• Home
  • Services
    Our Services

    Strategy

    Get a comprehensive community strategy

    Technology

    Have a best-in-class community experience

    Intelligence

    Measure and prove your value

    Training

    Develop a world-class community team

    Subscribe by email

    Get regular insights by email

    Subscribe
    Our Work
    Methodology
    Featured
    Build Your Community
    Click to buy
    The Indispensable Community
    Click to buy
  • Resources
    Resources

    Blog

    Browse our latest insights

    Webinars

    Access free lessons

    Browse Great Examples

    Get inspiration from top communities

    Compare Platform

    Develop a world-class community team

    Books

    Published by us and recommendations

    Subscribe by email

    Get regular insights by email

    Subscribe
    best practices

    Creating Successful Community Strategies

    Learn how to create a successful community strategy from scratch

    Calculate ROI

    Discover how to prove ROI

    Superuser Programs

    Nurture top members

    Beginners' Guide To Community Management

    Get quickly up to speed on the basics.

    Strategic Community Management

    Learn how to approach your community strategically.

    featured blog posts
  • Case Studies
  • Insights
  • About
  • Login
Contact

Login

Online Community Software and Platforms

vBulletin

Star Rating

vBulletin is a traditional proprietary forum software package which has been around since 2000.

View Profile Submit Review

Overview

vBulletin
vBulletin is a traditional proprietary forum software package which has been around since 2000.
2000
  • Traditional, familiar looking forum software
  • Strong moderation support
  • Technical support on forums for life of software
  • Paid subscriptions
  • “Visible Source”/Unencrypted files
  • Upgrading will result in the loss of customisation
  • Limited reporting
  • Buggy software
  • Easy to spam
vBulletin

Pricing

239.40
  • Self-hosted lifetime license $249
  • SaaS 25gb $14.99/mo billed annually or $19.95/mo billed monthly
  • SaaS 75gb $29.99/mo billed annually or $39.95/mo billed monthly
  • SaaS 200gb $59.99/mo billed annually or $74.95/mo billed monthly
Other
No
Yes, get a free trial
Bulk discounts for self-hosting licenses
  • Branding removal: $169
  • Installation support: $149
  • Mobile app: $199
None
  • Annual support for self-hosted: $199
  • Monthly support for self-hosted: $49
None

Details

Enterprise
None
Support package
SAAS or On-premise
  • Canned Reports
  • Supports Google Analytics
  • API for integration/selective exports
Medium
API’s available
  • 3rd party add ons available
  • Social sign-up (Facebook)

Notable Clients

Features

Analytics / Reporting toolsAutomated community tour for newcomersAutomation rulesBloggingCase ManagementDirectoriesDiscussions / Activity FeedDocument CollaborationDocument PreviewsDocument SharingDocument UploadsEvents Calendar with RegistrationGroups (Public, Private, Secret)Knowledge BaseMention by @name
Mentor / volunteer matchingMicrositesMobile AppModeration toolsPermissions configurable by rolePersonalizationPollsPrivate Messaging / NotificationsQuestions (with ability to mark questions correct)Ratings and reviewsResponsive designSEO friendly linksSpam control toolsTask Management

Customer Reviews of vBulletin

Reviews Summary

Star Rating
1.3 out of 5
  • Highly customisable
  • Detailed user group customisation
  • Self-hosted version
  • Simple
  • Cheap
  • Many features simply don't work
  • Extremely buggy
  • Poor mobile optimisation
  • Very limited analytics
  • Out of date
* Taken from our most recent reviews

Latest Reviews

Person

Star Rating Top of the line 10 years ago

I've been managing a vBulletin-based community for a while now. Back in the day, this was first rate software, offering incredible customisation options and a whole swathe of useful features.
Read Full Review

March 16, 2017 | James Pickstone

Person

Star Rating Outdated but does the basics

Whilst vBulletin is reasonably priced, it's generally outdated with threaded conversations and an old school traditional forum kind of look. I ran a 15k member community on it and whilst we were able ... Read Full Review

March 15, 2017 | Liz Crampton

Person

Star Rating Traditional forum – cumbersome and heavy on technical debt

vBulletin is an old school forum, which can be cumbersome and hard to manage. I have used both the self-hosted and cloud-hosted options and found both sorely lacking in today's climate of modern tech.... Read Full Review

March 1, 2017 | Sarah Hawk

Read All Reviews  Submit Review
Back to All Platforms

Submit Review

Yes, hide my details on my review
Submitting review, please wait...
Submit

Thanks for Your Review

Thanks !

Your review of vBulletin has been sent to FeverBee for approval. Once approved it will appear on the platform.

Every review, including yours, helps provide more valuable information for everyone in the community space to make more informed decisions Thank you for making this happen.

Kind Regards,

Richard Millington
www.FeverBee.com

Close

All Customer Reviews

Person

Star Rating Top of the line 10 years ago

March 16, 2017 | James Pickstone

I've been managing a vBulletin-based community for a while now. Back in the day, this was first rate software, offering incredible customisation options and a whole swathe of useful features.

Unfortunately, it seems like it simply hasn't kept pace with other solutions on the market while the support dwindled. The last update to vBulletin 5 caused more issues than it fixed, and we've been left with half-functioning software that feels like it's falling apart.

  • Highly customisable
  • Detailed user group customisation
  • Self-hosted version
  • Many features simply don't work
  • Extremely buggy
  • Poor mobile optimisation
  • Very limited analytics
Person

Star Rating Outdated but does the basics

March 15, 2017 | Liz Crampton

Whilst vBulletin is reasonably priced, it's generally outdated with threaded conversations and an old school traditional forum kind of look. I ran a 15k member community on it and whilst we were able to hack some customisations, it was generally not flexible but certainly did the basics. Support wasn't great but there's a developer forum which could be helpful.

  • Simple
  • Cheap
  • Out of date
  • Not flexible
Person

Star Rating Traditional forum – cumbersome and heavy on technical debt

March 1, 2017 | Sarah Hawk

vBulletin is an old school forum, which can be cumbersome and hard to manage. I have used both the self-hosted and cloud-hosted options and found both sorely lacking in today's climate of modern tech.

I wouldn't recommend.

  • Some people prefer the traditional forum look and feel
  • Good moderation functionality
  • Plenty of plugins available to extend
  • Support is slow at times, non-existent at others
  • Over time, the architecture of hacks and plugins makes upgrading next to impossible
  • Analytics and reporting are very poor
Close
Services
resources
books
Buzzing Communities
Click to buy
The Indispensable Community
Click to buy
sitemap

Subscribe for regular insights