vBulletin Reviews 52

As a VB customer for a number of years I was happy to TRUST VB and paid for an upgrade from VB3 To VB4. Some small problems, but I wanted any extra security I could get. So far so good.

When VB 5 came out I checked and was appalled to see how IB and VB had launched an incomplete version to apparently hit a deadline with scant regard for their customers.
I think we have all seen what a total flop VB is.

Regarding the support on VB.org. Many are PAID employees of VB, some are volunteers and are to be applauded for using their own time to assist customers.

However there are major faults with the way VB.org operates. Many of the mods and admins seem more concerned with showing off about how they have the buttons and can "show" the members and VB customers who is in charge. Than actually help them.
With frequent deletions of valid comments and banning of any who they feel are not posting complimentary things about VB or them.

What stands out clearly: Some of the members and customers who complained about the crap that is VB5 were chastised in public and called stupid for actually trusting VB and purchasing their product! WTF!!!

So much for the ethics of the staff of VB.

My personal recommendation is that anyone who is thinking of purchasing any VB product look elsewhere.

vBulletin was a great product 3-4 years ago but it’s filled with bugs and dated code now. The current version “vBulletin 5” really just needs to be completely rewritten. There are literally 100’s of reported bugs that the developers know about as well as major missing functions from the vBulletin 4 series like the CMS. This was pushed hard in the vBulletin 4 sales days as the more expensive vBulletin Suite package. I have around 100 active clients right now that all run vBulletin 3 or 4. I’ve had a few that have been interested in upgrading so we’ll setup a development site. I put countless hours into upgrading vBulletin 3 or 4 to the current version vBulletin suggest (5.x) and then I let them play with it for a week or two. I’ve yet to get any positive feedback; it’s too slow, error messages all over the place and missing integral functions from previous versions.

It’s sad really; vBulletin was once a flagship company, but that all left in late 2009 when it was bought out by Internet Brands. The lead developers got fired or left within a few months and there has been a LOT of turnover since then as far as project managers and those in charge of development.

If you have money to blow and want to see what $300 will get you, go for it. If you want to do a little research on forums other than vBulletin.com (unlicensed members don’t see the feedback forum) you’ll see that there are a lot of longtime forum owners out there that have tried to switch to vBulletin 5 because the promo emails were saying it’s so great and then realized it was a complete disaster. You see large threads from the members complaining about browser issue, slow load time and missing functions that they had been used to.

If you read this a year from now then it may have given vBulletin enough time to fix everything and it may be a stable product, that’s what happened with vBulletin 4. Sales were pushed hard (just like vb5) and the script was sold as gold, about 18 months before it was ready. The difference this time is it’s the public’s job to report bugs in the software. You have to use the jira ticketing system which is complicated for the average Joe to figure out. You’re actually paying $300 for a basic forum script, and then you have to spend your time reporting all the bugs while your forum runs at a crawl.. go figure

I bought VB5 looked like a slick finished product, got expensive hosting, got it professionally installed. I spent a lot of money generating content, driving traffic and then in one instance my forum collapses. I panic - I kept my VB5 stock, did not change a thing, except for follow all instructions for updates. Now, I have to buy support packages to fix my problems. If you are not a technical person, and you expect VB5 to be an investment, it's not. It's a liability. It's better to use an older version of VB or another solution. VB5 needs another year of bug fixes or everyone needs to anti-up and start a class action. I work for a major auto company that has released cars that fell under class action. It just takes one motivated pissed off person who knows a lawyer or a pissed off VB customer that happens to be a lawyer - maybe it will bring down and bankrupt the company, and give rise to a better solution.

I have been a customer with this company for some time now. With the release of vBulletin 4 people trusted the company completely, but at the moment it seems that this trust is gone now even with me.

It all started with the releases 4.0 to 4.0.8 does releases where not so good they tried to fix stuff but there was no logic into the fixing done. The biggest example is the style system including the stylevars. The fixes where spread into 2 to 3 releases so that meant people needed to adjust the template system a few times if you where unlucky. In that time period many style developers left the vBulletin scene. After 4.0.8 it got a bit better but fixing the issues concentrated on forum only parts the CMS, Blog, Album and Social Groups where for the most part ignored. At the same time a manager [name] (Vice President of Technology) presented a plan what was coming for vBulletin 4 a very long list and impressive list was presented vBulletin users where impressed, but after a year only a handful of items where done we asked but nothing at all no comments where made. That all changed when [name] stopped working for vBulletin the next manager came and just said flat out that [name] could not have given does items because it was never made in a official announcement and he was not in a position to ever make such promises. So we asked what is an official announcement then well with company logo's etc etc etc, to this day all announcements made by vBulletin is without those logo's.

