Olympus vs. the rest

[Dog Cow]

I use phpBB for the simple reason that it's what powered the very first forum I subscribed to, about 3-4 years ago. I loved it.

Now, I'm on the other side as an Admin and I've learned an incredible amount of PHP and MySQL, something I wouldn't have otherwise been able to do if it hadn't been for free phpBB and free MODs that I get.

I've been working with phpBB2.0.x for more than a year now so I can modify it myself very easily because I know the code and layout like the back of my hand.

But I also run other forums on my Mac @ home which is a private (local) webserver. I currently have phpBB1.4.4, phpBB2.0.x, phpBB3.0 B2, YaBB, Vanilla, and SMF running (plus one other, can't remember the name now....

I have to say that the phpBB community is great. While I have never needed support, (not becasue I've never had problems, but becasuse I've learned how to fix 'em myself) I do read others' support topics and sometimes answer them. No one, AFAIK, gets treated too badly for being a newbie.

As for vBulletin, I believe it may be a good board for those with numbers in the mililions, but anyone who has read Lanzer's posts and been to GaiaOnline will know, phpBB can do that too.

PS: Just remembered the name, it's punBB

[trenzterra]

As what others have said, I believe it all depends on your needs and wants.

For me, I just take phpBB as the 'core'. Like the Linux or Windows kernel. Then I add the things that I want to have in my forum. It makes my board unique, too.

[naderman]

you got those nice Back/Forward buttons- which will be killed.

Let me reply to this with your own words

do you even know how it works?

It's really simple to keep them working even if you never completely reload the page but only use xmlhttprequest to change the website.

[Eelke]

I think there's two issues with AJAX:
- It's hyped, just look at how often people scream "add AJAX", without even suggesting what to use it for.
- It takes time and skill to get right, and there are a lot of ways to do it wrong.

Especially time is something the developers do not have. Besides, phpBB 3 is feature frozen. Maybe for a future version, in some well-considered places AJAX could be a good idea. If done right. I think that considering things well and doing things right is in the right hands with the phpBB dev team.

[trenzterra]

I too agree that AJAX is good, only if implemented properly.

Many people who suggest AJAX fail to realise that implementing it takes lots of time and hard work. AFAIK there's a mod for phpBB2 that does some AJAX, perhaps the developers can get some inspiration from there for 3.2.

[Hakaslak]

I just noticed how gay my avatar looks.... T_T nm, Fixed

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.

Since you are soo much more knowledgable than me, and assume I know absolutely nothing, here you go, http://www.donotremove.co.uk/extra/ajax ... dex.html#1" target="_blank -
knock yourself out. By the way - I am one of those "someones" that deactivates Javascript. But one must keep in mind that not too many people do, with a majority of them either on some Lynx browser, or using the Noscript extension in Firefox to disable scripts. But, the people like me who do disable scripts also tend to know when to allow scripts for a site. Most importantly, however, is the fact that the AJAX on my forum are not REQUIRED. They do little things, like not requiring a refresh when posting a comment, or having nifty little drop down menus effects. Disabling AJAX is not a hindrence. Sort of like taking away something that you don't really need - it's more of a added bonus. Oh, and before you quote me saying I am being a hypocrite, AJAX is something my community finds useful, and my dual opteron rig shrugs off the extra cpu usage. And bout Lynx users - they wouldn't be interested my my fora. And people who come to my forums have no clue what Lynx is anyways.

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

If I remember right, Simple Subforus required the eXtreme Styles Mod, which did not like my shared hosting at the time. Besides. CH has much more to offer than subforums.

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.

Presumeably is a quess here. I did know what I was doing. And no. I don't use EasyMOD. Doubt it would even work.

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.

I seem to remember vague arguments about the use of EasyMOD, and how much stuff it breaks in the process of using it... maybe it's just my imagination...

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

Nope. You talking about http://modxcms.com/" target="_blank ?

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.

What extraneous features? PLease list out features that are extraneous and resource heavy.

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.

Ummm... I was merely commenting on some people's idea that you have to buy vb styles. As I said before, my forum is still using SubSilver. Even though it is on vBulletin now. I never said anything negative or otherwise about the phpBB style community. I am not here to bash either software, merely to share my own observations and opinions. I never mentioned anything about phpBB being bad in any way.

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.

I see too many default phpBB subsilver boards. To a point where most people don't take off the default phpBB logo. Do not tell me theat you see too many default vB boards. At leaest they try to change the logo. Besides. Nothing is wrong with the default style. Look at http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/" target="_blank .

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.

Huh? What competition?

[titan485]

Hmm Google and MSN are viewing this conversation now.

I myself have made a point to experiment with everything of every type I can, leading to me running fedora core as a server, but this is most definately not limited to operating systems, as I have tried and used many different forum softwares.

I have an older site demonstrating some older builds of various softwares including phpbb (http://fs.ashensky.com/).

My experience would say the following:

SMF is a very full-featured software. If you view it in a comparison chart of features (link) it looks like a definate hands down win. SMF is slightly slower though, and I find version/skin/feature compatibility is very crippling at the moment (I won't go into details but lets suffice to say they've got some stuff they need to fix in their next release) so I'm not using it as a main forum software. SMF's default skin is the most UGLY skin in the universe, causing many people (me too, formerly) to discard it as a choice and be an advocate against it without the use of it.

