Any vBulletin users here?

25 replies
Hi everyone,

I'm trying to convert my one sided membership blog into a community based platform. Have been researching various venues (Ning, BuddyPress, vBulletin, Mingle, Dolphyn, Elgg, Joomla) but can't seem to get all my answers.

Ning is definitely out. Still researching BuddyPress but am not sure it gives all that I need. As for vBulletin, their site is not very useful when it comes to selling vBulletin. The screenshots are enticing but I obviously need more to make a decision. I'm not the most technical person and originally leaned towards Ning, but just can't get over not having control over the data)

I want to create a community where people can create their own profiles, upload pictures, videos, audios, have their blog posts, upload their own articles, create their own communities within the overall community, participate in the forums. They should be able to invite other members to join their network, etc.

I can't quite seem to figure out how what pieces I need to make all this happen. Currently using WP with WishList.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
#buddypress #ning #users #vbulletin
  • Profile picture of the author Stubbe1976
    Hi
    Try and take a look at Invision Power Board.
    Or maybe Vbulletin combined with Digital Access Pass.

    Allan Stubbe Christensen
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Meaney
    I use Vbulletin on all my forums.. but not in the way you're planning to. It's fantastic software, and WF uses it.

    They offer a Vbulletin CMS which sounds like it would do what you want, not sure how it would handle payments though, you might need to grab an extra module for that.
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Originally Posted by Mick Meaney View Post

      I use Vbulletin on all my forums.. but not in the way you're planning to. It's fantastic software, and WF uses it.

      They offer a Vbulletin CMS which sounds like it would do what you want, not sure how it would handle payments though, you might need to grab an extra module for that.

      Thanks, Mick! So this warrior forum is actually built with vBulletin? Didn't know, it's great.
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    • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
      Originally Posted by Mick Meaney View Post

      I use Vbulletin on all my forums....... They offer a Vbulletin CMS which sounds like it would do what you want, not sure how it would handle payments though, you might need to grab an extra module for that.
      You use vbulletin, but you do not know about the built in payment system?

      With the paid subscription manager, you have have different groups having access to different sections in the forum, and its all automatic.

      OP, go with either envision power board of vbulletin.

      When jelsoft was bought out a couple of years ago, the new owner pushed vbulletin 4 out the door rather fast. The developers are still cleaning out the security bugs.

      There have also been a lot of complaints about the vbulletin publishing system. From what I have seen and heard, its not very user friendly. Vbulletin users want the developers to include something like a wordpress CMS, but I doubt that is going to happen.

      Xenforo is new to the block, but there is a lawsuit between vbulletin and xenforo.

      I run 3 vbulletin forums and have been using vbulletin for close to 5 years. Its a top notch forum software with tons of modifications.
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  • Profile picture of the author JaspervBulletin
    Hi blue,

    I still can't reply to pms until I reach the 50 post milestone.

    If you want to see videos of our product, you can check it out here...
    vBulletin Youtube Channel

    We offer tons of tutorials on how to customize vBulletin and even offer installation service.
    Tutorials
    Installation


    Anyways if you have anymore questions, you can call our sales support and we'd be more than happy to provide you answers to your inquiries. Feel free to call us. The phone number is on this page...
    https://www.vbulletin.com/order/index.php
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Hi Jasper, thanks for posting the link to the Youtube channel. I had found that before but those are not very useful for a person wanting to know what exactly vBulletin is. Those are all how-to videos on specific components of the product once someone already has the product. I still don't know and can't tell from your site what exactly vbulletin does and does not do. There is no real sales information about your product. :-(
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  • Profile picture of the author sandman123
    One of the customized vBulletin forums I admin DeereTalk .. amazingly stable forum software.
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    Let me show you how to make hundreds of extra $'s weekly .. Click here.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Baker
    IPB or Invision Power Board can do all that you want with the addition of modifications you can download and implement for free. I have always found it to be the most customizable forum software available.
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Originally Posted by Mike Baker View Post

      IPB or Invision Power Board can do all that you want with the addition of modifications you can download and implement for free. I have always found it to be the most customizable forum software available.

      Mike, you are right, IPS seems like a great solution. Pricing for unlimited user at around $600 per month is a bit steep. However, if their service is reliable and the product is user friendly, it might be worth it. Have you used this product for a while? Any positive/negative feedback on your end?

      Thanks everyone for your input!
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Baker
    I'm not sure where you got the $600 per month from, but a license to the product can be purchased for $149 for 6 months and then $25 every 6 months after that for personal use, or $349 for 6 months and then $50 every 6 months for business use.

    I haven't used Invision since it was upgraded to v3.0 as that was when the site I was running at the time using v2.8 got hacked and I decided to cut my losses and close the site down. But I do know they have made many improvements on the software and it also looks ever better than before.

    IPB also has the most free skins, mods, and other extras to enhance your forum experience and the admin control panel is so easy to use and understand.

    When I was using it, it was for 12 months without any hiccups. Whenever I needed customer supported (which wasn't very often) the support people were very helpful.
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    • I used to run a VBulletin site. This was oh, about five years ago and things may have changed, but...

