UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums General Suggestions and Feedback UBBThreads vs. vBulletin -- Defections & Why So Tough to Compare?

Why Is It So Difficult to Compare UBBTheads to other systems like vBulletin? What is better and why are a few large sites defecting?

I'm a long time UBB user. We moved from an old perl system, to what became 'Classic', to Threads. I'm currently running a 6.x series threads with 900,000 msgs, and have a test system up and running on 7.4.1. I'm a 'gold' member, though the fact that we already have paid for the upgrades isn't reason enough to stay with ubb or to change.

The fact is vbulletin has 20-40x? as many installs (probably for a variety of historic reasons), and currently seems quite similar to ubbthreads, so I thought it should be considered as a possible upgrade option. In some ways I like the look and feel of UBB better (and the lifetime upgrade option), though vbulletin does have a few nice features, in particular, wysiwyg msg editing (w/ ctrl-b ctrl-i ctrl-u etc. functions) as well as easy to find third-party plug-ins like 'iTrader' ratings.

There have been some a few defections this year. TrekBBS switch from ubb to vbul in March, and boards.lineage2.com changed from ubb to vbul less than two weeks ago. [Rick, it is time to remove Lineage2 from being one of the rotating 'Featured Forum' spots on the ubbthreads.com home page.] Did they find an advantage in vbulletin? Or where they already running other sites with vbulletin and simply wanted to standardize with a single package?

I asked TrekBBS why they changed and didn't get an answer. I have the same question pending with NCSoft/Lineage2. Both packages have their supporters that says their system is 'better' without any substantiation. I'm actually curious how server load compares, etc...

So this post is really bait for a number of questions:

1) Does anybody have any idea why a couple large systems have changed?
2) Is there really...really... any significant difference between either system?

and one thought:

3) the competition has the advantage of pure numbers...soldiers on the ground so to speak. Maybe ubb needs: (a) a page posting advantages over other systems, ie: lifetime upgrade option, strong feature set (b) an easy to use directory of third party add-ons for ubb, with a rating system (ubbdev forum with random threads isn't it), (c) modern importers for changing from the competition like vbulletin to ubbthreads -- the mere publicity of an importer would suggest some people find a reason for importing TO ubb. The competition has (imperfect) importers out of ubb. which serve as a forum of publicity.

I'm slightly leaning towards staying with ubb, though it isn't/wasn't an automatic decision. I like some of the competition's features, I wonder why some other forums have switched, and I worry that if more and more new system by the competitor's offerings that eventually it may result in more resources being available for R&D down the road...

I'd like to hear what others think, to both help me with my decision and in figuring how how to help ubb 'grow'.

Greg

I personally think the biggest mistake that Infopop made was not acquring the rights to vBulletin's predecessor, which was UBB.classic re-written in PHP with a MySQL database. The acquisition of WWWThreads didn't seem to help much, as most UBB.classic users chose to part ways with Infopop/Groupee.

I personally think that Infopop/Groupee should have discontinued UBB.classic earlier and offered only UBB.threads. UBB.classic basically trashed Infopop's reputation for quality forum software as it was written in Perl and used a flat file database, while most competing forum software was by then written in PHP and used a MySQL database. Offering two internally competing forum software solutions was a huge mistake, and I think Groupee regrets that strategy.

As for new features, the next version of UBB.threads (presumably version 7.5) should offer a new blogging feature. The next version afterward (either 7.6 or preferrably 8.0) will have a complete redesign of the GUI, and will include a WYSWIG editor.

BTW, the WYSIWYG editor in vBulletin is TinyMCE, a free/Apache License editor that is available to anyone who would want to hack it into their scripts... I've suggested to Rick to use it but I believe any UI changes would be in the major UI update when we move to more Ajaxian feel...

The simplest question to ask when as about people leaving threads, but not coming to threads is: is there an importer? No, there is not. Question is kinda moot as long as there is no way to get here.

I suspect Rick will address that now that 7.4.1 is out and he has time to breath. Don't KNOW that, haven't asked, call it a hunch.

I talked to one of the admins of one of the large sites that switched to vBulletin. They said they had two reasons: (1) uncurable data problems/errors/loss in ubbthreads, which I find very strange since neither I nor other ubb admin's I've talked to have experiened this..., and (2) supposedly superior moderator functions which upon my review so far is probably valid.

I'm going through the admin control panels of both packages building a feature by feature comparison. Both have some things the other does not. I'm inclined to post the comparison when I'm done in a day or two, and I'm sure people from both camps will have some corrections...

The moderator functions very well could be valid. In 7.3 we expanded the permission system to open things up on what can be assigned to groups, but won't be able to fully take advantage of it until we do the CP and UI update.

As for a side-by-side comparison guide. I've never put one up personally because software changes frequently and it's hard to keep up on our own let alone others. They can be pretty misleading as well, as they usually leave out something you mentioned. They'll list the things that they have but competitor X doesn't, but not vice-versa

As a newbie, let me add my 2¢. I chose UBBThreads over free stuff and vBulletin. Why, first the direct contact with Rick. He answered almost all the questions I threw at him. But the main reason was that I looked at lots of sites with forum, and they all looked the same. When I went to MacTech.com and looked at theirs, I said, that's what I've been looking for.

I've been working hard at implementing the forum over the last couple of days, and I'm almost done. A few images to find and a few questions to resolve.

When I'm done, I believe I'll have a safe world-class forum set up and ready to go when my web site is finished.

David