31 replies to this topic

[sohahm]

I used Invision Power Board for the first time today. Its pretty complex and has more options than a sausage on sticks!

Which do you guys prefer and why? I use PHPBB on one of my sites. its fast, free and does everything I need... or does it?


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The boards are written in PHP - so ideally this post should be in the Scripting forum. Am moving it there....
m^e

[-=Wrighty=-]

Invision without a doubt. It has much more flexibility and options than phpBB.

Although, it isn't as easy to use for new users unlike phpBB which is easy and free but you can't really, make it your own, well you can, but not as much as IPB.

[amkint]

i like phpBB... nice and simple.

[harriko]

as a user on both forum i prefer invasion board

[firedoor]

phpBB without a doubt, it's easy to use if your starting out and very verstitile, when you get more advanced there are alot of mods/add-ons for phpBB and you can pretty much make invision and more from it.

[Trekkie101]

Neither

SMF is a better choice for anything. It is as good as any paid software and has the commu8nity of a free software. I doubt theres a better choice.

3 Click Install mods with its Package Manager
Themes are only a few clicks away and VERY easy just upload the tar.gz and SMf does the rest
Top Notch support aswell
Very easy to use Admin CP and powerful if needed

Very user friendly

[Brian]

I think phpBB is for those who want something really basic or really complex. By it's self, phpBB is really simple and easy to get the hang of, but if you want a lot of customizeable things you can hack it and stuff. I found some great hacks at phpBBhacks.com. Another great thing about phpBB is that you can find so many free skins. It seems like most Invision skins cost a bit of money. On the other hand if you want a lot of easy to use custom options, but don't want to do a lot of "hacking," use Invision. It does some cool things right out of the box. Personaly, Invision works best for my purposes right now.

I think most people would find Invision to be the most useful, but both are good, so just decide what you needs and abilities are.

[Jguy101]

Neither. IPB's waay overpriced and the ACP's all screwed up, and phpBB just doesn't have enough good features. You can't even add subforums. Plus, you need to edit PHP to just disable COPPA registration...

I'm a big fan of Jaia Interactive's MyTopix forum software, which I use on my site. It's currently in beta, and even though you'll have to pay for it if you want final when it comews out, it'll only be $40, and half that for the first fifty customers! And, I'm not sure, but it might be free without all the official support and skins and shtuff...

[tillus]

I don't really know which one is better...

Invision is fast and has really nice templates, but not too much of them... and a smaller community.

phpbb is rather beautiful, but with some interesting functions and more flexibility (and a GREATER community...)

so, I think you should test invision and phpbb before making a decision... and don't forget wbb, it's also a good board!!!

[soleimanian]

IPB is more powerful and flexible than phpbb, but it is expensive,phppbb is open source and you can modify it. if you want to install free trial version of IBP you have many limitations such as:

TAKEN FROM INVISION WEBSITE:

Trial Limitations

The trial version is encoded which means you are unable to view the PHP source or modify the PHP source. There are also these hard limits:
5000 Posts
1000 Topics
1000 Personal Messages
200 Members
Bulk Mailer Disabled
Language Editing Disabled
SQL Toolbox Disabled
No IPB Portal Included
No SSI Export Facilities
No ability to upgrade between trial versions

If you exceed any one of these limits, your board is turned offline and access to your ACP is removed. If you choose to purchase a full Invision Power Board you can upgrade your trial version to a full version so you won't lose your current members, posts, etc. The full version comes with readable source code which means you're free to modify the PHP code for your personal use.

[Jguy101]

well, I recently found out that the MyTopix license will actually just be a license for official support, skins and the like, and if you don't want to pay for that, you can use it for free!

Anyway, if you want to see a VERY large lsit of forum software, check out The Forum Insider.

[PC Astray]

Both software has their own pros and cons but personally, I would prefer Invision Power Board 2 rather than phpbb2, the latter with more mods but I chose Invision because of its stability and features (without the mods).Also, you might consider trying out other online community software such as Beehive Forum .5 which is still in Beta development stage like myTopix and overshadowed by other open source forum software like phpbb.Beehive has an excellent interface but no official support as it comes in the way of informal community support.

Feature List

The following is a list of the features Beehive has.

    * All the regular features of forums:
          o Reply-to-user or reply-to-thread posting. +
          o Subscribe to topics, or just mark High Interest
          o E-mail notification of post replies to you.
          o Complete PM (Private Message) system.
          o File Attachments.
          o Flexible searching system.
          o Optional guest access.
          o Optional stats to show active users, total posts, etc.
          o Ignore folders and topics you don't wish to read.
          o Multiple forum system, with a single userbase and per-forum options. *
    * Accessibility support:
          o Easy-to-use frame-based layout.
          o Multiple style options, including dyslexia support. +
          o I18N multiple language support, allowing a variety of languages to be used.
    * Various features unique to Beehive:
          o Powerful HTML posting, without security risks. *
          o Advanced word-filtering facility. *
          o Polls, including upto 20 options, anonymous voting or public ballots, and more. +
          o Word Filter with Perl-compatible Regular Expression parsing. *
          o Lite Version, for use with PDAs and some mobile phones.
          o Links section, for a forum-wide favourites list.
    * Extendable user profiles:
          o Allows any number of configurable fields.
          o Users can opt-in to a 'Forthcoming Birthdays' list.
    * Flexible relationships system:
          o Ability to ignore users posts, or signatures.
          o Ability to define 'friends', and easily see their threads.
          o Complete Ignore feature, for blocking a user out entirely. *
    * Full, easy to use admin tools:
          o List possible aliases for each user.
          o Ban by user or IP address.
          o Delete all posts by a user.
          o Create sticky threads.
          o Style-creator, to create new styles.
          o Comprehensive user permissions. *
          o Folders can be made no-polls or polls only.
          o Logs of all admin activities.
          o Optional gzip encoding of output, to save bandwidth.
    * And a lot of other little handy features.

[felixTS]

I prefer IPB it has WHAY more functions then any other board...exluding Vbulletin(has the most functions)

[Trekkie101]

"Utter Tripe and Boulderdash"

Ill match any IPB feature with a better SMF one anyday, infact im gonna start a little thread on this exact idea.

[Halfway2Anywhere]

As a hopeless computer geek who spends most of her time on the computer or thinking about the computer, I would say phpbb. As has been stated, it is easy to use, but it is also fun to mess around with. I am going to be using it in the virtual pet site I'm working on, and I have to say, it really is fun trying to make my own skins. But I use Invision for the temporary forums of that site, and it's also good software. It has a lot of options to customize the forums, but I personally prefer the look of phpbb. So, you now have my opinion.

.::Shadow::.

[hihihihi88]

I like phpBB , although it is so confusing adding the MOD , it is free and simple and easy to install . And I think it is easy to search the skin and the mod over the web . I haven't learn any php script , but I also can manage my php forum .

[Trekkie101]

Consider a look at SMF's package manager then, it takes the compressed file (zip or tar.gz) and unzips then applys the changes..... Very simple and a lot quicker.

[silentkarma]

It's simple. It all depends on the person who is using them. If you are simple and don't know alot about forums, then go with phpBB. If you are more advanced and like to be flexible, then choose IPB. It's all about comfort.

[Hercco]

Invision is better, more modern in my opinion. But then again its not OS and free like phpBB.

If I'd have to pick one I'd go for phpBB because of the open sourceness. But I'm glad I don't have to since there's SMF.

[ddlworld]

yes yes yes ,...... it´s treu that PHBB is easy to handle and it´s nice but it makes fast eroors with programing script´s and with invision power board , i can do wat i want with the script never had a eroor before because i am know what to do