UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat Why do people change from UBB?

I have noticed over the past year, a lot of the forums I goto are moving from UBB to VB. Thing is, I can't work out why. I do not like the look and style of VB and to me it seems a little more amaterish.
Plus all the hacks that are available on VB are available in some style or form for UBB. The only advantage that VB has, is it runs entirely with PHP while UBB does not, it merely runs off CGI and does have a PHP accelerator which most hacks just have problems with.

Now I know I am going to get a one sided opinion here and I am not asking which is better, what i am asking, is why are so many people transferring to VB? Is there some reason? Is it cheaper? Easier to hack?

Thankyou.
Hank

Most users that posted their reasons said that it's because their hosts made them, because UBB's flat files increase CPU usage a lot. I don't think so many of them moved because of the look, hacks, price, etc.

I never understood it either. I agree vB looks childish and amateurish and it's always been my experience that it is more time consuming to read a vB community because there seems to be transition pages for many more functions as compared to UBB. Also all the added graphics slow down us poor old dial up users.

I've been an active member in a few communities that switched to vB and soon after I've and many other members left to never return again. It may be faster on the server, but for the average visitor it is anything but.

I had to move to vB, because (like LK said) my host pretty much made me. I got an email, from my host, saying UBB was shut off, because it was creating too much server load.

quote:

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Originally posted by Hank:
Plus all the hacks that are available on VB are available in some style or form for UBB.

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Not to create a forum war of some sort (because I love UBB as much as vB ), but the vB hacks community has been spitting out hacks like there is no tomorrow, many of which you can't find a replica here on UBBDev unfortunately. I remember a thread on here recently which even stated that. I don't remember the thread's name, but it was about how UBBDev's community was getting smaller(?) or something.

Oh well, I am still using UBB, just not on my own server.

I think that is the main reason that infopop started to offer hosting...Can't sell a product that no hosts allow.

I doubt it. They were already providing hosting for Open Topic customers. Besides, hosting and O/T, UBB.x offers better cash flows for them -- collecting monthly fees rather than a one time license pop.

Let me say it again, go to www.digitalprinceton.net and your UBB will get a very warm welcome. Come on now, let's be honest. You can hack or modify either of them to look like what ever you want and the fact is that there are more diverse hacks for vB right now but I love my UBB and feel that I have a very unique site. I have always said that I prefered a database to flatfiles but my host likes UBB and I plan on being with them for a long time. I have other sites that are PHP and MySQL and I am open minded about a lot of products.

I had to switchbecause of my host also. I haven't made the swtch yet, but I'm supposed to have it done within the week. At first I hated vB, but now I'm beginning to like it. There's no need to bash the look of it, it is all changeable, and there are tons of hacks. I wish people would just chill out on the vB bashing thing here... Just because you don't use a product doesn't mean you should put it down. It seems like people that do that just do it to make the product they bought look better. Just MHO, though, I used to be a vB basher myself.

Also, it is much cheaper ($115 cheaper to be exact), which makes it a lot easier for the average person to get a license.

I work on a few vB's or used to and I never liked them as much as UBB. UBB is alot easier for me, and I love the hacks for it. But I agree with whoever said this, the vB hacking community is alot more active then our one in terms of hacks released. LK has been doing a great job with releasing over 20 hacks, but it's time we get some people like him to UBB.

im not trying to start a forum war so lets not get this topic closed like so many others...k?

ive moved mostly to vB but i have a ubb coming down the line. i find most people that run ubb do not get why people move over because they have never worked on one on the backend. i used to be the same. but here where my reasons

1. after losing s:c to hosting complecations 6 times i had to move to something less stressful on the server, but i will add that i had 106 hacks running so my ubb caused alot more stress on the host then most would, also mine way 6.05 witch did not have the .php files, however i did run the cgi buffer when it came out.

2. the mySQL backend, something that ive been beging for here has not come out, and infopop has not released a verson of ubb.classic with it..i dont want to move to ubb.t as its not ubb. and i want a forum on MY host so ubb.x is out of the question for me.

3. php is a earyer code for me so i can code for php based forums better then perl based forums

4. the vB hacking community has been spitting out alot of new hacks and ideas.

5. vB is cheaper then ubb.classic both on price and renew fee's. so i can put more money towards other things

6. vB has alot more fetures that makes life on the admin easyer. templates in the cp, style uploads and downloads. and a ubb skin for anyone thats moving over

all that said, i would like to add that infopop and ubbdev are picking up the ball here lately, myStyle and many other hacks have really bridged the gap. i would like to say thanks to all the hackers and infopop themselfs, tho i may not agree with some recent moves by infopop i will say as far as ubb.classic developent is going, its gotton alot better, and for thoese reasons ive decided to renew and run anthor ubb. i hope it will be as good as s:c was but only time will tell.