In fact, SMF has almost everything IPB/vBulletin has. (Thats a little bit of an overstatement, and I have not used vBulletin as my funds are severely limited being a teenager as I am)

IPB I say I vehemently hate IPB for their outrageous prices and especially their decision to go proprietary after the 1.3x release, but really, for a professional community or a company, it is a very good option. I have been told they have some ajax built in but I haven't really noticed it. IPB is actually fairly hard to skin for someone who can code with xhtml/css (even though it IS possible, of course) but their source code is cleann and I don't really have much to say for or against it. IPB is widely considered the standard that softwares are measured against, at least in my circles.

vBulletin - I can't say much about this, having not used it much, so I'll refrain, sorry.

punBB I'm currently using this, punbb is insanely fast, and their extensions are incredibly easy, but it is lacking is some features I'd like, most of which phpbb provides with ease. My community is very small, however, and consists of some of my close friends who like to, well, spam-- alot-- so speed is the most important factor to me. The administration interface is integrated seamlessly into the actual board, unlike almost every software I've seen.

Some more I haven't seen mentioned:

Vanilla VANILLA W00T! I love vanilla! My users never have taken to it because its different, and different can be scary, but if I ever have to pick the best forum software, vanilla wins it. http://getvanilla.com

phorum another w00t, phorum is incredibly fast, and their skinning functionality is the textpattern of the forum world. Their default skin admittedly sucks, but that is easily corrected. This is another lean forum much like punbb, however I prefer punbb. (which is horrible at skinning I should probably add)

MyBB I'm a little confused, I'm not sure this is open source, and I haven't used it extensively, but from what I've seen, this has literally every feature you can image, and without a huge load time. They do need a little work in some areas to make it more mainstream, but I'd consider it if you're one of the feature-lusting maniacs like I used to be.

metaforum well.... still in a beta stage, but hey, its pretty much all ajax. It's pretty cool. I figured out how to remove their ads, reguardless of whether I was supposed to or not (don't sue me I don't use the forums!!) but the idea is pretty cool. If they get those ads off and a nicer skin they'd be a competitor I'd bet. However, like the below minibb, the admin interface leaves a want of something.

minibb well, nice in theory, the admin sucks, and punbb has all the features it has and more and faster. I just through this in here so people can think about it if they wish... O.o

I suppose you guys are well versed in phpbb and know much more than I, but I'd say phpbb falls in that category "better than punbb and as cool as vBulletin and as feature filled as IPB" which is fairly true, even though IPB isn't the epitomy of feature-filled-ness....


I hope someone at least read that even though it would probably even bore me.... >.<

[Dog Cow]

hehe, I read through it. It's not boring if it's something you're interested in..

Anyway, out of all the forum sites I subscribe to, I have to say I like phpBB the best and vB the worst.

It seems like every other forum software besides vB is just a clone of phpBB in terms of interface layout and features. I personally don't like vB because I find the interface overloaded and cluttered with too many features. If I owned a vB board, I would most certainly do away with most of it to make it run as closely to phpBB as possible, interface wise.

[agent00shoe]

One thing I didn't see mentioned about SMF is their strict rule about not altering the copyright. If you remove it, you'll have huge red letters at the bottom of your forum saying you're using an "illegal copy" of smf and to notifiy the board administrator. Also, if you take the time to create a mod, it becomes their property, not yours. For a few other reasons, their license leaves much to be desired.

And I agree with some of the other points that have been made about it:
-Mods that can be installed with just a few clicks, but the quality and number of the mods isn't great.
-The acp isn't very intuitive (this bugged me a lot).

To be fair, most of us could also list things that we don't like about phpbb, but you can't please all the people all of the time.

After trying out different forum software here and there, I prefer to stick with phpbb because it has always stayed focussed on being community software and nothing more. Other forums tend to get off-track with useless bells & whistles while trying to be more than just a forum, like CMSes and blogs. When they lose focus like that, the overall quality seems to get dilluted.

[Hakaslak]

hehe, I read through it. It's not boring if it's something you're interested in..

Anyway, out of all the forum sites I subscribe to, I have to say I like phpBB the best and vB the worst.

It seems like every other forum software besides vB is just a clone of phpBB in terms of interface layout and features. I personally don't like vB because I find the interface overloaded and cluttered with too many features. If I owned a vB board, I would most certainly do away with most of it to make it run as closely to phpBB as possible, interface wise.

What do you mena by cluttered?

Almost everything can be disabled in vBuleltin, from the multi quoting, to quick replies, AJAX, PMs, categories... goes on and on. If you dont use a feature, disable it. The nice things is that you have the option to use some things, like the calendar. ANd if you're complaining about the AdminCP, well, I like more choices than less.

Of you guys don't believe me, I can give you guys admin access to a board I own and you can see for yourself. vBuleltin has nothing really bad about it EXCEPT for the price, whic, as I stated above, is more for the support than anything else. Jelsoft will FTP into your server (if you let them) and fix YOUR mistakes.