BBPress

During my benchmark BBPress was on par with phpBB or slower, with no obvious means of solving the problem and no additional features to make up for or sense of the speed difference.

 

Interesting - in my experience, bbPress has always been a bit faster (loading-wise) when compared to phpBB.

 

I'm leaning towards bbPress, but still evaluating.

Here are some of the modifications/plugins for bbPress

bbPress Plugin Browser

 

I only counted script execution times, BBPress's theme may be lighter. Also BBPress may not force indirect avatar downloads, which I didn't account for.

 

And of course, it could also be due to the differences in hardware being used, from server-to-server.

 

There is that. The difference from going shared -> VPS -> Dedicated is pretty dramatic.

 

Alrighty, bbPress 1.0 is out now (bbPress Blog) and I've done the installation. So far, so good.

Very easy for some functions, but have to read up on adding plugins because it's a little lite on features. So, I'll report back when I have it up and running

 

Arny, it's a bit strange transitioning between two entirely different administrative interfaces (meaning vBulletin's and bbPress'), isn't it?

 

It sure is Chris. But, bbPress is VERY simple to use (think WordPress with even fewer questions) and it can be a great option for folks to use out there, especially since it now integrates with WP (http://bbpress.org/documentation/integration-with-wordpress/)

I think that once I get the themes to match with the WP (working on researching that now http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/seemless-wordpress-integration/page/2) and then add in the plugins, that'll get me to a point where I'm comfortable.

 

Good luck dude!

 

Thanks Dudette!

This looks like it's going to be fun. With the support of the WP community, this could be a great option for fellow admins out there

 

Well, I've been doing some research on the plugins (plugins = mods ) and have added half a dozen with another three to four to go tonight.

It's kinda fun to 'build a forum' with the features that you feel are important. Sorta like an 'a la carte' deal

I'm using this list List of Plugins that work on RC1/RC2 bbPress Support Forums to help guide me as to which plugins I should be looking at for immediate customizing on the bbPress.

So far, so good. I'm digging the ease of adding these plugins (although a couple are still being reworked to work with the new version that I downloaded).

My main thing is going to be trying to have the same custom style moved over from the WP to the bbPress theme. We'll see how that goes later

 

You make a good point, Arny - with such simplistic forum scripts, you can quite literally build and develop the feature set to your liking.

 

Exactly right Chris.

For those that wanted to see some examples of sites using bbPress, I've picked up a list of the "Top 100" ('rank' mainly based on post count) bbPress powered sites.

Check 'em out: Top 100 bbPress Forums bbPress Showcase

 

The vast majority of those communities are quite impressive, particularly visually. Some of them don't even look remotely like bbPress - thanks for sharing, Arny!

 

Umm... WOW to some of those forums. I'm impressed...

 

i really like bbpress. of course you cannot compare it with professional boards like vbulletin, but if you are running a blog and want to have a simple forum for maybe giving support or something, it is the perfect solution :yes:

 

I couldn't agree more, Terror.

 

Wow, some of those are really nice. I am so attracted to the simplicity of them!

 

That's exactly my purpose for bbPress. I'm going to be using these as 'add-on' features to my blogs if/when I start getting some good traffic and/or get lots of promotion going on the sites. I'd like to use the bbPress forums as promotional tools.

If I'm going to have 100 sites up by the end of the year, I need to cut corners on the costs involved. Now, when the sites/forums get popular, I'll start upgrading some to vBulletin forums at that point.

I'm about a week away (maybe less) from finishing my new WP site with bbPress forums. So, hope to get some feedback, constructive criticism and comments on what ya'll think