      I found Jelsoft Enterprises to be difficult to deal with. At that time they were completely uninterested in making VBulletin easy to configure. I'm not talking about massive customization here but simple stuff like putting in banners. I couldn't believe their attitude. I'll never buy any product from them again.

      Understand that a site like WF has been heavily customized, probably at considerable expense. I think there's a "Designed by" link in the lower righthand corner.

      fLufF
      --
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      Fiverr is looking for freelance writers for its blog. Details here.
      Love microjobs? Work when you want and get paid in cash the same day!
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Originally Posted by Mike Baker View Post

      I'm not sure where you got the $600 per month from, but a license to the product can be purchased for $149 for 6 months and then $25 every 6 months after that for personal use, or $349 for 6 months and then $50 every 6 months for business use.

      I haven't used Invision since it was upgraded to v3.0 as that was when the site I was running at the time using v2.8 got hacked and I decided to cut my losses and close the site down. But I do know they have made many improvements on the software and it also looks ever better than before.

      IPB also has the most free skins, mods, and other extras to enhance your forum experience and the admin control panel is so easy to use and understand.

      When I was using it, it was for 12 months without any hiccups. Whenever I needed customer supported (which wasn't very often) the support people were very helpful.

      Thanks for the reply Mike! The $600 or thereabouts is on their websites, it's based on how many users you can have online at the same time and number of gigabites people upload, etc. My biggest challenge is that I don't want to use a product that is hosted elsewhere, which is why I chose not to use Ning. The challenge with that is if you increase your membership to a few thousand people and the company decides to increase their prices per member, I'm screwed and off I go searching for a way to migrate to another platform. I'm just thinking long term. :-)

      will keep researching (I think my root canal wasn't this challenging). :p
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Baker
    Oh I see! You are talking about the Hosted version of Invision. I personally don't recommend going that way for 2 very good reason, 1 of which you have already pointed out being the limit on the number of users you can have online at any one time. The other being that if Invisions server goes down, so does your site.

    I highly recommend buying a full license which you then install on a web host that you have bought a hosting plan from (like HostGator). This way you are not limited to anything you can do with the software. You are only limited by the hosting plan you have the forum installed on.

    When you first start a new forum it is always best to go with a small plan that you can afford and as your user base grows you can always upgrade your hosting plan when needed.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Thomas
    How u doing guys, new user here. And I have a big question here. I am new to setting up forums lol

    I want to have a subscription forum where people pay to become a member. I have heard that Vbulletin has it built in so that all i have to do is easily set it up. But does IPS have the same capabilities?

    Also is the price for VBulletin $195 one time. Or is it like IPS ($150 for 6 months and $25 for each 6 months after) ?
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Baker
    Yes vBulletin has subscription abilities built in and Invision has the capabilities as well. Invision doesn't come with it out of the box. It has to be installed after installing the forum software.

    Let me clarify the license for Invision. The license costs $149 which lasts a lifetime. But if you wish to continue to get customer support and future upgrades to the software, you must pay $25 every 6 months. You could purchase the license and not worry about paying the $25 every 6 months but I would not advise it as it is always best to have the most up-to-date version to keep the forum safe and secure. But if you feel very comfortable with php and your security techniques for the forum, then by all means just buy the license.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Thomas
      Originally Posted by Mike Baker View Post

      Yes vBulletin has subscription abilities built in and Invision has the capabilities as well. Invision doesn't come with it out of the box. It has to be installed after installing the forum software.

      Let me clarify the license for Invision. The license costs $149 which lasts a lifetime. But if you wish to continue to get customer support and future upgrades to the software, you must pay $25 every 6 months. You could purchase the license and not worry about paying the $25 every 6 months but I would not advise it as it is always best to have the most up-to-date version to keep the forum safe and secure. But if you feel very comfortable with php and your security techniques for the forum, then by all means just buy the license.
      Thanks man
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    • Profile picture of the author marcolav
      Originally Posted by Mike Baker View Post

      Yes vBulletin has subscription abilities built in and Invision has the capabilities as well. Invision doesn't come with it out of the box. It has to be installed after installing the forum software.

      Let me clarify the license for Invision. The license costs $149 which lasts a lifetime. But if you wish to continue to get customer support and future upgrades to the software, you must pay $25 every 6 months. You could purchase the license and not worry about paying the $25 every 6 months but I would not advise it as it is always best to have the most up-to-date version to keep the forum safe and secure. But if you feel very comfortable with php and your security techniques for the forum, then by all means just buy the license.
      Hi Mike, as you seem to know about IPB, could you tell me how to manage SEO with it, i.e mainly meta keywords and meta description as it seems you either have to do it page by page using the IPSEO app or you have to let it do it and it would just pick the first words in the first sentence as keywords?

      thx!

      Marco
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Baker
        Originally Posted by marcolav View Post

        Hi Mike, as you seem to know about IPB, could you tell me how to manage SEO with it, i.e mainly meta keywords and meta description as it seems you either have to do it page by page using the IPSEO app or you have to let it do it and it would just pick the first words in the first sentence as keywords?

        thx!

