Hello, it's me again. :)

Anyway, as the title says. I looked at several options for starting an online message board system. I quite like these boards (vBulletin), but was wondering what the other alternatives and pitfalls are.

Has anybody got experience with:
phpBB (FREE)
WebsiteToolbox ($3.50 per month, remote hosting, 10,000 pageviews per month)
vBulletin ($160 one-off fee)

How easy is this to setup and maintain? Can I set it up myself? How quickly does the filesize go up? How intrusive are these things on your website (in bandwidth I mean)? Is it better to have it on my own website or will remote do?

Any help, numbers and advice much appreciated. I am looking for longterm usage and technical support is preferred, I'd say.

Thanks for your help!

Although I'm knowledgable in web application development, I have practically no experience with PHP and mySql.. however I did try installing them together with phpBB and it was a very pain-free experience.

I think phpBB is one of the best forum software around.. anyway.. this very forum is a good example!

Originally posted by Nemesis
I think phpBB is one of the best forum software around.. anyway.. this very forum is a good example!

I run phpBB on another site and I agree its good -- but this site appears to be running vBullutin -- check the bottom of the page.

Jack

I like VBulletin best even though it isn't free. It is very well supported, and the admin tools are much better than what I saw when I last tried phpBB.

I'm currently using Invision, which is also free http://www.ibforums.com/download/ Setting it up is painless, and if you want to make it even easier if your host has CPanel: CPanel offers a way to install it quickly, though if your host has Fantastico then you should use Fantastico to install it. phpBB is a good board, but like Steve P said, the admin tools are lacking.

Invision is the closest free vBulletin clone I have seen. The template system is also pretty neat. My forums aren't really live yet (just a few testers on there) so I can't vouch for how well Invision handles once you get some traffic.

Edit: none of these boards are very kind on servers. Bandwidth isn't an issue (though they suck up that up too) as much as server resources. Silly features like informing members that your gold fish has a birthday require insane amounts of database queries, which puts a load on the DB server and consequently on cpu and RAM. vBulletin has a really bad rep in this area, but I really doubt that phpBB or Invision are genuinely any better. All these boards offer some tweaks to allow you to turn off some features, I recommend turning off stuff you don't need (eg. birthdays, who's online, etc).

Originally posted by JackNathan
I run phpBB on another site and I agree its good -- but this site appears to be running vBullutin -- check the bottom of the page.

Jack

erm.. oops...

@Nemesis:
:) No worries.

Thanks for the advice guys. I checked out that Invision thing and that looks all right too. At this stage I think vBulletin 'looks' most interesting.

The forum stats I am aiming for indicate approx 3,000 posts in about 6-8 months with 100-200 users. Do you think that a 2 Gb/month - 30 Mb server will do or do I need to upgrade *again*? I use a smaller web server for static HTML only (+forum later) and all the game demos will be hosted elsewhere anyway.

I'll be sure to turn off the goldfish birthday thing! I explained this to my goldfish and he said it was fine, he couldn't count anyway. :)

I am very happy with phpBB. There are hundreds of MODs available if you want to make it to wacky stuff but it is great “out of the box.”

I use phpBB and am quite happy with it. I was also able to integrate it into the template of my website as a whole. I think it works out really well. Granted I know PHP, and a little hacking was required.

Thanks guys, I had a chat to my web provider and they said that one of their accounts had phpBB with it, so it might be worthwhile upgrading. I don't think 30Mb is quite going to cut it anyway, 300 Mb is more like it.

Has anyone ever had to move users and stuff accross from one board to another? I am basically taking over one of the ad-filled boards with about 3,000 posts (and unknown number of PM messages)? They might be less fearful about moving that way. ;)

Thanks anyway guys, looks like I might stick with phpBB if my provider has it already set up for now. I saw that vBulletin provides upgrades, so that could work out well, should I need to change.

I'm considering setting up forums myself. Did any of you experience or hear about security problems with phpBB?

[i]Did any of you experience or hear about security problems with phpBB? [/B]
I would seriously recommend that whatever board you choose, you regularly visit the home page for the board. PHPBB team seem to be really on top of security issues, and will post a fix within a day.

Incidentally: we use phpbb here. (http://www.moonpod.com/board/)
and we've been very happy with it. Mainly because if there's anything you want to do, there are lots of mods about and people willing to help. We use RSS feeds from the board (using a mod) to stay notified of new posts for instance, so we can usually respond to board related support requests pretty quickly.

There have been security issues with phpBB in the past, that have been fixed. They are only releasing security updates for the 2.0.x branch (i.e. no new features), so hopefully all the issues have been worked out.

You should be warned that because there are so many phpBB installations on the net it is an easy target to attack. I am sure that there are tools to easily exploit earlier versions.

