I have tried IPB, the free one and it was good. I vbulletin looks good but i never tried it as an admin. I currently use phpbb, it not as good as it's competitter but it's free and the next version will be better. I tried the beta and looking forward to the final phpbb release.

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I thing like this:
phpBB:
Very good BBS, but with many bugs.
A lot of templates & mods & best of all is that this bb is free.
vBulletin:
Best BB. Good for some big companys.
160$ ?
IPB:
Great BB but it's not free. Great for personal sites & sites whit a lot on users.
Here, you can compare them:
http://www.forummatrix.org/compare/Invisio...phpBB+vBulletin

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I know the price of vbulletin so i am saving to buy it, i recomend to all the simple machines forum http://www.simplemachines.org it is flexible, beter than phpbb and free, (it is not y intencion to made double post, it is te only way to expres the opinion)

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Frankly speaking, Simple Machine Forum would be the last forum software I'll ever go to... It does not have anything that would attract my attention to even test out the forum software... However, maybe I'll have a look at SMF as its getting quite popular, but the layout of SMf is just not appealing...

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SMF is easier to maintain plus the fact that you dont have to download mods and upload them to your forum but rather you can directly get it from the mod site to you forum..

Way cool, but be sure to back the database once in a while.

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A problem I see with SMF is it's lack of skins obviously due to it's smaller skinning community and community overall. Besides that I don't have any huge problems with SMF.

Right now I plan on using phpBB but when my site gets bigger I'll most likely opt for Vbulletin.

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Skins? SMF has alot of skins. Try surfing the simplemachines.org site. And no, it's community overall not small. There are many third-party sites that you can connect to your forum through the Admin Panel.

What they don't have are smilies. XXD

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i also have to say, SMF has to be the best free forum software out there, all i have to say is SSI.php, forget about complicated php scripts to show your latest posts on another part of your site, 1 simple php function will do it for you using SMF. Also, it automatically builds RSS and XML Feeds, seriously, how awesome can u get for free?

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For me, I think VBulletin's interface is the best among the 3 forum softwares and it is also the favourite software when it comes to installing a forum. What you pay is what you get, simple machine forums and phpBB2; although free, do not really give you much satisfaction as compared to IPB or VBulletin. In terms of hacks and modifications, VBulletin has come out a few of their own, although still using IPB's system but nonetheless, it is still there. For me, things like arcade or a vbookie sort of thing are not necessary important in the forum's software features, as long as it can do the basic thing well which is posting messages, its stability and interface are good and up to scratch, it pretty well wins me over.

VBulletin is a perfect example of that. For some reason or another, I do not like IPB especially their navigation in the User Options, it got me confused at first. I have been too used to VBulletin that it is very difficult to change now.

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Well i never really looked into vBulliten as i just didnt really appreal to me also it was to expensive for me at one time. I currently use invision board as i find its better suited to my current needs. PHPBB 3.0 will be very good when it is finally released, i have the beta on my pc and i also use it on a few of my partner sites as i didnt want to buy another IPB Licence. I would say that currently PHPBB 3.0 and IPB 2.1.7 are even in many ways but this will change when IPB 2.2 is released as there will be many new features.

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