My return to IPB

[_Mac]

@Wolfie

You're welcome to leave the "dark side" and join us on the light bright Mac side... :tongue: :thumbsup: lol

(That's maybe a hole other discussion...)

[Peter Parker]

IPB FTW!!

all other ACP's are inferior and disgusting... :D

[Wolfie]

You're welcome to leave the "dark side" and join us on the light bright Mac side... :tongue: :thumbsup: lol

Nah if I were gonna leave the Windows world, I would upgrade to Linux. Mind you, the biggest drawback of a Linux desktop is that things feel clunky, but considering the cost of it ($FR.EE), can't complain too terribly much. Given another few years, I actually expect Linux desktop GUI's to become a bit more competitive with the GUI's of other OS's. As it is now though, in some ways, it gives me the impression that someone was trying to be different not from trying to bring about improved ideas, but rather to rub an ego. Mouse clicks or double clicks do things that seem counter productive. Not because it's different from what I'm used to, but rather because it seems to be a bit user unfriendly.

That does get into a whole other discussion though.

[_Mac]

Nah... a Linux desktop is that things feel clunky, but considering the cost of it ($FR.EE), can't complain too terribly much.

Well, the OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion) is great and it's only $50, which is very competitive pricing I think for all the good stuff you get! It's also very configurable, especially if you know your way around the Terminal (guess so since you mention Linux). Give Mac a chance, you might be positively surprised...

[Wolfie]

Well, the OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion) is great and it's only $50, which is very competitive pricing I think for all the good stuff you get! It's also very configurable, especially if you know your way around the Terminal (guess so since you mention Linux). Give Mac a chance, you might be positively surprised...

That's $50 more than I want to spend. Off the top of my head, I've got about six computers (three physical, three VM) running Windows, each with it's own legitimate product key, all of which I paid $0 for. I'm absurdly thrifty. :D

[Soniceffect]

Nah if I were gonna leave the Windows world, I would upgrade to Linux. Mind you, the biggest drawback of a Linux desktop is that things feel clunky, but considering the cost of it ($FR.EE), can't complain too terribly much. Given another few years, I actually expect Linux desktop GUI's to become a bit more competitive with the GUI's of other OS's. As it is now though, in some ways, it gives me the impression that someone was trying to be different not from trying to bring about improved ideas, but rather to rub an ego. Mouse clicks or double clicks do things that seem counter productive. Not because it's different from what I'm used to, but rather because it seems to be a bit user unfriendly.

That does get into a whole other discussion though.

Linux FTW ...... Especially with windows 8 now looking like something released by fisherprice toys. I did wonder if they had the same designer as that of osx, then I realised you cant change anything at all on osx :P LOL

[Wolfie]

Linux FTW ...... Especially with windows 8 now looking like something released by fisherprice toys. I did wonder if they had the same designer as that of osx, then I realised you cant change anything at all on osx :tongue: LOL

I can't get past the Start Menu thing. Yes, I can easily install and use Classic Shell to do it, but it should already be built in. If I were using mostly a touch screen (such as a tablet), then it would make sense for it to be 'forced', as that's the platform. On a desktop though, I don't want to have to navigate my mouse all over the place to do something that I should be able to do in less than half the space. I'm sure W8 has some nice new features to it, but that Start Menu just bugs me to the point of not even bothering.

[Soniceffect]

I can't get past the Start Menu thing. Yes, I can easily install and use Classic Shell to do it, but it should already be built in. If I were using mostly a touch screen (such as a tablet), then it would make sense for it to be 'forced', as that's the platform. On a desktop though, I don't want to have to navigate my mouse all over the place to do something that I should be able to do in less than half the space. I'm sure W8 has some nice new features to it, but that Start Menu just bugs me to the point of not even bothering.

Hey ya think thats mental .... They also put it on windows server 2012 LOL

[Wolfie]

Hey ya think thats mental .... They also put it on windows server 2012 LOL

But that actually makes sense, because you see, a little tablet shouldn't be running anything except SERVER operating systems and software. I mean after all, it's not like average people will want to use it for anything like fun and games, just running webservers or other server based operations.

[Dylan Riggs]

I wouldn't call vB a weak product -- It has way way way more developers and mods that you'd have to pay for (and is offered free) then what IPB has and will probably ever have......

