What's Better? MyBB, vBulletin or other? (Forum Software)

Vbulletin is always miles ahead than any other forum software..
WF, DP, SP, V7N, and most other forums uses VB..

I ve been using smf with good experience for many years. Current i ve morethan 10k users, with more than 10mill hits a month. Best of all smf is free.

I would choose Xenforo.

Also using SMF, haven't been able to test it much, but so far it's fantastic

Thank you guys, seriously.

Which is the most "webmaster" friendly?

I have a decent command of wordpress, but I really don't know html too well. I'll probably hire someone to install the forum on a subdomain, but I'd ideally like to use a platform that I could make changes to (e.g. adding a forum section, placing adsense) without having to hire someone every time.

For me it's a trio combo:

Simpleress + WordPress + s2Member

The reason I find these three together to be the best is you have soooo much freedom and flexibility with where you want to take your setup.

Here's just some of the things you can do super easily with these three, that can be very hard to do with just a forum script alone, especially a free one:

• Create an unlimited number of access levels (s2Member) and give each level access to specific parts of the forum (Simpleress)
• Also give those different groups access to certain areas of your WP site for private content (s2Member)
• Provide members only file downloads (s2Member)
• Easily setup payments for access, either one off or recurring (s2Member)
• Push post topics to forum threads to create linkage between site content and forum conversations
• Use WordPress shortcodes inside your forum, hence giving you the ability to use many WP plugins inside your forum
• Create a consistent style and appearance between your WP site and your forum
• Use the same database of members for both your WP site and forum, preventing people from needing two separate accounts.
• If you need to make your own modifications (or hire someone to), much simpler to do than with standalone forum scripts.

That's just off the top of my head.


If you have an interest in publishing content and having a robust membership setup, there's a very high number of perks coming from using these three together.

yo thanks again guys!

If you are planning to create a great forum then VBulletin should be your choice. Loadz of functionalities and mods which other platform dont provide/support and very seo friendly too.

Mark another one down for Vbulletin...

I have no knowledge about others and vBulletin ,but a little experience about mybb,
on that sense it is better I think.

If you're looking to integrate with Wordpress, then Simple Press offers one of the best, seamless integrations.

I vote for vBulletin.

I have a private forum and I ditched phpbb3 and got vbulletin a few months ago, I couldn't be happier.

Everybody marginalizes myBB. Thank you for including it. I've ran (and am currently running...) several forums with myBB and it's been excellent. The options are limitless and there are tons of designs and plugins to fulfill your desires. Best of all - it's completely free. I've ran a forum with over 25,000 users previously and it worked better than ever.

I personally like myBB better than SMF is because the overall design and functions and more modern. IMO, SMF forums look like they've been made in 2002. However, myBB has some very sleek designs and works very well.

The development team works really hard to fix all the bugs and add as many good features as possible - however you can find almost anything you need in the plugins section.

Disclosure: I am not affiliated with myBB.

P.S. I'm talking about free forums. vBulletin beats everything by a mile. However, it's paid and costs quite a lot for a project you don't even know is going to work financially. Why not start with a myBB and switch to vBulletin if it all works out? vBulletin provides those options.

I suggest Vbulletin to be honest

vBulletin is hands down the best although it can be a bit pricey for some.

I use vbulletin for every forum i own and wouldn't think about using anything else anymore

Simpleress is a viable alternative.

fluxbb.. it has clean, easily hackable code and an active community, but best of all, it has huge potential.

If your willing to pay vbullitin is great. I personally use mingle forum for my wordpress site I just hate bbpress. I you want to see it in action check out my site in my sig.

SMF has great features and is easy to use. Not great for integrating with Wordpress tho. Also difficult (tho not impossible) to convert to another forum if you change your mind later.

I've used IPB, VB & phpBB

Still using VB now.. much prefer it

phpBB to me was a lot more hassle than VB when it came to installing mods (plugins) making usergroups and sorting permissions etc.

Hi! I think that vBulletin is the best. Altough it is paid, its support is awesome. I used to have a forum on SMF but I had some setup problems and my visitors were always upset with the design, functions etc. So, I decided to move it to a better platform, by the way I used cms2cms tool here is its website if someone needs it Easy migration to vBulletin or from vBulletin.
I really glad that I did this move. It didn't migrate my theme but as I said my visitors didn't like it anyways.

I used mybb for two years, all is fine !

i'm using MyBB since 2008 & have no issues with the forum.
i would recommend MyBB for you, second choice punbb.
MyBB is very easy & lovely free forum software.