One other thing is that a little while ago I noticed that a whole bunch of users had been signed up with porn pages as their WWW link. After noticing they were all deleted and the domain they were using for email addresses was banned.

That's good advice actually, what sort of attacks have they done in the past? Attacks, like hi-jacking your website sortof thing?

Installing phpBB 2.06 turned out to be very simple as it was integrated in my new webserver's admin panel. Took like two clicks and it was all done. Customizing the board is going to take a bit longer. :(

Probably because I am used to these boards, I found the boards somewhat clunky and may still upgrade later on. Did vBulletin have any security problems like phpBB?

Also, could somebody maybe explain (I think Steve mentioned it) what the vBulletin admin panels offer in addition to the phpBB ones?

I am going to be facing the problem of having somewhat empty/unused boards in the beginning, but ah well, I've got to start somewhere.

Invision ownz all. Then again, why not just write your own? That way you don't have to display the stupid copyright message and you can integrate it with your site much more easily. PHP and MySQL are very easy to learn.

Originally posted by anothersomething
PHP and MySQL are very easy to learn.

But writing a proper forum system takes months, and to write a nice secure one it takes a couple years of experience with php/mySQL. Nobody gets it right on their first few tries. :) Invision sells copyright removal for what less than a week of developing a custom system would cost you in lost time.

All the forum systems have had security problems, it's a fact of life. As long as you stay on top of things and actually upgrade your software, you shouldn't let this fact keep you awake at night.

IIRC the current version of phpBB is 2.0.8b or something. So anyone running it should make sure they have updated to that. Info on upgrading and what can happen to you if you don't can be found at www.phpbb.com (look in the left-hand sidebar).

Originally posted by Lizardsoft
But writing a proper forum system takes months, and to write a nice secure one it takes a couple years of experience with php/mySQL. Nobody gets it right on their first few tries. :) Invision sells copyright removal for what less than a week of developing a custom system would cost you in lost time.

All the forum systems have had security problems, it's a fact of life. As long as you stay on top of things and actually upgrade your software, you shouldn't let this fact keep you awake at night.

Months? Years? Maybe a couple months for a full features one like invision. But you can code all the features you need in a week or 2.

Sure it is possible to create a bare bones forum in not that long a time. But you will miss some of the fine features that existing forums provide. Things like text markup, email notification, avatars, smilies, etc, etc.

Better to use a board package that already exists, especially since there are some good free ones. You can even modify them to suit your needs.

About a year ago we used to get automated attacks on these forums from bots that would sign-up as new members and then post links to porn sites in every forum. It was a coordinated attack on all VBulletin boards. But the VBulletin team was quick to respond by adding image-based verification as part of the registration process, and there have been no successful bot attacks since that upgrade.

A wanted a forum too, my ISP has phpBB as an option, I installed it (simply clicked 'Install phpBB'), and in one day I had it integrated in the site (navigation bar and so).

I like it and had no problems at all, but have no experience with other forums.

Fèlix
Nurium Games
www.nurium.com

Another question - how much moderation is needed? Do people tend to post cracks and serials for your own game in your own forum or do people behave more or less politely?

People will definitely *ask* for cracks and serials in your own forum if you get enough traffic.

Publically, they will probably be mocked by other members. Privately, who knows? Someone might actually give them one.

IPB is the way to go. If you don't mind some tech support trouble go for IPB2.0 PDR... I recommend 1.3 for now though.

If you require registration in order to post (which this board does), then you should have minimal problem with people trying to post cracks and serials. Several years ago (ca. 1999-2000) I had a board that didn't require registration to post, and it became a headache to manage because there were frequent spam and crack posts, and that ultimately caused me to take it down. But a minimal (60 second) registration process that requires email address validation will cut spam and crack posts by 99%. At least that's been my experience.

Yes, that is true. Also, having 30 second or 60 second spam protection works very well... sometimes it is a little annoying, but it stops 90% of the remaining 1%...

IPB also supports IP Banning, which makes life 100x easier.

Lots of boards can be set to require a valid email (they email a verification link) which is worth setting.

2 other minor notes:
Disabling private messaging, or only allowing it for users of a certain rank (I personally can't see the use for it on a game developer's board)can be a good idea, as it is often used to hassle other board members, and you won't always be able to keep an eye on it.

If you have a board that allows the user to show their email, then set the default not to> it's an easy way for spam bots to collect lots of email addresses.

My website uses phpBB for the forum.
Apart from phpBB, I did not try any other forum system. I think it's very easy to set up phpBB and it's stable. However, I really like vBulletin as we are using in this website.

Does anyone have experience using third party services like Website Toolbox or Boards2Go? I like the idea of a seperate system from my web hosting and have some other companyhandle the technical issues of bot attacks, etc.

Installing and maintaining my own board software is a little too far outside my "tech" comfort zone. Since support boards don't seem to directly generate revenue I would rather spend my time making and selling products.