A forum I’m active on upgraded vBulletin from 4 to 6.
While I’m impressed at how such an old software, built on old foundations[1], was able to implement “modern” features, like:
- WYSIWYG editor
- Paste images directly in the editor
- Mobile view
- Real-time PMs
- Not reloading the entire page after posting a message or using the pagination
- Save the message you’re writing in real-time
- Fast select and quote part of other users’ messages
It also strikes me how Discourse pays attention to details that truly make a smooth, painless experience in many ways.
Just a few examples of how vBulletin 6 handles some features, whereas Discourse just does it the right way instead:
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Pasting an image in the editor doesn’t convert it to JPG, so if the image is heavier than the maximum authorized size, you have to paste the image somewhere else, save it as JPG, and upload it manually
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Offers 10+ optional fields/settings when linking an image, which users will never use[2]
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PMs can be viewed as a topic, or as a real-time updated chat that must be opened in an external window (why two options? Why not take the best of both views?)
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If you upload a picture or another file, and you remove it from the editor, the file is still attached to the message; you must remove the image from the attachment menu instead to completely remove it from the message
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If you edit your message and close the modification, you always get a warning popup saying you’ll lose your modification, even if you didn’t make any change
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Actions that take time (up to several seconds), like showing a topic preview when hovering the topic’s title in the topic list, or sending your message, changes Windows default pointer cursor into the blue “busy” cursor[3], which is very displeasing as this phenomenon usually occurs when a web page is about to crash due to a hanging process
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I had the chance to see the admin area in order to create a custom theme. Sure, in the end, it works, but what a painful experience. It’s light years behind Discourse in terms of ease of use and overly complicated, with an interface straight from the 2000s[4].
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A regular topic list is 11000 lines of HTML
. Discourse outputs 500.
I’m biased, for sure. I love Discourse. I don’t know vBulletin very well. I’m not used to or using all the features it provides. I’m neither a power user nor a vBulletin admin, whereas I’m an expert in Discourse (how bold I am).
Probably my opinion would be toned down if I knew vBulletin very well, and if I didn’t think “𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒟𝒾𝓈𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈𝑒 𝒲𝒶𝓎” every time I want to do something in vBulletin as a user or an admin.
Also, vBulletin 6, as I understand it, is now a full CMS aimed at creating entire websites and not only forums, which explains the trillions of templates, parameters, and settings, and the page HTML and CSS framework used that makes customization very difficult[5].
I’ll gladly admit that things aren’t all bright Discourse side and that vBulletin offers features that Discourse doesn’t provide (opposite is also true).
Nonetheless, using this very recent version of vBulletin made me realize how easy and smooth Discourse is compared with such old-timer contenders.
I feel that being a developer for vBulletin must not be a fulfilling experience ↩︎
- ↩︎
Just a part of the interface:
↩︎
Happy horizontal scrolling
↩︎<div class="b-module canvas-widget default-widget activity-stream-widget forum-activity-stream-widget widget-tabs ui-tabs widget-no-header-buttons widget-border-flush ui-corner-all ui-widget ui-widget-content" id="widget_3" data-widget-id="6" data-widget-instance-id="3" data-widget-default-tab="#forum-tab"> <div class="widget-header widget-tabs-nav h-clearfix"> <div class="module-title h-left"> <ul class="ui-tabs-nav hide-on-editmode h-clearfix b-comp-menu-horizontal js-module-tab-menu js-comp-menu-horizontal js-comp-menu--dropdown-on-xsmall b-comp-menu-dropdown--inactive ui-corner-all ui-helper-reset ui-helper-clearfix ui-widget-header" role="tablist">
