[jibi]

siddharth, I run a few websites with a few forums, some running vBulletin 3.5.4, 3.5.5 and 3.6.0, and others running phpBB 2.0.19, 2.0.21 and another running the new phpBB 3.0b2. Without saying anything else, I agree wholeheartedly with Tom.

I'm not sure if you've done more than simply use the phpBB interface as a user, but in terms of administration, vBulletin is LIGHTYEARS ahead of phpBB. phpBB's 2.2 beta turned 3.0 beta has left me speechless that they simply did not improve hardly ANYTHING - it seems like more of a maintenance patch than anything else, to be honest (and it's taken 3 years to develop!).

The only advantage that I would say that phpBB has over vBulletin is the number of non-commercial add-on styles available. The development community for vBulletin is much better, although some of the great mods are priced-to-sell rather than freely available. Editing styles and templates in vBulletin is a pain in the ass. The configuration of the board is basically limited to a few choice and shared settings. vBulletin has limitless configurable options, the entire template system is in the admin control panel, they have a built-in product/hack and style installation module (one-click installations/configurations, basically). While phpBB offers something similar, its nowhere near the same. Aside from the installation module, perhaps the most improved feature of the 3.5 interface was the AJAX-based posting and moderation system (inline changes, no refresh changes) - really, REALLY awesome.

As far your point on support for the product, there is a HUGE difference between dedicated and professional support (I know two of the support personnel/developers for vBulletin) versus an open-source community for support options (which you also get with the vBulletin.com and vBulletin.org communities). On a related note, when searching phpBB.com's forum, you'll notice that a lot of terms used for looking up 'support-related' items (such as an error) often return a BLANK page (no graphics, PHP loads, etc) - quite humorous for such a great product.

vBulletin pushes the envelope, while phpBB tries to keep pace with its far inferior product. There's also a great level of quality control on the vBulletin product (although a lot of their code *could* be improved). When money is an issue, then phpBB may be a solution; however, when money is not much of an issue, then vBulletin is definitely the preferred way to go.

There is absolutely NO comparison between the two, unless money is the obvious flaw in one's plan for a site. As a user of quite a few forums, there are no features found in phpBB that are superior to those found in vBulletin. If you think they are, they are simply add-ons/hacks that can likely be found in vBulletin as well. For obvious reasons, these hacks and modifications are kept at a bare minimum on forums as large as this one (unless it actually could improve performance).