| Released under: |
Proprietary License. |
| Current version: |
4.0.2 (February 4, 2010).
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| Sponsored By: |
Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
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| Price: |
$195 for Forum, $285 for Publishing Suite.
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vBulletin is one of the most famous solution for providing a forum software to communities. The latest major 4.0 version has been released in the end of the year 2009, and was a great opportunity to revamp and organize the vBulletin softwares suite. As you may know, vBulletin company does not only edit a forum software of the same name, but also a CMS and a Blog software. Those two tools could be absolutely used with the vBulletin Forum in order to administrate a whole website with the same software solution.
That's why vBulletin provides now two different packages:
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vBulletin 4.0 Forum
Only provides the forum software.
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vBulletin 4.0 Publishing Suite
Contains the Forum, the CMS and the Blog softwares.
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Using the vBulletin 4.0 Publishing Suite, you will have the full stack to manage your website (using the CMS or/and the Blog software(s)), and if you already use another tool (Drupal, Wordpress, Dotclear,...), then you will only need the vBulletin forum software.
Let's see in details what going on with this major evolution.
Server & Clients Requirements
| Server Requirements |
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Operating Systems
Systems supporting this software.
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- Linux
- Windows Server 2003
- Windows XP
- Solaris
- FreeBSD
- OpenBSD
- NetBSD
- Windows Server 2008
- Mac OS
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Web Server
Web servers host the forum software.
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- Apache 1.3
- Apache 2.0/2.2
- Microsoft IIS
- Lighttpd
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Languages
Development language.
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Databases
Systems that store forum datas.
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| Browsers & Clients Requirements |
Compatible Browsers
List of compatible browsers.
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- Mozilla Firefox 3
- Mozilla Firefox 2
- Mozilla Firefox 1
- Opera
- Safari
- Konqueror
- Internet Explorer 7
- Internet Explorer 6
- Chrome
- Mozilla SeaMonkey
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Required Plugins/Technologies
What the user needs exactly to use this forum correctly.
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- HTML and Javascript
- HTML and AJAX
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Localization
Languages supported by vBulletin 4.
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Yes.
vBulletin provides a localization features that could virtually make it work in any languages... if you translate it.
Translations packages are of course also available.
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From this side, vBulletin only had new AJAX calls to improve the usability of the forum, so you will just require a modern browser (or Internet Explorer 6 - sorry, it could not be included within the term "modern").
Forum Threads & Posts
| Forum Threads |
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Forum Style
General appearance of the topics.
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Flat/Threaded |
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Social Networks
Users can share information from their social network account...
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No. |
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Thread Icons
An icon that identifies the type of a topic.
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Yes |
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Forum Organization
Organize your forum with categories, sections,...
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- Forum Categories
- URL Redirection Forum
- Sub Sections
- Trashcan Forum
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Sticky Threads
Sticky threads stay at top of a section or a forum.
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Yes |
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Spell Checking
Posts and topics are spelled checked with a dictionary.
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Unknown |
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Detect Duplicate Threads
Duplicate Threads are detected before creation.
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Yes |
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Shadow Topics
Some topics are only accessible to a limited list of users.
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Yes |
| Posts |
Post Editing Form
Details about the manner to post messages.
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- WYSIWYG Editor
- Preview Button
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Emoticons
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Yes |
Post Editing Format
Markup Language (HTML, Wiki, BBCode,...).
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Attachments
Attach files (screenshot, archive,...) with a post.
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Yes |
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Post Quoting
Quoting a post helps readers understand who answers who.
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Yes |
Syntax Highlighting
Posted Source Code is formatted using colors.
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Plugin |
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Post Rating
Users can rate the quality of other users posts.
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Yes |
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vBulletin features are still really huge and have an incredibly large scope. All of them are not mandatory and could be disabled, but vBulletin has clearly simplify the job of webmasters, that won't have to look for additional plugins and modules to fulfill their needs. Some examples are Thread prefixing, User Infractions, User Profile Fields,...
About additional softwares, please note that the CMS and Blog would only be included in the vBulletin Publishing Suite.
The inline editing, quick reply with AJAX and other new features are really useful and give the feeling of a faster website with more interactivity.
RSS feeds are totally customizable, and adding them into Google Reader will make users be able to buzz on forum topics of your website. XML Sitemap are also supported, so controling the access from search engine robots have never been so easy with vBulletin.