To FQ: Switch from UBB to vBulletin...good idea?

george_c · 10-23-2000, 06:00 PM

Hi:
I'm considering switching from UBB to VBulletin (vbulletin.com), since the later is supposedly a lot more robust and efficient in general cases. My question is more to Futurequest than anyone else...would VB run more efficiently and consume less resources than UBB from FQ's standpoint? I'm on Taz, and I've heard the mySQL component of VB can put more of a strain on the server than the CGI calls UBB makes. Do you have any account holders that host a popular VB board, and if so, how does it affect server performance?

Thanks,

**Deb** · 10-23-2000, 07:48 PM

In this area they both have their own advantages and disadvantages. For the host they both are resource hogs affecting different areas but each taking their fair share.

As a host -- We do not like either of them.

As a site owner -- It is best that you choose the one which will work best for your site's requirements and one that you and your visitor's are most comfortable working with.

FutureQuest hosts quite a few popular UBBs and VBulletins. Site owners seem happy both ways with the differences being only with their own preferences.

Deb
- In the end the choice is yours.

Shalazar · 10-23-2000, 07:51 PM

Or you can go with WWWThreads, which is much cooler anyway

And will soon come in a PHP flavor too.

Charles Capps · 10-23-2000, 08:11 PM

Before switching, I'd wait for UBB6... Moving to vB might be a hasty decision.

george_c · 10-23-2000, 09:24 PM

Thanks guys...I was under the impression that VB was significantly more efficient than UBB. I will wait until UBB 6 comes out, as good old Charles suggests, before revisiting this issue

**Deb** · 10-24-2000, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Or you can go with WWWThreads

Now that's something we are considering doing for aota.net. I'm just not sure how hard it is going to be to import the current data into WWWThreads yet...

Deb
- Removing ourselves from the cat fight.

Dan Kaplan · 10-24-2000, 01:25 AM

Anecdotal evidence at best, but Gossamer Threads "recently" moved a rather large UBB forum to WWWThreads, and my impression was that the message importing was not a major issue. Most of the time involvement seemed to be getting the new forum set up as desired.

Dan
[This message has been edited by Dan Kaplan (edited 10-24-00@5:55 pm)]

Charles Capps · 10-24-2000, 03:19 PM

vB slows down just like UBB, only it takes about four times as much traffic to do so... Why in the world they decided to stick all the posts in just *ONE* table is beyond my understanding. Not to mention they keep all the configuration data in tables... Every pageview needs at least three querys, BEFORE it gets to the content....

badboy · 10-24-2000, 05:08 PM

Charles Capps,

I know you are good with scripting and such, but since you are making money from Infopop, I don't know how valid your points actually are!

Quote:

Before switching, I'd wait for UBB6... Moving to vB might be a hasty decision.

I would suggest that you wait for the upcoming release of Vbulletin (which will be out soon), because it is going to put UBB6, and opentopic to shame in many ways. I believe it is going to be highly optimized compared to it's current state as well.

The UBB will still be flat text files, which means it will not be able to match vbulletin, or wwwthreads for that matter!

Sorry, but I used to use the UBB for a long time (with a forum that has over 100,000 posts. I have since switched to vbulletin, and have never looked back. It is so superior to the UBB, and the flat text file format that I just could not ever go back to Infopop.

So from an *unbiassed* person, I would highly recommend you watch out for the future release of vbulletin, rather than wait for another flat text file version of the UBB!

Chris Schreiber · 10-24-2000, 05:18 PM

Just thought I would throw in my $.02 worth here....

Both UBB and vB are going to need and use alot of resources above what serving a static web page would, that's the nature of an interactive forum.  However, I have found that vB, when all the components are properly tuned, to be faster then UBB overall when running with similar loads in the same configuration.  I've also seen posts from users at sites that have made to conversion saying that vB seemed to perform better as well.  All of this with the added features you get in vB that aren't a part of the UBB.

Now, vB is still a relative young package (just released back in April), so there are still some inefficient queries that need to be re-written and there are some other places where multiple queries can be combined into joins.  Many of these issues have been addressed and are being worked on for the next major vB release due within about a month from now.

The key advantage that vB will always have over UBB is storing everything inside the database, instead of using flat files.  I know one very large site that had to purge posts each week to keep their UBB forums running, imported all of the information into vB after conversion and now have over 1 million posts, all without a problem.  When searching for a record, if you have a key value, you can get it immediately from a database... if you need to find that same information from a flat file, good luck.  A good example would be to try searching for a post in a UBB forum, then try the same thing in vB.... I am sure you all already know which is faster.

(Disclaimer: I am a moderator at vbulletin, but I am not a Jelsoft employee)

-Chris