I remember the good old 4.x days of vB and asking a suggestion or a mod and literally got spammed PM's for people willing to make them, good luck getting a reply here, IPB just has a lack of modders for the community in general. But out of the box, IPB is pretty sexy and updated,

vB is just meh in terms of out of the box and excels all the boards when it comes to future development/mods

[Wolfie]

I wouldn't call vB a weak product -- It has way way way more developers and mods that you'd have to pay for (and is offered free) then what IPB has and will probably ever have......

Way more developers yet consistently way more bugs and way fewer stable enhancements. At least, that's my understanding from people bailing out each time vB announces a new major version (and charges for it on top of it).

I remember the good old 4.x days of vB and asking a suggestion or a mod and literally got spammed PM's for people willing to make them, good luck getting a reply here, IPB just has a lack of modders for the community in general. But out of the box, IPB is pretty sexy and updated,

When they admit to themselves that vB is sinking faster than the Titanic, they'll disperse out onto other products and I'm quite sure many will land here. You think the MP is loaded now, just wait...

[Grimace`]

All that said though.. Just how often are they releasing beta's? Because having over 20 for one version is just ridiculous, considering the product and platform.

Take a look at the picture attached, that's how often they've been sending since I registered.

[Wolfie]

Take a look at the picture attached, that's how often they've been sending since I registered.

So roughly every 4 to 7 days. Either they're trigger happy for releasing Betas, probably thinking that it will bring in more people instead of the reality that it will push people away, or the bugs they fix make it necessary to release another beta so that people can test out the features that they couldn't test before because of the bugs.

[Soniceffect]

I wouldn't call vB a weak product -- It has way way way more developers and mods that you'd have to pay for (and is offered free) then what IPB has and will probably ever have......

I remember the good old 4.x days of vB and asking a suggestion or a mod and literally got spammed PM's for people willing to make them, good luck getting a reply here, IPB just has a lack of modders for the community in general. But out of the box, IPB is pretty sexy and updated,

vB is just meh in terms of out of the box and excels all the boards when it comes to future development/mods

Just to add to this. Only time will tell with modifications on VB. Nothing will work even in the slightest in vb5 that did for vb4. When vb4 was release, yes it took some amount of work to migrate your code to it, however it by no means meant rewriting modifications from scratch, however vb5 certainly does

[_Mac]

I'm leaning towards switching to IPB soon. Help me decide by voting here: Just telling the truth about my experience of vB support... Thank's :-)

[Dylan Riggs]

Way more developers yet consistently way more bugs and way fewer stable enhancements. At least, that's my understanding from people bailing out each time vB announces a new major version (and charges for it on top of it).

When they admit to themselves that vB is sinking faster than the Titanic, they'll disperse out onto other products and I'm quite sure many will land here. You think the MP is loaded now, just wait...

I'm talking about the developing community, not the developers themselves. THey suck in my opinion. 3.8 was a great product, 4.0 is not. It took to their latest version of 4.2 to actual make an ok product from that single release. But none the less, that modding community is there and it's good and bad in their own ways.

There are more developers for vB and with that, you do get worse mods, worse coding practices... whatever, but you do end up getting way better ones as well. Each software sports advantages...

To replicate forums.nexusmods.com you must make some easy edits to IPB, and there isnt' a mod to do it... it's a stock feature for vB and has some crazy mods to add on to it, like mirrored forums for off topic. Each forum index has a forum that's shared on the main boards index and so on.

The ideas are endless on each side of the spectrum for each software. It's those who can take advantage of them that makes the software stand out and with that said, vB has more... nothing more and nothing less.

-- I havent' wrote anything for IPB, I don't know how the mods work here. But for vBulletin, if you have a 4.x product, it will generally work for any 4.x product say from 4.0 to 4.2 ----- It'll work, what won't work is some skinning/templating issues (which I feel is vB's biggest downfall)

Would a 3.2.1 product work on a 3.2.3 product for IPB? Or more recently, will a 3.3.4 work on a 3.4.1? I think the answer is yes and no, it depends on the app, and the same works for vBulletin.

