question (kinda gets me angry)

[Archbob]

I've used many free and paid forum softwares, and vB and IPB are NOT, I repeat ,are not Leaps and bounds better than phpbb3. In fact, many users can't even tell its phpbb3 if not for the copyright at the bottom if I skin the forum. They think its vB. I think too many people have the mindset of "Its a paid forum, it must be better", which is just not true. phpBB3 has all the features 99.9% of people will ever need.

Now as for hosting, I can safely say that paid hosting is MUCH better than free hosting with very few rare exceptions. Even oversold paid hosts are better than the vast majority of free hosts.

From a user prespective they are pretty much the same

[Sain Cai]

pbpBB3 is still in beta form anm I correct? Even if so, with all the hacks, and ease of customizing the forum, why would someone pay 180$ for a simple forum if they are on a free host?

[Hypernic]

Paid products are better? I mean vB is the most secure board on the internet todate. Which is why it costs to buy. I prefer IPB because its more user-friendly in my opinion than both. I hate phpbb2 with a passion because it had like no admin features and all the stuff required had to be modded.

Paid Hosting is better than Free Hosting, however you won't notice the difference because both are on dedicated servers however Free-Hosting has like a 99% higher chance of shutting down unless they are funded.

[Kwek]

If they have a valid license for the script, most likely it's because they save up money for the script and hence have no money for hosting.

[ezhost-anish]

Even smf and mybb got a solid security and if you compare mybb and vB, mybb has almost all the features of vB as default or as a mod, they only problem with them is that they don;t have a proper theme collection and talking about smf they got varied mod's which isn't is semi way of all other features.

[Archbob]

I didn't have any problem with phpbb2's admin features. It had all the essential ones.

[ezhost-anish]

yea it does have to normal features but if ones' trying to make the forum more interactive then the problem come as there are vast amount of outdated mods and phpbb support is really bad.

I didn't have any problem with phpbb2's admin features. It had all the essential ones.