The vBulletin 4 software is not stable at all there still flaws in the CMS if you use it you will get penalty on SEO because of duplicate content on the website. After 3 years its still not fixed. If you use special chars in a line you can also run into trouble (same in the new vBulletin 5). The software is slow its not fully optimized by vBulletin.

The only thing what vBulletin has is support staff they are very good in what they do, but they are in depended contractors. Without the support staff that they have now vBulletin would be in much trouble.

Oh I wish that vBulletin would just be a good company that makes a good product. Because if they succeed, then I succeed. The fact of the matter is though, I have experienced nothing but a headache with vBulletin starting with vB4. The CMS is totally crap and needs to be fixed on many important levels. Sure you can post a article and edit an article. But when you create an article, it automatically creates a forum thread and a CMS URL for that same article. This results in a duplicate URL and Google penalizes your site's SEO. Therefore, your CMS articles don't show up well in Google. This can be crippling for a site. Wordpress is lightyears ahead of vBulletin in this regard.

I've created multiple instances in JIRA (vBulletin's bug reporting program) and nothing has been done to fix anything. It's been almost a years since the last update.

I've also had vBulletin support argue with me over my suggestions to fix the issues I've been experiencing. I feel like they are working against me all the time.

If you are considering getting any vBulletin products, I would advise against doing so for at least a couple years. Al least until you can see whether they are able to turn themselves around or not.

We are still using vBulletin 3.8 having been a vBulletin customer since 2001.
It used to be the market leading software with good reason,
but in 2009 the original development team left (all but one) and the replacement coding and management team has been very poor.
What was needed in 2009 was a complete rewrite.
However vBulletin 4 was vBulletin 3 with code 'updates', and vBulletin 5 connect is vBulletin 4 with code 'updates'.
It took years before vBulletin 4 was considered a reasonable forum solution, and vBulletin 5 is truly terrible. Way too many queries and css definitions. Full of bugs just like vB4 was on release.
We're migrating away from vBulletin as soon as possible, having seen that vBulletin 5 is not a viable product.
In summary. vBulletin used to be the best. Now it's terrible. AVOID.

vBulletin is a hell hole. I really dont need to say any more. If you are stupid enough to buy a license from them then more fool you.

All I will say is look into their custom reviews (the real ones, not the fake ones on here). You'll quickly see why large customers such as [external references] are/have moved away from vBulletin.

The product is seemingly no longer released when its stable, its released on a fixed date. So if its not finished, its still released.

vB 5.0.0 was released earlier this week. It's been a 100% failure. Even the most basic of features are gone, and its riddled with bugs. Their solution? Buy it now for a "massive" $25 discount and then in the future they may fix the problems.

The marketing spin speaks of vB5.0.0 being the best forum software around, despite basic features such as infractions, proper moderation, proper mobile support and such being absent.

When the developers miss something as obvious as a poll managing to work out that 10+10 = 21 then you know that there is something not quite right with the way the software is being managed.

Oh and then there's the lawsuit. Internet Brands (owners of vBulletin) tried sueing [external reference], a competitor started by former employees. Have a quick look into this and you'll see that so far everything they have claimed against [external reference] and its developers has been complete fud.

Bottom of the line, the company is scum. They locked down the licensed customer feedback so you cant see all the complaints. The forum is full of them.

Use [external reference] - both are made by way better development teams and dont fob you off with lies.

After 9 years running a leading website in my niche (last 5 of them with a vb based forum) I've come to realize that my site would no longer exist if it wasn't because of vBulletin. The decission to include a discussion board in my site, and base it on vb, was the single most important and life-changing choice I made in my entire webmaster career.

It's not only that it doesn't lack any feature you'd ever need to admin the busiest site. Not only the unlimited modding and customization power. It's not only the awsome support, the steady rate of new and every time more stable and feature rich releases. It's that vBulletin really gives you the best foundation to build your site arround it as you really really wish.