I'm not hating on vB or IPB by anymeans, but people are stating vB is a terrible software, if it was...... it wouldn't be as popular as it is now regardless of reason.

[Weppa333]

I think we can say that VB has a lot of customers (like me, 5 licences) from the 3.0 times.

I'm not sure someone STARTING a forum nowadays will jump on a VB5 beta for $250 minimum. In my region, new communities all "start" with PHPBB. Later on, some switch to VB. Very few use IPB. Netiehr do I. Maybe someday. I'm here to learn :smile:

In the past, you could "start" a VB3 forum for as little as $70... Those days are gone. So without the good old past taken into account, speaking about current sales, I wouldn't be surprised if IPB sells as many licences as VB does with V5, but that's my gutfeeling.

[Wolfie]

I'm not hating on vB or IPB by anymeans, but people are stating vB is a terrible software, if it was...... it wouldn't be as popular as it is now regardless of reason.

That's not necessarily true. Overlooking the quality of vB and speaking more generally, with the right amount of advertising and such, you can have a popular product despite it's flaws. There are lots of people who are gullible and will fall for anything given the right persuasion or 'sales pitch', that's why spamming is so rampant. Spammers are able to send out tens of thousands of emails in mere seconds and all it takes it one sucker to click a link to buy something and they made a decent income for that effort. If it's phishing, it's even more successful for them. This happens despite how much effort is put into warning people to not trust such emails, email programs warning that what they got is very likely spam/fraud/etc, etc. Could have someone standing there telling them in plain English (or whatever their native language is) that it's not legitimate and even have the real company on the phone verifying that it's not from them, and you'd STILL have people falling for it.

What it comes down to is this... Popularity doesn't always mean quality. Look at how popular Windows Vista was when it first came out. Enough said.

I'm not sure someone STARTING a forum nowadays will jump on a VB5 beta for $250 minimum.

That's outrageous, especially if you already own a previous vB license and have to buy it all over again just to upgrade.

[Dylan Riggs]

That's not necessarily true. Overlooking the quality of vB and speaking more generally, with the right amount of advertising and such, you can have a popular product despite it's flaws. There are lots of people who are gullible and will fall for anything given the right persuasion or 'sales pitch', that's why spamming is so rampant. Spammers are able to send out tens of thousands of emails in mere seconds and all it takes it one sucker to click a link to buy something and they made a decent income for that effort. If it's phishing, it's even more successful for them. This happens despite how much effort is put into warning people to not trust such emails, email programs warning that what they got is very likely spam/fraud/etc, etc. Could have someone standing there telling them in plain English (or whatever their native language is) that it's not legitimate and even have the real company on the phone verifying that it's not from them, and you'd STILL have people falling for it.

What it comes down to is this... Popularity doesn't always mean quality. Look at how popular Windows Vista was when it first came out. Enough said.


That's outrageous, especially if you already own a previous vB license and have to buy it all over again just to upgrade.

There wasn't anything wrong with the quality of vB 4.x either..... most people here will disagree simply because this is IPB, you go to vB and I'm sure it's the complete opposite. Each of the software has it's perks and disadvantages. For me, my biggest examples are that vB has a way better modding community both for business (free vs paid) as well as feature set. But it is very lacking in the skin and sexy department vs's IPB.

Everyone rages about the price of vBulletin -- Yeah, the upfront cost is more than just buying IPB. But the out of the box functionality is much better on vB then it is IPB -- You don't have to have a downloads app, you have it built in, you don't need a blogging app, you have it built in. You don't need IP.Content, you have it built in. and so on

On the contrary, you buy all those apps from IPS -- They end up better in a lot of ways, and you end up paying more in the long run.

It's marketing people -- IPS makes a lot of money off of renewals, vB makes money off of version upgrades (which if you're a returning customer, it's not $250.. it's less). IPS might not release a couple minor updates in a course of a year and you're forced to pay all the fees to have that support, marketplace etc. vBulletin, you get those upgrades as well for the life of that version you bought (4.x got the CMS, blogs etc added for FREE. Those that bought CMS, got lifetime support for THAT version)

If it takes vBulletin 2 years to go to 5.0 (something like that) you only paid that flat $250 and not a single .....penny..... more, even for the support.

