UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat UBB 6.04d Versus VBulletin 2.0, need advice please!

Hello people,

I'm using UBB for a long time now, and being busy with a new redesign, I'm being torned apart. Can anybody tell me the big advantage of UBB over Vbulletin, or what are the big differences? Today (reading the UBBDEV forums) I was sure again that with the hacks I can make UBB almost as funtional as custumizable as I want, but then I see that even the winner of UBBDEV contest of January (www.whoisvan.com) has chosen for Vbulletin.
I see a lot people switching to Vbulletin, why? I would like to use UBB, but it seems Vbuletin has so many extra "cool" features.

Already thanks for helping me out here.

Mimezine

UBB has it's features implemented correctly. I've seen vB's code and they slabbed the code on like a mess.
UBB will have some more cool features in the comming months.
UBB has ubbdev, a huge UBB related site.
UBB has wonderful tech support and a company background to back it up.

Many people are not happy with the lack of features in UBB, and do not wish to spend alot of time hacking code. So they choose vB.

UBB is compatible with most hosting plans out their cuz perl/cgi is a time honored tradition. But php/mysql is now becomming standard, if your server only runs perl/cgi stick with UBB, if it supports other things such as php, you have room to expand.


The other reason many people are leaving UBB is becuase with rising prices, they are seeing no new features, I agree that many new and great things are in the works, but thats exactly where they are, in the works. People want to see the product now, and not buy for the future.....

This is not a good place to ask.

Go ask somewhere like www.sitepointforums.com

That is exactly what not to do, you don't want to have people go else where for ansewers. Then they don't come back.......

Instead you face them, and give people the facts......

Yes. We want to give them answers to their question.

Welcome mimezine, this comes up occasionally, you should try the search next time to find other discussions about this... What sites have you run ubb on? You are a new member here, just wonder where you've been hiding...;)

Basically it's like this.. what's "cool" to you, me, a hundred other people is junk to another 10,000,000 people. With either software you can customize to your heart's content, but we still forget that ~90% of the people who buy forum scripts never customize their scripts other than color changes, maybe some graphics. The 100-200 "features" that are in, can be added to forum software, really mean very little to the vast majority of forum members... what counts more than anything is stability, user experience, and content content, content... the majority of users (and their webmasters) don't care what "brand name" is on the label, they just wanna post, interact with other people with like-minded interests, and come back the next day (if they think your site is interesting enough) and post some more...:)

Bells and whistles don't mean diddly to most forum members. If that's all you have to offer, then those users who wanna "check out the latest thing" will flock to the next site with more bells and whistles... content is what keeps a user... I have seen this hold true for everyone of the hundreds/thousands of sites I have visited with forums... for those that want bells and whistles, we do a right good job of supporting that choice, and with auto-installers, adding something is just a few mouse clicks away....

Having said all that, the choice between the 2 is a matter of preference... with UBB you get software with history and a future... you have a actual company that's gonna be around when you wanna upgrade in the next year or 2... with software that's built by people working out of their bedrooms, you can get decent products, but they may or may not be around in that same time...

Feature-wise, I don't really know, I have never had a copy of vB, so I can't compare... the 2 products really aim at 2 different markets, and have been designed that way since day one...

I do know you won't find better support for your product anywhere else...:)

My point was, if you want a fair opinion, you *don't* go to a UBB or a vBulletin support website!

Feature-wise, go to the websites, compare feature lists, and check out some forums running them.

vB has more "features" than UBB.

UBB has cleaner code than vB, thanks to its rewrite.

vB's interface is also cluttered and borders on the confusing and irritating.

UBB's interface has set the standards for years now.

Both vB and UBB can handle large loads, both of which are dependant on how well the database is set up. In UBB's case, the database is nothing more than a bunch of text files. Fast disk I/O yeilds a fast UBB. In vB's case, it's MySQL. If MySQL is configured properly, it will yeild a fast vB.

On the other hand, if your server I/O sucks, UBB will run like a dog, and if your MySQL is slow or not tuned, vB will quickly cause it to fall over.

Neither are perfect products by any means.

Both suck equally.

Both rock equally.

Just use the one you feel like using.

Where's the debate in this?

If you like vB more than UBB, use vB.

If you like UBB more than vB, like we hope you might, use UBB.

Re: vB2 RC2

Well, the code I cannot comment on - but looking at the templates which are fully editable from the vB it is very slick, tidy and easy to read and understand for php newbies.

Ubb has cool features. I would disagree here, because Ubb takes a lot of hacking to get up to vB2 stanard - and even then the problem that many people have written custom hacks results in bugs, problems, and unsucessfull attempts to install the mod. I don't know why ubb doesn't include these in the first place, and give options to turn them on and off, but thats another argument

Any features coming in the next few months? All products do, its just if they materialise. Infopop so far hasn't even go the "Last reply on topic page" as standard, so I wouldn't expect anything too cool.

Ubbdev.com and Ubb communities are indeed better than vB. However I think this is due to the fact a lot less work needs to be done to vB2 for it to be a quality off-the-shelf product. The Ubb dev community is friendly, supportive. vB isn't unfriendly and unsupportive, but they lack *something* special that the Ubb community has.

The advantages of Ubb:

• You don't need SQL/php or expensive hosting options.
• Good community
• It easy to run, cheap and is good for small to medium websites

The advantages of vBulletin 2.0

• Blistering fast
• Suitable for medium to extra large sites
• Extremely scalable
• Pre hacked, and looks yummy before you even get your hands dirty

These, as I am hoping you respect, are my personal opinions, and the reason I moved away from Ubb.

That doesn't mean to say I dislike Ubb - I think its a great product and suits a lot people and web sites. Sit down and work out what you want to do. Then take a look at both the products, and look at other peoples websites.

Heya,

I run what is still a pretty small board - approx 1000 members (but the sites only been open for 7 months)....

I've been using UBB since 5.46 and over all I've been very happy with it prior to UBB6.

v6 has been a major disappointment to me I must admit because of the rings it makes a server running it jump through.

I also have grown very dispondent in IP since v6's release simply because they seem to be going to lengths to not prove whether UBB6 statistically is better than v5 on servers.

But having said that my licence runs out in September so I'm going to stick with it hoping that IP introduce some much needed hacks as standard. ie. Whose Online, Polls, hopefully slashUBB (but that may be asking too much), and also they can miraculously make UBB6 run quite a bit better.

If they don't introduce those features I'm off to use vb.

But it has to be said that the main thing that's kept me with UBB is the excellent support from Infopop which I have to say is unrivalled having bought quite a few scripts etc. in my time.

They've gone to all lengths possible when I've had problems (which incidentally only happened with early versions of v6 gold) to help me resolve the problems I had, and it was very cool.

UBB6 is progress in that it looks better aesthetically, the cache system theoretically could make a big improvement if they actually get it working better, and finally has the old "last post by" hack (why they've put it on the main ultimatebb.cgi page is beyond me seeing as it makes much more sense to have it on the forum topic listing), but UBBs now are a long way behind other forum software and need to catch up fast imo

=/

Just my 2c

[ May 08, 2001 06:44 AM: Message edited by: CTH ]