I'm considering buying Ultimate Bulletin Board (http://www.infopop.com/) or going with Ikonboard (http://www.ikonboard.com/) which is free.

Is it worth buying UBB or should I go with Ikonboard which is free or are there other good forum scripts out there? If so can you direct me to their site. Thanks.

A long time ago UBB may have been worth the money, but today there are just so many better alternatives.

UltraBoard is ok... though the support for the free version is non-existant
http://www.ub2k.com/

These forums are WWWThreads, which are quite good, but a commercial product.
http://www.wwwthreads.com/

vBulletin is a very good buy if you've got the options of PHP and SQL.
http://www.vbulletin.com/

Personally I'm waiting for Ikonboard 3, which just looks plain awsome.
http://www.ikonboard.com/test/cgi/ikonboard.cgi

You can find heaps more, just depends on your preferences, budget and server capabilites:

http://cgi.resourceindex.com/...ard_Message_Systems/
http://php.resourceindex.com/...ard_Message_Systems/

- Mark


Astro-Boy!!
http://www.zip.com.au/~astroboy/

I would suggest a BB that uses SQL rather than a flat file system like WWWThreads especially if you are expecting heavy use of the board.

Out of several BB I have tried in the past, the best flat-file system in my opinion is UltraBoard. (http://www.ub2k.com/) mainly for its customizing features, speed and price.

The best SQL based system is : vBulletin (http://www.vbulletin.com) mainly for its great looks (fully customizable), back-end technology and fantastic user features like message polls etc, but requires PHP, so this is not for all tastes.

Which ever you go for, think of its use in the future and how you are going to handle the huge amounts of data these system gather, and the resources they use.


Eraser:
Insight Eye
http://www.insighteye.com/

Thanks a lot guys!! Your responses were most helpful.

I'll let you know what message board I decide to go with.

The best free board I have found is YapBB

www.yapbb.net

Example:
http://www.wiredon.net/forum/

There were some updates to it release a few weeks ago so it will be even better than it looks on my site now :)

Paul
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/
Support: http://wiredon.net/forum/

Have they got most of the bugs fixed with that now?

Andy

webmaster@ace-installer.com
http://www.ace-installer.com

UBB sucks, IMHO!

Regards,

Eliot Lee

Most of the bugs?

It was a new release and so there are always bugs - as you know from your own scripts.

But the programmer has released several updates since and it is practically bug free now. Even the bugs that exist aren't noticable.

Paul
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/
Support: http://wiredon.net/forum/

I highly recommend phpBB available at http://www.phpbb.com/. It is a freeware PHP / SQL forum script that does the job and much more.


Dan

LotusLand
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Top Ranked City in World for Quality of Life

Ewwww I have tried phpBB before and if you view the support forum there are literally hundreds of posts about trouble logging into the admin area and cookie problems - ugh not good. (IMHO)

Paul
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/
Support: http://wiredon.net/forum/

Hi Paul:

No problems at my end - login / cookie or otherwise. Compared to its competition, the script is almost bug free and very easy to install, setup and maintain. At any rate, the best choice is to use a SQL-based forum script. And there are non-commercial ones available including phpBB and some others mentioned in this thread.


Dan

LotusLand
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Top Ranked City in World for Quality of Life

Great, may have to have a look at it again

Andy

webmaster@ace-installer.com
http://www.ace-installer.com

Each to their own.

Paul
Installations:http://wiredon.net/gt/
Support: http://wiredon.net/forum/

WOW!! . Thanks for all the responses!!

Has anyone had any luck with http://www.discusware.com?

Discus is terrible in my opinion...it is still based on a flat file system (as of last year). It is non-template based meaning that you have to edit the scripts to change the layout.

Also, in terms of "features", it lacks many that are provided by other BBS applications like some mentioned in this Thread.

Regards,

Eliot Lee

Do you know why they use FlatFile? Although I can't actually program MySQL in Perl, I am fully aware that a script like that really does need to use MySQL. Did it used to?

Andy

webmaster@ace-installer.com
http://www.ace-installer.com

Just taken another look at Vbulletin Beta V2 and WOW! I have never seen a feature set so comprehensive in a BB.

So this morning I dumped UltraBoard and bought Vbulletin - the best purchase I ever made along with Links SQL.

Forget version 1, go straight to the V2 demo for the lowdown: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/index.php


Eraser:
Insight Eye
http://www.insighteye.com/

Would you guys say IkonBoard is the best freeware message board available?

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Cricket Web - http://www.cricketweb.net
Cricket Web Forum - http://forum.cricketweb.net/
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I'd say it's definately the best free perl / flatfile message board available (not that there are many options). Some of the free PHP/SQL options are quite impressive.

Though iB will have SQL support soon

- Mark

Astro-Boy!!
http://www.zip.com.au/~astroboy/

Ok thanks Mark .


Which ones are they?

I was looking at buying vBulletin but I was put off by the price .

---------------
Cricket Web - http://www.cricketweb.net
Cricket Web Forum - http://forum.cricketweb.net/
---------------

The 3 that I know of are:

XMBForum - http://www.xmbforum.com/
phpBB - http://www.phpbb.com/
tforum - http://titan.spaceports.com/~typus/tforum/

There's quite a few more that I haven't checked out though:
http://php.resourceindex.com/...ard_Message_Systems/

- Mark

Astro-Boy!!
http://www.zip.com.au/~astroboy/

Thanks for the links Mark .

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Cricket Web - http://www.cricketweb.net
Cricket Web Forum - http://forum.cricketweb.net/
---------------

Which one would you recommend Mark? When is IkonBoard 3 likely to be released?

You said that Ikonboard is a flatfile forum. Can it handle a fairly heavy usage?

---------------
Cricket Web - http://www.cricketweb.net
Cricket Web Forum - http://forum.cricketweb.net/
---------------

I'm incredibly biased towards iB, since I've been following it's development sice it started. The current betas are quite stable, and a lot of people already use them as their main boards. They haven't released a specific release date for the final "Gold" iB, but I'd say it's close (maybe a few weeks).

iB uses the DBM module, which is somewhat faster than flat file and like I said, they're also planning on releasing MySQL support shortly after the Gold release. If you need an idea of just how fast it is under high traffic situations, just browse around the official support forums. Bear in mind though, the site has mod_gzip installed.

In the end, it all depends on your personal preference. I went with iB because I thought it was the best free board available to me and I don't have PHP/SQL available to me at the moment. I don't really see the point in paying for a message board, not with all these freebies around

- Mark

Astro-Boy!!
http://www.zip.com.au/~astroboy/