Olympus vs. the rest

[paulblackgsx]

Wow, some of the posts in this thread simply amaze me.

First - As the admin of several phpBB2 boards and several vBulletin boards, some of the claims here are amazing. There is great free mod support (include an entire forum with hundreds of them for vB). Also, that vB is too intensive for shared hosting. I have a vB install on a shared host that costs $5 a month, gets 200,000 page views, and has had as many as 67 people online at once! No complaints from the host, and no slow down.

Second - that phpBB must some how compete with those "other boards". It doesn't, for a lot of reasons, but primarily - it's free. They don't need every feature under the sun in order to have a successful and powerful board. I love the improvements with phpBB3. Yeah, there is no quick reply, but come on - it's an easy mod!! I love phpBB and it can handle even the largest of boards (the largest board I support is phpBB2). The support is no better/worse either way - both off about the same level of support for free, though vB has the option of additional paid support (for those who don't know what they are doing at all).

I've had to switch a couple of boards from phpBB2. These sites needed/wanted features available in vB and we're willing to pay for it, rather than wait. If you can't afford to wait or mod your own board, they STFU and spend the money and get vB. Otherwise, if you have the knowledge and aren't under a time constraint, there is really not much I've found vB does that phpBB3 doesn't do. Take your pick, but please stop spreading bad information about both systems as if vB has no free mod support or that phpBB must some how come with every feature a paid board does.

[manoj]

I haven't been on this board very long, but I have been at the regular site, phpbb.com, for quite a while. During that time, even when I was a noob, the team has been very nice and sincere to me, which is why I decided to help out there.
So, really, I don't know what you're talking about when you say that the team has no manners...look over at the phpBB topic at simplemachines.org, comon, even the admins there freak out..so I think the phpBB team is waaay better off than SMF.
Also, with replies like 'use the search function', etc, this is true. As HOL said, people have to learn to use the search function and other privileges provided to them. I don't see anything wrong with this, as we are still trying to help them out.

I love the phpBB team!
manoj

[SpecHackers]

phpbb is the best of all.

VB has a ton of feautes, IPB is a crap and SMF is worthless in comparing with us and others.
I have used SMF , VB and IPB and to compare with us, i think VB stands to be good.

towards security, i say PHPBB 3.0 would be much secure, no matter the olden days when the boards usually gets hacked due to SQL injection, now a days it is better.


NOTE : Please do not install any new fresh mods from anywebsite apart from PHPBB , coz it might put yourself in trouble.

Waiting for the Olympus relase.

[Joablen]

i used to work with SMF, actually it was the first BB i ever installed, administer and modded... but after a while i got bored of it because of the template system, it sucks... and now the only thing i would get from SMF to use in Olympus would be the mod and update system...

[Sovereign]

vBulletin is the Windows of the BB world, IPB is Mac and phpBB is Linux, simple as that. I switched to vB because the hacks/mods I had in my phpBB were constantly breaking (the Attachment Mod and Subforums Mod did not play nice for some reason, yes I hand-installed all the mods onto a phpBB that was pre-modded for attachments, nothing else). It was taking my site offline at the most inopportune times. But, vB has some features going for it, like one-click mod installs (seen 3.6?) But I don't think you can say that phpBB "competes" with vB. It doesn't matter. Pick the BB that has the features that you want. If you don't need vB's features (plus that annoying $30 renewal) then phpBB is a viable option. My biggest issue with phpBB was the lack of native attachment support and lack of subforums in the 2.x line. In 3.x, that is rectified. If I need other forums, I will most likely use phpBB.

On SMF, I only used 1.0, it was SLOW, prone to hanging and I don't know why but that scared me away from it. phpBB is FAST FAST FAST....

Keep up the phpBB goodness, and for you "purists" who insist you can't be a "real" user of one BB if you use another as well...GET A LIFE!

[binside]

There is not "The Best" as there is not the best car for example...
Different needs, different solutions...

Olympus is really a huge step ahead! Smooth, fast, secure... The only minus I think is the speed of its development. And please note! I said that it is a minus, but I know it is free, the devs have to work, eat etc.

I can compare phpBB and IPB only because I have a small experience with vB and SMF. And the reason I want to share my opinion here is the fact that a lot of people here said that IPB 'sucks' or 'it is crap'...
Well I don't know all your experience, but IPB is really solid and professional. Full of features, a lots of admin options etc. I don't know why you think so
The fact that IPB is used for so many famous companies should tell you a lot...

Anyway... As I said I don't think there is "The Best". I can only say... Release that Olympus and make us happy

Take care!

[CalluM]

I'm otherwise an IPB man. I hate phpBB2, I also dispise SMF and vB. For me, either IPB or phpBB3 rules... I love phpBB3 and shall be using it often!

[Hakaslak]

Well, I started mucking in the web around May, started a forum then with phpBB 2.0.19(?) and stuck with it for a few months, here's my observations:

With phpBB, it is free, fast, and simple, if you stick with a vanilla board, maybe a few styles, then you're good to go. Updating is simple, managing with the simple AdminCP is easy. However, I find that everytime I mod the board, (but maybe due to my hasty coding) I tend to break something. For example: The only way I ever got the attachment mod from AcydBurn working was through Ptirhiik's Categories Hierarchy mod. I have no idea why... I followed the instructions to the letter, and although Ptirhiik's is like 20 pages long, CH installed fine... also, modding a phpBB forum can get complicated when you try to upgrade, as the standard upload files/upgrade_to_latest.php doesn't work well, you have to get the code changes and upgrade phpBB like you would any other mod, which is a pain. It's generally easier to wait for the mods you have installed to be recoded for the new phpBB version, then dump the files, install a new BB, and reinstall the mods again. Painful. Now, it's not just the Attachment Mod that gave me grief, and I believe it was something I did, seeing that thousands of other people got it working... but things like that are what makes me not like phpBB much... the mods are hard to keep track of, manage, and update. Not to mention that the mods are tied to the phpBB version you're using, making updating phpBB hard, as well.

