0. My comparisons were made to vb1. As I said I haven't watched developement so maybe they fixed resource problems.

[b]Extreme VB Forums -[/b] Visual Basic Help

Edited by Extrm Bob on 05/13/01 12:43 PM.

there isn't much difference in vb2 and vb1 as compared to server resources. vb is a HOG, it can and will take up all your server resources. i havn't seen a vb that has over 200 people on at the same time. if you think your board is going to have that amount of people i would go with w3t. w3t doesn't make as many db calls as vb, and w3t is slimmed down so it will only call what it needs whils vb will cal everything in a row.

[:red]--------------
http://extremeforums.org

Muhammad,

In reply to:

---

However, vBulletin (and every other forum product I have seen) lacks the threaded/flat option on both the forum indexes and on post pages

---

Yes, and it drive me nutts when visiting a website that implements a 'non'-threaded view, or linear only. When 20+ posts accumulate within a thread, the conversation just turns to chaos. I cannot understand who is speaking to whom.



- Da Birk
http://www.ncaastrategies.com

Hello Mateo and Forzagriffo,

It's interesting that the link you provided was to a series of questions I posed while I was investigating W3T vs VB.

well I'm happy to say that after all of my months of research and Q & A with both VB and W3T users, I purchased W3T.

I am truly happy with it in every way.

for me the biggest reasons I chose W3T over VB were:

1. the option of having both a threaded and a flat display. as I worked through my decision criteria I was amazed how important a feature this really is and VB just doesn't have it and won't anytime soon. this is a deadly weakness when you get 10-20 replies to a post and you're trying to follow the thread. it's like listening to conversations in a crowd.

2. the tremendous regularity of enhancements and updates. I evaluated the program over a period of about 4-6 months. during that time W3T went through 2-3 version updates. I was impressed!

3. the tremendous configurability of W3T. I don't really think that VB has as much flexibility in this regard.

4. the abundance of hacks and support from other users. I find that the users on W3T are very helpful and full of nice little add-ons that make the program better.

5. W3T's blazing speed and low impact on a web server. we're running our W3T forum on a shared server at our ISP that hosts about 160 websites on one box and it isn't even taxing it. I understand VB is much more of a resource hog than this.

I could say more but hopefully this gives you a good idea of the soundness of an investment in W3T.

plus the developer, Scream, is a really nice guy.

KC

Kurt Carter
Florist Systems
"The Business and Technology Partner of the Local Florist"

KC,

It's good to hear someone who has made the comparison recently. []/testimages/icons/smile.gif[/]

_muhammad :: imc_

My 2 cents.

Something like NT VS Linux.
One has a very good layout, graphics, the other one focuses on reability, speed.

So, if someone throws a very good layout on w3t, God!, this w3t is a diamond!



Santanablank
Forumponsel.Com

I've been sort of planning to tackle that as I did over a year ago before the css was brough in... but I think the current format is good. I haven't even thought much about what I would change, aside from a general design. Do you have any suggestions?

_muhammad :: imc_

Hello Muhammad.

Well, my suggestion is that, icons, and colors will make a big difference. I love the new W3T 5.4 perl, very nice layout for the icons and Control Panel. Can't wait for the PHP version.

I thought it would be great if we can share our design(s) (the css file(s)) by uploading them to some sort of public directory.

May be there is a professional designer out there who wants to contribute?

Santanablank
Forumponsel.Com

Sixpack has already created a place to get other .css files, etc. at his "Screamers" Board: http://screamers.wwwthreads.com/six-cgi/perl/index.pl. You can also contribute what you have so that others can likewise download them.

Jeff

[:blue]>May be there is a professional designer out there<

That, I am. []/testimages/icons/wink.gif[/] Although, the most contributions I can make here are when I am working on W3T for a project or something... I don't really have the time to just work on it for fun right now.

Soon, though, I'll probably post some style sheets, since I've made a few recently...

_muhammad :: imc_

>>Soon, though, I'll probably post some style sheets

No teasing now, let's see them. []/testimages/icons/wink.gif[/]

[]http://www.wopr.com/w3tuserpics/Eileen-sig.gif[/]

Ok, since I'm going home early tonight, I'll try to post them later. []/testimages/icons/wink.gif[/] I think it was oh, what, 6 months ago that I first threatened to post them? []/testimages/icons/cool.gif[/]

_muhammad :: imc_

I'll believe 'em when I *see* 'em. []/testimages/icons/laugh.gif[/]

[]http://www.wopr.com/w3tuserpics/Eileen-sig.gif[/]

Hyuck, hyuck, hyuck... []/testimages/icons/wink.gif[/]

_muhammad :: imc_

Wow. You actually did it and they are very nice, too.

[]http://www.wopr.com/w3tuserpics/Eileen-sig.gif[/]

Kcweb, I see you decided on w3T although very reluctant per your posts at the first of the year. I think Poil was also a convert. That along with are positive attributes - one that stands out is vB hogging down on the server and not w3T.

I'll be choosing w3T.
I do want to post this exerpt from an email of mine from an Admin of a major site with I'd say very high traffic. Maybe this would be of benefit to making w3T even better.


"I much preferred VBulletin over WWWThreads (although there may have been
some problems with VB that would only emerge after we started using it).

However, our engineering staff wanted Threads because they thought they
could work with it more easily.

In retrospect, we all agree Threads was a major mistake in that regard.
It REQUIRED engineering staff to become forums administrators (because
there were many tasks that admins could no longer do from the Admin
screens). And the engineers did not want to be admins. So conflict ensued.

Also, there are two many things about Threads (such as the way it handles
24/48 hr post listings) that are just poorly implemented."

I used many BBs (vBulletin, UBB, IkonBoard, YaBB)
I choosed WWWThreads for many reasons :

1- It is the FASTEST Bulletin Board I ever seen

2- Programmed in 2 languages (Perl and PHP)

3- You can use one of THREE kinds of databases (MySQL, PgSQL and Oracle)

4- It has a powerfull Control-Panel , any User can change the style (you can chang posts per page, size of textareas, stylesheets and a lot of many things ) , and you can change profile and E-Mail subscription easily

5-It takes a little space of the database (not like vBulletin it has TWO tables for posts and a BIG table for templates)

6- Easy to Install/Update

7- LARG Support libarry in the WWWThreads.com

8- His programmer (Rick Baker) is Great,Expert and Friendly Programmer

9- You can always get Bug Fixes for all versions

10- Resource Center has a lot of hacks, tools,styles and images

11- Top Secruity: (Not like other BBs )

12- The source is very easy to read , so you can modify it easily, and it has a GOOD module(w3t.pm) to make your hacks easy to create

13- You can easily translate it to your language (Not like vBulletin , you must edit all templates)

14- Admin Section is easy to use

15- Moderators/Admins has special Control Panel

16- And a lot of great features

Believe me, WWWThreads is the BEST choice

Scream, Thank you too much for this Great discussion forum

Regards,
eDeveloper