InsideWH - A Web Hosting Insider

Tags: Control Panel, Internet Forum Software, Technical Support

Do you need to install an Internet forum software on your site but are unable to decide between a commercial forum software and a free forum software alternative? This article will list out the most important differences between a paid and free forum software. [Ex: VBulletin and PhpBB]

Let’s first look at the different but most important aspects of a general purpose community forum software.

• Forum setup and installation
• Database back end
• Template system interface
• Plugin system
• Admin control panel
• Internal/custom search engine
• Multiple language support
• Technical support
• Frequent patches and updates

1. Forum setup and installation - Both paid and free forum softwares are easy to install. If you know the basics of hosting and control panel usage, you don’t need any help to deploy any forum software. You can set it up entirely on your own.

2. Database back end - One of the most important factors that draws a line between paid and free forum software is the way database is designed and the database queries that are written to fetch/store data to/from database. A poorly written database query can take significantly longer than an efficient query to fetch tons of data from the database of a forum software. Commercial forum softwares are many steps ahead on this front. They have expert developers who write highly optimized SQL queries to manage data in the back end database. Of course, if you are a db expert, you may rewrite the sql queries of free forum softwares.

3. Template system interface - Almost every forum software that’s produced today has a templating system built-in and there is not much difference between template system of a free or a paid forum software.

4. Plugin system - Another important differentiating factor is availability of plugins for doing variety of things with your forum software. Commercial forum software offers tons of plugins and options to integrate your forum software with 3rd party applications and extend the functionality by many folds. Free software do not have that many plugins available for you to extend your forum softwares.

5. Admin control panel - I have used both free and commercial forum softwares such as PhpBB and vBulletin respectively but did not find a lot of difference between the features and functionalities of either. Both free and commercial softwares offer similar set of features in their admin control panels.

6. Internal search engine - It goes without saying that every forum software will come with a powerful search engine. But it again depends on the database queries that perform the search. By experience, I have seen commercial forum softwares such as vBulletin perform faster search than PhpBB (free) software. Not one, but on many websites that I have come across.

7. Multiple Language support - It’s a common feature and often takes little to almost no effort in providing a front end template in multiple languages. Anyone with basic knowledge of HTML can customize the front end content to their language.

8. Technical support - Here is another major one. Free softwares are nowhere near comparison when it comes to technical support provided by paid forum softwares. That’s because you are paying for it. If you think you will need a lot of technical support with customizing your software and taking it to extremes in functionality, paid software should be your natural choice.

9. Frequent patches and updates - Again, paid softwares are much ahead of free alternatives to release emergency security patches and updates. Paid softwares release security patches as soon as they find a security hole in their software and in that way you always stay up-to date. But in case of free software, such patches and updates may be delayed.

The main differences between paid and free forum software are around database queries, plugins, technical support and frequent software updates. We hope, this article would help you make the right decision.

Please post your feedback and let us know if you found this article useful in making a decision.
[tags]Control Panel, Internet Forum Software, Technical Support[/tags]

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