Again, it's marketing, both products are great in their own ways. I can honestly tell you now, I'm going to end up spending way more money on IPB though between the apps and renewals fees before vB comes out with another version.

vBulletin is by far not poorly optimized or poorly coded or anything of that nature, just like IPB isn't a joke to develop for because of 2.x series anymore. Apples to Oranges is all this is

[Wolfie]

Everyone rages about the price of vBulletin -- Yeah, the upfront cost is more than just buying IPB. But the out of the box functionality is much better on vB then it is IPB -- You don't have to have a downloads app, you have it built in, you don't need a blogging app, you have it built in. You don't need IP.Content, you have it built in. and so on

On the contrary, you buy all those apps from IPS -- They end up better in a lot of ways, and you end up paying more in the long run.

It's marketing people -- IPS makes a lot of money off of renewals, vB makes money off of version upgrades (which if you're a returning customer, it's not $250.. it's less). IPS might not release a couple minor updates in a course of a year and you're forced to pay all the fees to have that support, marketplace etc. vBulletin, you get those upgrades as well for the life of that version you bought (4.x got the CMS, blogs etc added for FREE. Those that bought CMS, got lifetime support for THAT version)

If it takes vBulletin 2 years to go to 5.0 (something like that) you only paid that flat $250 and not a single .....penny..... more, even for the support.


Again, it's marketing, both products are great in their own ways. I can honestly tell you now, I'm going to end up spending way more money on IPB though between the apps and renewals fees before vB comes out with another version.

Taking your word for it on the bundling of different functions (blog/downloads/etc), here's what I'm finding.

I looked it up, it's $249/$209 for buying/upgrading to vB5. Includes free *forum* support, ie, get support on the forums, and one month of ticket support. If you want/need ticket support after that, it's $199/year or $49/month. Need an install or upgrade performed for you? That's another $149. So someone who wants to start a community, wants it installed for them and may depend on ticket support would spend at minimum of $398 (plus $49/mo or $199/year for support).

For $398, that same person could spend $292 to get all the apps (except Nexus), renew for an extra 6 months of support ($70) to make it a year and still have $36 left over. In order to get that year of support from vB, it's another $199, so they would have saved $235. To adjust for that one month difference in support time, let's say it's $218. With that $218, they could OPTIONALLY renew each 6 months (additional 18 months on that amount) or they could decide not to renew until they need support or to upgrade.

Let's say that the remaining $218 is all used up and IPS CS4 comes out and they decide they want to upgrade to that. What do they pay? $70. With vB, presuming the price doesn't go up, how much do they pay to get access to the new version? $209. That doesn't include having it installed for them.

Also, the forum support for the version of vB is for the life of that version. So once they EOL it, it's end game. Let's say, for arguments sake, that a version is EOL'd after 5 years. Let's look at a price comparison for active support between the two.
vB $249 + $199/year ticket support ($199 * 5 = $995) = $1244. * Does not include installs/upgrades
IPS $292 + $70/6 month active status ($140/year @ 4.5 years = $630) = $922. * Includes installs/upgrades

So that bit about paying more in the long run for IPB isn't true, it's quite the opposite.

Now, if you want to upgrade to the next version of the software...
vB $209
IPB $70 if the product licenses aren't active, otherwise, it's $0.

IPS might not release a couple minor updates in a course of a year and you're forced to pay all the fees to have that support, marketplace etc. vBulletin, you get those upgrades as well for the life of that version you bought (4.x got the CMS, blogs etc added for FREE. Those that bought CMS, got lifetime support for THAT version)

Oh and you're not 'forced' to renew with IPS. You could let the licenses lapse and not renew until you need something. For the record, during the past few years, I don't believe there's been a time when a year has passed without some sort of an update to one or more of the products. Just thought I'm point that out. :smile:

[MTA]

I hope not to see a load of ex vB whiners users saying "We used to have this on vB and it was easy. Can we have it here?"

Well, I'm sorry, but if I'd wanted it I would have bought vB so go away and leave me alone!

[Wolfie]

Well, I'm sorry, but if I'd wanted it I would have bought vB so go away and leave me alone!

Let's not be mean. I'm sure during the rare times that someone switches from IPB to vB, the same thing happens over there. Besides, one of those things being requested might not be a bad thing to have added.