Because of those reason, I paid vBulletin $160, and got a license for it, and I don't regret it. While I do understand it is paid software, I feel that it is more solid and noob friendly. Granted, I am a much better (and careful) coder now, and I start to understand more of PHP and MySQL, but it is easier to maintain vBulletin than phpBB. Soome of the claims I've read about vBuleltin are outright lies. First of all, vBulletin does not use more resources than phpBB. Actually, from the plesk admin, the CPU load actually goes down from when I had phpBB, though that could be due to lack of members... . My members are telling me that the forum seems more responsive as well (not the ajax, just page loading) and overall, the community response is positive. Many people were extremely happy with the ajax posting and editing, which I agree with - it's so much nicer to have stuff liek that instantly occur, without having to wait for a reload. I did install the AJAXed mod for phpBB at one point, but it did not work for Caategories Hierarchy, which was a big turn off for me, and one of the reasons I moved to vBulletin in the first place. Little things like AJAX make people happy, I guess.

Another thing that I've seen people comment about is the cost to use vBulletin. The $160 is for a lifetime subscription and 1 year of updates, after which you wil have to pay $30/year to keep it up. The benefit of this cost is the fact that Jelsoft (owner of vBuleltin) will connect to your ftp (if you let them) and fix things for you. Now, I have had people try to do that for me in phpBB, but it is rare, and the three times I've let someone in they couldn't fix anything XD. anywho, that service alone is worth the money you pay them.

The cost of $30 per theme is ridiculous. The skinning community of vbulletin.org can rival that of phpBBs, and they don;t charge for their themes. they are every bit as good as phpBB's, and they even have a subsilver skin, which I am using now (I still like phpBB ). Frankly, I've seen more for sale phpBB skins than vBulletin skins... the only site that pops to my head at the moment is http://www.extremepixels.com," target="_blank which I think is overpriced anyways.

The modding community of vBulletin is also large, and their mods are jsut as good as phpBB's, if not better They offer the same level of support and features as phpBB's, with one exception - upgrading vBulletin or mods is so much simpler. All you have to do is upgrade vBulletin, then upload the new mod's XML file. Granted, if the code changes are extensive enough, the mod will have to have a new XML written, but it's not as bad as the code changes required for phpBB .

The reasons I moved from phpBB to vBulletin was a combination of things. First my avatars stopped working. Then, Categories Hierarchy's auths system was something I could never wrap my head around. Then, they had no AJAX. it was hard to integrate phpBB's login to my website...subforums was nigh impossible without Categories Hierarchy, which also rendered vanilla phpBB mods useless. Sorta like either CH, or everything else, which kind of sucked. I couldn't wait till Olympus to fix everything, and SMF was too ugly for me. As someone else said earlier, SMF's theme's are teh suck.

Honestly, I don't think either is better. If you're lazy, dumb, and n00bish, get vBuleltin, and have Jelsoft's phone support as well. It will help greatly. Yo ucan call them up every 5 minutes you break something. I didn;t pay for their phone support, since it is way too much, but some of you out there might find it useful. phpBB, on the other hand, is very good for a starting forum. Just try not to go mod crazy.. you'll be sorry.

By the way, I talked more about vBulletin seeing that that this is a phpBB forum.


Hakaslak

[Uchiha Nick]

hmm, where to start on this one..

AJAX: do you even know how it works? you got those nice Back/Forward buttons- which will be killed. I for one, use them a lot. then, when someone de-activates JavaScript- what then? I bet you won't like it that much anymore after that. AJAX is getting there- certainly. but at the moment, it's just a trend to show off with, people only look at the pro's, but not the cons.

CH: CH is listed as an 'Advanced' MOD AFAIK. installing it was your own choice- you could have gone for CyberAliens simple Subforums MOD.

Attachment: that one, is listed Advanced as well. you manage- to install 2 big mods, which are under advanced- without you ( presumeably ) knowing what your doing. even if you manage to go letter by letter, bugs can slip in through phpBB updates. ( changed codes ) you need to know what your doing- to find those bugs yourself.

Auto install MOD @ Vb: damn, that is cool. seriously- it is oh wait, phpBB has EasyMOD for that.. it's just not an inbuild feature.

XML MOD Install: taken a look at the MODX format?

Vb resourcefull light: yeah, wait till you have more users. since Vb has practically each known feature known to man installed- it's heavy. namely, queries.

Styles @ phpBB: phpBB is open-source. that means anyone can tinker with the code, and release it for their own. however- since styles are mostly re-written, that would mean they really can do with it what they want. for me, I am capable of making my own styles ( even tho I lack designer skills ) or I am content with the styles the 'Style DB' has to offer.

Styles @ Vb: I mostly see the same, standard theme on Vb boards. or, they just modified some colors/images. then, you have heir style db- for which you have to pay- which aren't that special IMHO.

no seriously, if you want to compare phpBB with Vb- research it and, continue with PHP/MySQL- since that obviously is where the competition lies.

[DragonlordP]

Some great points in there. My feelings exactly. I'm still waiting for the release of Olympus to decide whether I'm staying with phpbb or moving on to vb and these are mainly my thoughts. I'd like to have some extras without having a heavily modded forum that's so hard to upgrade if you're not a master programmer. Come on phpbb team, if anyone wants a simple basic forum then the 2.0.x line is always there, it's time to move on...