        Marco
        I can't speak from personal experience in regards to any version of IPB v3.0 or newer, but here is what they have to say from their website;

        "On the modern web, SEO is important in order to get noticed by search engines. IP.Board is optimized for search engines right out of the box, helping you to get noticed and grow your community.

        Friendly URL Structure

        Public-facing URLs in IP.Board use a friendly, human-readable structure, making them easy to understand for humans and good for search engines spidering your content.


        It's Built In

        Our SEO capabilities are standard and built in to IP.Board 3. There's no additional cost, and no additional setup to use them. IP.Board 3 allows your community to be optimized for search engines, without needing to be a search engine expert.

        Little Optimizations Add Up...

        There's also dozens of small optimizations, which all add up to improve SEO. These include:
        • Semantic markup
        • Appropriate meta description tags
        • Canonical meta tag
        • "noindex" meta tag on non-content pages
        • Correct header codes"
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  • Profile picture of the author FleeceHEAD
    I run a vBulletin forum and love it.

    No reason you can't do everything your asking about and more. Setting up subscriptions is a 5 minute process to set all the features of the usergroup and you are good to go. Everything is intuitive, and there are good companies out there making supporting software for the forums (like vbSEO, or for my site which is about offroad trucks VB Pro Garage)..

    The full Suite package comes with the CMS and Blog capabilities and they have a new Mobile version so you can have your new forum iPad/Android ready right out of the gate.

    Bottom line is everyone here who runs a forum is going to say the one they use is the best for the most part. Look at the top 2-3 players in the market and check out forums from the Big Boards list that run the various packages to see how they're using the technology.

    Good luck!!
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesGw
    vBulletin has a built in subscription service that allows you take payments via Paypal. You'll want to check with this to be 100%, but I do run a forum on vB. You can put subscribes in special groups and give them access to certain forums and articles, in addition to different privileges.

    Honestly, vBulletin is better than any free forum software by a pretty big margin.
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  • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
    Thanks everyone, for responding and giving me your feedback! I have been looking rather unattractive due to the blue color in my face and my hair falling out from doing this research. LOL. It is mind boggling.

    Every time I turned a corner I came back to Ning because it has the exact features I'm looking for (out the box) and because of the many successful, rather large communities built on Ning already. See a list below with some famous Ning communities.

    But then I consider having to move the data onto my own platform at some point in the future and I shy away from using Ning because I know all the hard work will be out the door. I'm secretly hoping that by that time someone may have come up with a tool or plugin to remove the data and move it over to a self-standing platform.

    Another 'fear' is that Ning decides to sell or close its doors or whatever have you, but then I visited some of the most successful Ning sites and I can't imagine the legal trouble Ning would be in to 'get rid' of these sites:

    Tyra Banks, almost 300,000 members: The Tyra Show
    50 Cent, almost 550,000 members: ThisIs50.com
    Indian Cricket Team, 725,000 members: t20.com - Home of Global Cricket!
    Linkin Park, 175,000 members: http://www.linkinpark.com
    Enrique Iglesias, 75,000 members: Enrique Iglesias - "Ayer" Video Premiere
    GovLoop, 45,000 members: GovLoop - Social Network for Government
    Roc4Life, 23,000 members: Roc4Life - Real News. Community. Roc.

    I'm off to Italy for a 5 week project, will let this settle in and do some more research and keep you posted.

    Thanks everyone!
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Baker
    The problem with using a platform like Ning is that if you use it you are taking the risk of them closing down or deleting your site whenever they like. Because the community is hosted with them they have every right to do as they wish. It just like using a Blogger blog or a Wordpress.com blog. All your content can be gone within seconds. That's why I always choose and highly recommend you go with a self-hosted solution. But in the end, the choice is yours.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary Ning Lo
    I also use Vbulletin for all my forums..

    WF can't go wrong you know

    Cheers,

    ~Gary
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    • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
      Originally Posted by garytsang View Post

      I also use Vbulletin for all my forums..

      WF can't go wrong you know

      Cheers,

      ~Gary

      good point!!
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  • Profile picture of the author Core Freedom
    Okay everyone, thank you for participating and guiding me, you've all been hugely helpful!

    I was sooo close to choosing Ning once again because my lack of technical know-how was a bit overwhelming when considering piecing the community together myself.

    HOWEVER, I did decide to bite the bullet and do just that. My long term thinking with your priceless advice has guided me. Thank you.

    So here is my question for you all. I currently use WP on HostGator, Wishlist and have installed BuddyPress and will also get vBulletin (do I need both BP and vB?).

    I also want a pop over with video embedding when people first get to the site. Ning calls this a flash page I think. Does anyone know of a good WP plug in that allows me to embed a video?

    I would like to have chat installed so people can chat with each other. Does anyone know a good WP plug-in for that?

    Is there anything else I need to set up a smashingly successful community?

    PS: I currently use a premium WP template but it is not compatible with BP, does anyone know of an alternative, high-end WP template compatible with BP?

    Thanks!!
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