My forum is the lifeblood of my business and I picked VB5 - Don't know if I was wrong. 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.

Your site, your vb 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.

Don't use Don't use I decided to use some other forum engine as this software is very outdated, support is nonexistent and better engines exist. Looks like the company has no plans for addressing these problems. The support guys are silent on the case too.

Once upon a time... ...and as some have already mentioned, vBulletin WAS a good company! I've owned very version of their software since v2. I have been considering purchasing vBulletin 5 Connect to host a new interactive website I intend to launch. Today, before acting on that thought, I did a quick Google search to get an idea of what other vBulletin customers have to say about their newest release. I was disturbed, to say the least, to have found this thread. I've feared for some time now; probably since IB purchased the brand, that vB was going downhill. After reading the reviews here and at a couple of other sites, my suspicion seems to be confirmed. I would contribute more to the conversation, however, those things would only reiterate many of the points already made. I also own multiple prior releases of vBulletin software, which I plan to use until they discontinue support. Meanwhile, perhaps something will happen to make them "see the light" so to speak. I gave vBulletin 3 stars, based only on past performance. Perhaps I am an eternal optimist, but I believe they still have a chance to make a comeback. I am curious to know if others have found good alternatives to vBulletin, and, if so, what they are?

Top forum software Excellent and clean software. Would highly recommend.