vBulletin or anything else?

[AnnaS]

For a website primarily around a forum or forum and wiki, is there any real alternative to vBulletin? Does vBulletin's number of options for skins, wiki and cms integration set it as a must have?

Or another way - Is it just implied that if you want forums on your website, you immediately add $200 for a vBulletin license and wiki or cms plus the time to install all the add-ons?

Obviously the benefits if any compared to other software options for SEO or resale-ability are important also.

What are you thoughts?

[Acro]

vB owned is $160
Best for forums.

[AnnaS]

$160 forum - you are correct. I made a leap of math since I was thinking the wiki, the options range from sub-domain to integrated to add-on. I was lumping in the price to get to the $200

[synapse]

for what it's worth phpBB and PmWiki are great *free* alternatives

[draggar]

Another vote for phpBB, I'd just highly recommend a captcha for registrations.

phpBB is great if yuo don't need any high end needs (I run all of my forums though phpBB).

[synapse]

for what it's worth phpBB and PmWiki are great *free* alternatives

for what it's worth phpBB and PmWiki are great *free* alternatives

[Nodnarb]

For a fully modded version of phpBB I use phpbbfm-dot-net

They put all of the mods in, troubleshoot them and release fully functional phpbb with all of the bells and whistles added in!

[CreationNation]

VBulletin for me. The peace of mind and the amount of flexibility on the admin side, as well as the very active and growing community over at VBulletin.org make it a no brainer for me.

All that on top of the features they are working on for 3.7 (social aspects) and forward looking to 4.x - you can't go wrong if you plan on building your forum up and are thinking long term.

[GFXNow]

Invision Power Board is a great board software. Easily manageable and cheap for what it's worth also. A license is only $149.99 for a standard license and $299.99 for a business license.

[draggar]

I picked up SMF a month or so ago mainly for the RSS feed plugin. If money is tight, this is also not a bad option.

[sOliver]

phpbb3 + seo mod = web 2.0 ready free solution

as soon as you have 10,000+ members switch to vbulletin