Thread: Cost of License for vBulletin

I really like the format of this forum and would like to put one on one of my sites but the $200+ is a little pricey for me. Does anyone have a deal on a vBulletin?

No help with a coupon, but the only thing I like better about vBulletin than phpBB3 (open source) is the ability to go directly to the first unread post via the marker. phpBB does mark the first unread post on the page with a little red page and you can probably reset the order of post display, but I like to read from the top down instead of the bottom up.

The biggest problem I have had with forums is getting an initial group of members that actively post to the board. My latest effort is at mixinglivesound.com/live_sound_forum/ It has been up on the site with some traffic for about a month and has only collected one member and no posts. I don't really want to fill all of my categories with shill posts just so there will be some content available.

Does anybody running a successful forum have any hints??

I think that $200 is too pricey, but I have decided to go with the best and bought it...
Similar(based on vbulletin) but free is www.simplemachines.org forums, it is great, but this firm is in some kind of trouble(I don't know), so you can try it and if you don't like it you can import database to vbuletin.

The only problem of free scripts is security and managment(control panel), also add-ons...
If you are planning small all mid size forum than SMF will do it.

I think that vbulletin is worth the price and it is liftime license.
Also there is no coupon code for VB, you don't need to search.

Originally Posted by Nemanja

Also there is no coupon code for VB, you don't need to search.

ouch, but thanks for the information on VB. I may have to belly up and pay the price.

you can use a nulled VB version, but its too risky. ))

unless you have great plans to earn from forum and can implement those without taking time, I think You can start with a free forum script and later move to VB. myBB has the closest look and feel with VB.

I use SMF and their 2.0 is great. They had some problems like year ago and group of walked out of the project so things happening little slowly there now. Still it's a great forum and their support is excellent.

dude, according to their site its the price you mentioned above, but I don't think its too pricey if you have a good plan to start a forum. Because VB has lot more options what other forum CMS haven't. If you start with a free cms and then want to migrate to VB one day, it will be a big work and however u have to spend this amount of money for VB, so if you have a plan to start a good forum, go with VB for sure even it is 200 + bucks

If you have good plan but no money then it's a problem. It doesn't matter how good your plan is if you don't have money you can pay. So first you need to get money. You don't need VB script to start a successful forum Any of famous forum scripts like myBB, SMF or phpBB would be fine. But It's better move to VB when the forum getting more traffic and profits.

Originally Posted by bluearrow

If you have good plan but no money then it's a problem. It doesn't matter how good your plan is if you don't have money you can pay. So first you need to get money. You don't need VB script to start a successful forum Any of famous forum scripts like myBB, SMF or phpBB would be fine. But It's better move to VB when the forum getting more traffic and profits.

what I said was its better to buy now. Otherwise later need to do a huge migration and all URLs will be changed. Then will lose lot of traffic and several other problems will occur to the forum because of that. Better to start with VB if someone has an idea to migrate in the future.