IPBoard or vBulletin: Something to Chew on

Invision Power Board and vBulletin are considered to be the most popular commercial forum solutions. Both of them are great for running a forum on as they can offer you lots of possibilities. So, if you are looking for a robust discussion board application and you are ready to pay, then it’s time to pick up IPBoard or vBulletin platform to develop a forum on. What are the differences between these two platforms and what are you paying for – are those issues that we are going to bring to light.

IPBoard: Key Features

Let’s talk about IPBoard first. This software differs from vBulletin in many ways as it has lots of unique features. They are the following:

• The users have an excellent opportunity to make forum posts by email
• IPBoard can be integrated with lots of user account types, for instance Facebook, Windows Live, OpenID.
• There is no need to worry about making a mistake while writing a post as this discussion board includes a free spell checker.

But we can’t talk only about the advantages of Invision Power Board as it comes also with some drawbacks. For instance:

• If you want to integrate with other applications you have to pay for additional modules
• It’s not always easy to install some extra skins or themes
• Most IPBoard MODs work properly only with a certain Invision Power Board version
• The visitors don’t have an opportunity to select their own theme.

Distinctive Characteristics of vBulletin

Now it’s vBulletin’s turn. This forum software has a lot of advantages, for instance:

• Compared to IPB, vBulletin doesn’t require any license for integrated blogging feature;
• This forum platform includes “related threads”, tagging features and lots of other free modules which can be integrated into the forum.
• Moreover, it is possible for vBulletin visitors to choose their own theme;
• 24/7 best-in-class support is a prominent feature of vBulletin forum platform.

vBulletin software has also the other side of the coin – the disadvantages:

• It is a little bit more expensive than IPBoard;
• It is necessary to have some coding skills while working with vBulletin as before installation you have to manually modify the config file. This might be a little bit confusing unless you have some PHP experience.

To find out more about similarities and dissimilarities you should check this detailed table:

If you think that vBulletin is what you need then you can easily migrate from IPBoard to vBulletin. aisite service will make IPBoard to vBulletin migration flawless and accurate. So, try a free Demo Migration to make sure that this is what you need.