Sadly, I must agree with AL. Price wise, vB is looking alot better then UBB. As some people have told me, UBB is aimed at rich corporations that can afford these things easy but we aren't all from these things. If the price were to go down I guarentee people would go to UBB, and have a much larger comminity. I know I'm a little person in a big world but I feel like Infopop don't listen to their customers. A bad feeling, because all a customer wants is good service and get what they paid for. I think the UBB is worth how much it is now but not everyone sees it that way. Because vB looks better with it's cheaper price, and heaps of features in stock.

I know this thread will get closed, obviously. But listen for a change.

don't tell us, go tell infopop. go, clutter up their community. it's not like they make a habit of reading threads over here. we're paying customers too

topic closed....

kidding...

well, maybe not...

we'll see...

Oh! I know why people switch to vB...

cuz, they're....

Lamerz....

sorry....

couldn't resist....

eh, whatever floats your boat I say.

Ooooh I was reading the vB support forum today and they are being mean to UBB.

any products suport forum will do everything they can to promote their products over anthor companys. infpop dose it, jelsoft dose it, pepsi dose it, coke dose it, mac dose it, microsoft dose it. its more money for them.

And how they always compare it to something similar...

Gosh...I didn't know that there was a Pepsi Development Community

We're not cheerleaders, just a bunch of geeks that like to tinker.

Rah-Rah and all that

i sould have re phrased that post .

the point is it dosent matter what you buy or who you buy from their rivals are ganna do anything they can to sell you on their product

Well the problem in my opinion is that UBB is great for small to medium sized boards but once it grows large it chokes even on a large dedicated server (been there done that). The PhP accelerator helps but as noted really causes problems with modifications. VB's combination of PhP and MySQL is faster and is scalable with less system resources needed.

The only reason I did not switch is I felt that we could do a better job customizing the systems code vs how the other bulletin boards were coded since we did not have to cater to a market but rather only our system. I did look at all the other offerings and was made offers by more then 1 to make the switch.

While I see IPs reasoning behind not going with anything other then the pure basic server requirements I have to question how this will fare out in the future as PhP, MySQL and others are redily available, require little work to add to the server and will reduce over head tremendously. Wasn't it Bill Gates who exclaimed once that we will never need more then 640k?

I think our host ( Pair ) is anti-vB.
We get PHP and mySQL support.
but we can only use 5 x 20Mb Databases. And you can't store HTML or binary files in them. So that pretty much screws vB over at the first hurdle.

As for my preference.

UBB is more professional looking, whilst vB could be aimed at the personal market.

Also i've seen vB throw up a lot more errors than UBB in my time, usually something to do with the DB. UBB IMO is more reliable. BTW I still like vB, just not as much.

OK. Thanx everyone for the reasons. Another question though, why does Infopop not resort to using PHP more? More like Vb?

Just to throw something else out there, what about ubb.x and ubb.threads? I don't believe comparing VB to UBB is fair, I think comparing ubb.x and ubb.threads would be a better comparison. UBB is really in its own category anymore. As someone earlier in this thread stated, UBB is really meant for small to medium size sites.

I wasn't all that impressed with the look and feel of threads pre-6, but the version 6 is looking good IMO, and as IP has it longer, I'm sure the look and feel will gravitate more toward the classic UBB (just my opinion).

Threads v6 is looking really really good. For that matter, phpBB v2.0 is a lot of fun to tinker with but in the end I'm always back to UBB.

Yes, threads v6 looks alot better than the v5 one. Maybe it can get a start here.

Does, does, does
Sorry, but you always seem to say 'dose'.

Anyway, because their servers are being killed/their hosts are chucking them off most often.

(partially testing quick reply )

I had to move as UBB was causing my server to need a reboot every 4-6hrs, I love it to bits but when you've a busy board it just ain't practical

I sorta migrated my board users to phpBB2. Mostly the only reason is that I can more easily integrate the board into my site because of the database and such.

Also because my site was php and the board was cgi, the whole thing sorta made sense. I do miss ubb though. phpBB2 doesn't have as nice of a control panel and the features are limited. It's freeware, so what can you expect.

It also cuts the server load which helps my host who is a friend of mine.

Guess PHP is winning out again.

... when are people going to understand that it's the database, not the language that makes the difference.

Some of us understand that but then again I build and administer 8 and 16 processor SQL2000 Enterprise clusters. I may suck at writing code but I kick butt in the data center.

I remember once upon a time, someone got banned for not getting a prize and mentioning it in the forums, so I wouldn't be so sure.

Typically we ban people for either: 1) being eejits, 2) pirating ubb or 3) poor spelling.

Unless this thread starts to develop some actual value, I'm inclined to close it.

....oh and 4) people who annoy us

while #2 is why the majority get banned, #1 is trying to make a comeback

quote:

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Originally posted by dende:
I remember once upon a time, someone got banned for not getting a prize and mentioning it in the forums, so I wouldn't be so sure.

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there was quite a bit more to it than that... you only know a little piece of the story.