There is a lot of talk about what is the best forum software. A lot of people start new forums and use free forums such as phpBB, Simple Machines, or any free hosted forums. Considering that most very good forum software only costs between $100 and $200, it seems that the very script that runs your site should be more important. $200 is nothing in the long run of a successful forum. Most forum admins will spend much more than that in the long run. The thing is that you have to ask yourself if you want to run your forum right from the start or if you want to cheat yourself and your members.

I’m not bashing free forum software. It’s definitely decent or people wouldn’t be using it. But think about all the forums that you have been to. Think of the biggest and the best. Sure there are a few that manage to become highly successful using just a free script, but, don’t kid yourself. You can bet your bottom dollar that they’ve spent a good deal of cash on advertising and promotions. Literally every highly successful forum that I am a member at runs vBulletin. A few off the top of my head: DigitalPoint, SitePoint, NamePros. Even RackSpace and ThePlanet both use vBulletin for their support forums.

I’ve been using vBulletin for almost a decade now. When I was first looking at vBulletin I was torn between vB and Infopop’s UBB (Ultimate Bulletin Board). I am extremely glad that I went with vB because to be honest I haven’t seen a single site running UBB except for the one that I liked at the time. The reason I decided to go with vBulletin was because of their official modification forums at vbulletin.org. There are so many people who code and release plugins and mods for vBulletin every single day. Many of these are free but even the paid mods are quality stuff. I’ve gone both routes, paid and free and each time I can’t help but think how glad I am that I went with vBulletin.

I now own a ton of vBulletin licenses and would recommend them hands down over any of the other solutions out there.