[GreenLinks]

vBulletin used to be the best forum solution you can get. vBulletin 3.8 and vBSEO together was the ultimate solution for any board owner. However vBulletin 3.8 series is pretty old and outdated now. In order to keep it running , tons of additional development needed which is not feasible anymore.

vBulletin 4.x was never a good version in my opinion but it is lacking tons of critical features like a good CMS , Gallery and more importantly the integration between applications is not good.

IPB has flaws , i am not saying it is perfect though the code is way cleaner and improved compared to vBulletin 4. It is also actively developed and developers interact with customers. They ask our opinions and supply their future plans so we can also match our custom needs paralel to IPB

I stated this on another topic , customers demand way too much thing from cheap forum solutions like IPB , vBulletin etc.. They ask every possible idea they have integrated to core software where as developing those costs way more then what customers pay for.

If there are things that you don't like within a script , the best thing is to hire a developer and get your script developed. Don't forget that you are paying less then 200$ for a script and expect to make more money from that. If you are hoping to bring income from your board , you should not hesitate on spending money for additional development.

[Dylan Riggs]

Taking your word for it on the bundling of different functions (blog/downloads/etc), here's what I'm finding.

I looked it up, it's $249/$209 for buying/upgrading to vB5. Includes free *forum* support, ie, get support on the forums, and one month of ticket support. If you want/need ticket support after that, it's $199/year or $49/month. Need an install or upgrade performed for you? That's another $149. So someone who wants to start a community, wants it installed for them and may depend on ticket support would spend at minimum of $398 (plus $49/mo or $199/year for support).

For $398, that same person could spend $292 to get all the apps (except Nexus), renew for an extra 6 months of support ($70) to make it a year and still have $36 left over. In order to get that year of support from vB, it's another $199, so they would have saved $235. To adjust for that one month difference in support time, let's say it's $218. With that $218, they could OPTIONALLY renew each 6 months (additional 18 months on that amount) or they could decide not to renew until they need support or to upgrade.


You're adding into a stock product... if I wanted to go that route and add services or mods apps etc... it can tilt back to bulletins favor in price...

My example was merely the prices offered out of box for what you get. Not paying for other services they offer... I could say well f that no support I will just pay a grand a month to have ipb support my site.....

This is strictly out of the box



Let's say that the remaining $218 is all used up and IPS CS4 comes out and they decide they want to upgrade to that. What do they pay? $70. With vB, presuming the price doesn't go up, how much do they pay to get access to the new version? $209. That doesn't include having it installed for them.

Also, the forum support for the version of vB is for the life of that version. So once they EOL it, it's end game. Let's say, for arguments sake, that a version is EOL'd after 5 years. Let's look at a price comparison for active support between the two.
vB $249 + $199/year ticket support ($199 * 5 = $995) = $1244. * Does not include installs/upgrades
IPS $292 + $70/6 month active status ($140/year @ 4.5 years = $630) = $922. * Includes installs/upgrades

So that bit about paying more in the long run for IPB isn't true, it's quite the opposite.

Now, if you want to upgrade to the next version of the software...
vB $209
IPB $70 if the product licenses aren't active, otherwise, it's $0.



Oh and you're not 'forced' to renew with IPS. You could let the licenses lapse and not renew until you need something. For the record, during the past few years, I don't believe there's been a time when a year has passed without some sort of an update to one or more of the products. Just thought I'm point that out. :smile:

[Wolfie]

You're adding into a stock product... if I wanted to go that route and add services or mods apps etc... it can tilt back to bulletins favor in price...

My example was merely the prices offered out of box for what you get. Not paying for other services they offer... I could say well f that no support I will just pay a grand a month to have ipb support my site.....

This is strictly out of the box

I added the IPS apps in an effort to 'meet' what you said vB already includes. So that actually helps the vB side, not hurts it. The ticket and install/upgrade support, since it's included as part of the IPS product license, in order to do a fair comparison, had to include it on the vB side. Can't just pick and choose what to compare and call it fair. You yourself pointed out that vB 5 includes the other stuff as part of the package, but if you want to go the route of not adding in additional stuff...

vB 5 - $249
IP.Board - $175

IP.Board wins. Enough said.