We got another letter from one of our readers, who stumbled upon our site.
I’m toying with the idea to, like many people, grab a CMS/forum system and get an idea rolling. I’ve run a couple VB sites for a few years now FOR someone, and would like to actually get a taste of success (at the top most level) myself.
However, I’m trying to decide if VB is right for me. When 4.0 released we blindly of course planned to upgrade to it on a few of our sites – until we started reading all the complaints. So, we held off and are on 3.8.x still.
Fast forward to now – I’m trying to do some fast research to see if things have resolved a little, if perhaps the staff has come back or if the bugs are getting under control (from 10 reports a day to 800 as of now, for real?) or what. If staff has not returned, where are they now?
At any rate, I found your site during this process. I read the top few articles and decided to email you and ask for an update as the newest is 40 days old at this point. Please either in form of an article or in reply to this email give me your current take on the situation. Short or long answer. Is it any better, recommendable? If not – is there a competing product you would recommend?
Thanks,
Frustrated
Well Frustrated, I know it’s going to be tough to swallow, but the fact remains is things are changing, much slower than we’d like it, however significant change will not come for quite some time from where I stand. I’m looking as an external auditor, and there are risks still associated with staying with vBulletin.
From my perspective, we’re still having an extremely high attrition rate in staff. Just last month, Don Kuramura resigned from Internet Brands and joined Nokia.
My recommendation stands at this. Check out xenForo. It’s a new forum application that has just started up recently Kier Darby and Mike Sullivan, former developers of vBulletin, and Ashley Busby, former business manager of Jelsoft. I’ve thus had an excellent track record with the three of them and would not hesitate for a second to buy a license. I’m extremely impressed at what I’ve seen thus far, and I’m extremely interested in seeing what’s in store.
I will say that as soon as a proper importer has been tested for vBulletin 4 to xenForo, I will be making that jump, moving all my sites from vBulletin 4 to xenForo.
It goes on sale October 5 for $140.00. If you happen to catch the twenty four hour sale, you get to save $40.00.
I will point out, that you will be buying a license to participate in their beta. The bright side. At least you have a rough idea on what you’re buying.