Which forum software's support is most best?

I like vBulletins capabilities, however I do not like their support and layouts. They should be addressing the old and ugly styles (harsh colors, inset borders, generic graphics, etc.) in version 4.0. They are also changing the template system as well. I hate how their free support communities such as vbulletin.org require an active license. I'm a coder and developer and I have been doing work for other peoples sites, therefor I do not have an active license. Would be nice to be able to access resources and other support from people so I could develop things, but I cannot.

IPB has my favorite layouts and design, but isn't as customizable as vBulletin in my opinion.

I don't really have much experience with support outside vBulletin unfortunately.

 

You do know vBulletin 4 has a fully redesigned style, right? Yeah, it's shown in an official blog entry and looks a heck of a lot more modern than the current one does.

On the other side of the coin, you're not really missing a lot when it comes to vBulletin.org. There's a lot of good mods, but support there is a tad non existant to say the least.

 

I agree.. But I guess vBulletin only wants vBulletin customers to access their community and resources. They may think nobody else will need the resources, etc.

 

Yup. They care more about limiting the resources of the people who use nulled versions than helping the developers who in return help all vBulletin customers.

A buddy of mine was a member of vBulletin.org since 2002! Couldn't afford to keep doing the licensing stuff after prices had gone up. He had made dozens of mods and has thousands of posts, and can no longer access the site and continue to develop because he doesn't have a license.

The only reason he even bought a license in the first place was to test out stuff and develop mods for other people.

Pitty.

I guess its the price you pay for open source. Atleast IonCube or Zen has some protection vs piracy. Though there's Russian 13 year olds who get out nulled vers of software using IonCube or Zen within days of a release.

Pitty.

 

I guess that's good reasoning, but developers should have access to the community!

That sucks - if he still developing modifications, who's submitting them?

That's it? He didn't start a community?

Right.

 

Indeed, but they don't seem to care about that. Its a shame really.

I haven't seen him on AIM or MSN for months, I don't think hes working on them any more.

Nope. He was using it as practice for website development. He purchased leased licenses from them every year to work on stuff and practice. In all that time he never made the forum public.

I think a lot of big software companies need to take some lessons on customer service, public relations, and security so they can prevent illegal distributions without having to limit their community to those with active licenses.

 

Yeah, I guess - but it's a reason you pay 200+ dollars for vBulletin. Resources are great.

Oh okay. Maybe he's dedicating time to making the lifesaving vBulletin modification that will bring him all the way to getting a free license. :p That would be sweet.

- I could never do that. :lol:

MyBB, for example. Another one of our members, Shawn, also said that!

 

Hopefully some day I will have my own CMS out. I plan to develop a website system (Content Management System) so people can just download the software, install it, then edit whole site from an admin area. There's already thousands of free ones out, but you could count the good quality ones on a single hand. And each of the good ones have numerous week points. I look to develop a CMS that looks good, has wide capibilites, is easily customizable, has great support, etc.

I plan on distributing the core for free, and then have a shop where I will sell add-ons like social networking profiles, forums, ecommerce system, auction system, support suite, email system, etc. The free software should lure in people and cover the majority of peoples site needs, and for those who look to expand there will be professional quality add-ons that they can use to expand the function of their site.

Whats annoying with a lot of the ones out there is they aren't easily customizable, and they don't offer professional quality add-ons. They just produce the core and that's it. I had a project a few years back where I had to integrate: vBulletin, Kayako, WHMCS, and ZenCart. PAIN IN THE ASS! Thought to myself, "why can't they just be made to work with each other", which is when I thought to make a system that full integrates and offers solutions for every websites needs.



A lot of work to go at it solo though, hehe.

 

Sounds like a plan- I'm already intrigued.

Keep us posted, if you decide to go on with it.

 

It looks just like the vB 3.x default. Just brighter and with a few toys.

 

You vbulletin developers realize that anyone you do work for that has a vbulletin license can just add your email to their license and then you will have access to the vb sites, right?

 

Which is the "most best" ? That's going to depend on your definition of the best.
Lynne is right re: developers and email addresses, it's not that hard to get devs access to .org or .com.

My own thoughts? For now, vBulletin. Given the hoopla over vb4 (devs leaving, closed alpha/beta), that MAY soon change, but for now it will remain vBulletin. We'll see what 4 is like if we ever get there.

 

Simply love vbulletin, especially vbulletin.org.
It's really good.
Most of my threads were answered within a few hours.

 

vBulletin, definitely. I've had little experience with IPS support - but what experience I have is very positive.
However I find it hard to imagine that there is any other company in this field that has better customer support than vBulletin.
They'd have to butter my toast in the morning or something.

 

... or, brew up some coffee for you.

 

Guest had full access to view the content.

It was something to do with the way the search engines were indexing the thread titles.

And if that is what it was, someone at the smf support forums should have said so. I dont really like the idea of posting something in the official support forum and it getting ignored. Only to find out months later that it might have been a simple fix. That REALLY reflects poorly on the SMF community.

But at no time did I disable guest viewing the content of the forum.

 

I think the phpBB support is generally quite good but I haven't been on the phpbb forums for a while and never visit the vB support forum. VB probably has the best support though.

 

Now that some major events have happened with some companies, I'm curious to know if anybody has noticed a change in quality of support. For example, perhaps vB's support quality/efficiency has decreased while IP.Board's has improved... :shrug:

What do you guys think?

 

I have to say that I didn't notice any difference. Both have remained at the same level for me.

 

My experience with IPB's support has always been great.