With out any doubt in my mind vb4, Reasons : 1. vb4 is alot better optimised as standard for SEO , not only friendly URL's but header tags in the right place plus there are some add-ons to make it even better. 2. vb3 will soon be unsupported , i would imagine they will wait until everyones vb3 licences are expired before they no longer support it which means less than a year ( this is my opinion not fact however ) 3. vb4 has a better templating system and although alot of people hate it ( and i was one of those people ) once you get used to it , its much better. 4. Why go backwards , Evolution of the product and all changes have been made to move with the times and allow future features a reality which couldnt be done with VB3 .
Yes, the above reasons are good incentives to upgrade. The biggest reason though as listed above is the fact that v3 will soon be unsupported. The makers of vBulletin will no longer release patches for the release after that and maintaining up-to-date software is very important when running a forum. Without the latest patches, your forum would be left vulnerable to people looking to cause trouble.
I have to go with what he said, seeing your going to try vB4, i don't think ImPex will work? Or not? Try move to vB3 then upgrade to vB4.
Personally, I've lost all faith in Jelsoft. Go with IPB, great community, lots of features and they are catching up fast.
Why has that happened? I like both vB and IPB. I have always used IPB on my own site but I don't really like their customer support policy. That generally isn't a problem for me since I self-support myself, but it is definitely something that can't turn other webmasters off of IPB. On the software side though, I would say I like IPB and vB software just as well.
What's wrong with IPB support, it rocks! Well, they just release software with over 2000 bugs in it. Sure if it was free, but it's like $150.
I don't like there support policies. Like how you only get support for 6 months and after they cut you off, they don't even let you request peer support on their forums. I wouldn't mind as much if they cut you off from official support but still let you seek peer support on their forums. I also think their documentation is a bit lacking. I still really like the IPB software itself, it is my choice of software to use on my site. As for the bugs, vB 4 wasn't the only software to contain bugs when it was released. IPB 3 was released with many bugs as well and there have been 5 patches so far (current version is 3.0.5) to address these bugs and vulnerabilities.
To be honest VB4 has been at a stage where the bugs are only minor css problems because of their new stylevar system and some code fixes. Ive been happy with VB4 since the 4.02 release and 4.03 has fixed a shed load. You'll find that most of the bugs that people actually report around forums are because of poorly coded add-ons which they have no idea how to fix. There isnt much about Vb4 i personally dont like anymore, IPB for me didnt offer the administration and SEO values which i found to be by far more superior , Most people that like IPB and Preach about have only done so in the past because of the way you can style it , with VB4 limitations are endless and it can be styled exactly the same as an IPB forum. I also dont like the IPB admin panel and options but thats just my personal preference , id rather have simple layout and functionality in the admincp than having it looking all pretty.
I agree there. I am really not concerned about styling bugs at all. In my opinion, it is the security bugs that really matter. Most of the 3.0.x releases for IPB (with the exception of the current 3.0.5) have contained SQL injection vulnerabilities. That's far more of a concern to me than a few CSS and add-on bugs. There was also a bug in IPB 3.0.4 that prevented the entire PM system from working. There is a workaround for this which involved running a couple SQL queries and they have since fixed the problem officially in 3.0.5. I would still call that a major bug though.
Jelsoft is the company that created vBulletin and are still the owners of the project, however Jelsoft itself was purchased by Internet Brands in 2007. So Internet Brands now owns vBulletin by way of owning Jelsoft.
