Forum: vBulletin Vs Web Wiz Forums?

Hi, I've set up a test Web Wiz Forums (running off SQL dbase) and it seems to be a tad slow.

Whilst my web hosting is offshore there is barely a noticable difference on my websites (I have about 10 hosted on the same service) although they are all running of Access database and aren't very content heavy.

Just wondering if anyone else has used Web Wiz and/or vBulletin and can offer a comparison? It could be the SQL server I'm using as I've never run an SQL site before.

Also, can I run vBulletin on a Windows 2003 Server? I manage my hosting environment via HELM and it has options for PHP 4 and PHP 5 (whatever that means?). I've never used PHP before - I'm predominately HTML with a fair bit of self-taught ASP. Will I have trouble if I want to edit the forum interface?

Thanks,
Penny

I can answer part of that question. Yes, you can run VBulletin on Windows servers. PHP 4 is an older version of PHP than PHP 5. So, your host allows you to run either. I use VBulletin with mySQL and it runs pretty fast in my opinion. This site you're posting your question to uses VBulletin and I would assume stores the data in some sort of SQL server. You say it's "running a tad slow". Is your site taking hits from anyone else? Or is the test forum only accessed by you?

Does vbulletin support a SQL Server db?

I don't think so. There was talking of adding support for more db's but as far as I know, it only supports mySQL.

The site in question is public (and receives very minimal traffic) but the forum is private. There'd be lucky to be 2-3 users sessions on the whole site at any one time.

I know ASPforums runs on vBulletin and I've noticed many forums using it - that's why I was interested. I may have to simply setup a 2nd test forum running vBulletin to do a true comparison and find out for myself. My host allows both MySQL and MSsql.

Thanks for your input! (more welcome)

In regards to 'is vBulletin better than Web Wiz Forums', then the answer is a resounding 'hell yeah'.

vBulletin is the daddy of all forum applications... as far as I know, there isn't anything else better. Fair enough, there's DotNetNuke, but that’s almost an entirely different type of application.

I don’t actually run vBulletin on any of my websites, because they are all hosted by Godaddy on Windows Servers, and their PHP support is somewhat patchy. Instead I run MegaBBS 2.2 which runs on ASP 3.0 (not ASP.NET in other words). You can use it with either SQL Server or Access (which is what I use... its a fairly quiet forum).

I don't think you can even think to start to compare web wiz forums to vBulletin.
vB is the best of the best imo.

If you want ASP forums then look into Snitz. They are the best ASP forums i've encountered.


keep in mind that vB is pretty expensive, especially if you want the support.
You may want to look into Invisionboard for cheaper forums or SMF or phpBB for free forums.

right, vB is currently $160 for the license to keep running it without paying an annual fee. This doesn't include the support. It's pricey, but if you're running a site and looking for a quick solution for forums as well as reliable and secure, vB is probably the best there is. As far as support, you most likely won't need it. There are plenty of community forums where you can get the answers you need.

For the amount of work that goes into developing these forums I don't think $160 is too bad. Especially in cases where the end client will pay - although I guess community forums might struggle to fork out for hosting + forum software.

I'm now pretty used to the admin interface and functions on Web Wiz, so vBulletin (demo) looks a bit daunting but I'm sure it won't take long to get a handle on it.

I've never used PHP before. I looked at the source (vBulletin) and it just looks like standard HTML, but I'm only obviously seeing the compiled code. What are the basic differences? Will I struggle if I'm a HTML/ASP programmer?

Yeap, $160 is decently priced. I didn't mind, anyways. The admin functions of vBulletin are pretty self-explanatory. If you do get confused, it has help links for everything. I'm an ASP programmer, and I don't have any problems with vBulletin. For one, you don't need to really touch the coding scheme. It does offer the ability of plug-ins, which modify the way vB runs. You can go to help forums and they have several custom-made plug-ins and such that allow you to do several neat things with your forums. If you're into customizing yourself, then you could learn some php, which, from the looks of it, is very similar to C# and Javascript, (the format I mean). One of these days I'm going to attempt to learn it myself. Anywho, little knowledge of anything is needed to run a vB forum. Hope this sheds some light for you.

It's mainly the interface design that I'd like to modify (as required). Nothing major, probably just styles, icons, backgrounds, logos, etc. I assume it's run off a CSS style sheet?

Yeah, its pretty similar to C++ really, with a few of the older C style functions thrown in (like sprintf etc.).

If you're used to ASP, then it might take you a while to get used to PHP. But like jmurrayhead said, you shouldn't ever have to touch vB's code.