vBulletin 5 Connect Beta

What you can expect from vBulletin 5 Connect Beta:

  • vb5 is 3x slower than vb4 – and no, that’s not a server issue. See below screenshot of a post that was removed by vBulletin staff (EDIT: its now back again)
  • vb5 puts a massive load on the database (if you are logged in, 117-121 queries for a single page)
  • A HTML/CSS mess never seen before (40 CSS classes on a single HTML tag)
  • Many features are non-intuitive (e.g. the notifications)
  • It will lack a lot of features when released (stated by vBulletin staff on their forums)
  • Upgrading from vb4 costs you $209 compared to $249 for a new license
  • The end of free support tickets – you only get 1 month free ticket support, after that you have to pay for support tickets at $199 per year

And to top this, Internet Brands has killed their longtime German vBulletin distributor known for superb support.

As a vBulletin customer using the software since its early days (2001) I have to admit, this is a new low mark for Internet Brands.

vBulletin 5 performance

Comments

  1. That’s a bit unfair, don’t you think? While I do agree the beta of vB5 has been rushed in to release of which they shouldn’t have. Yet I still think that “what you can expect” line of vB5 is a bit false of the speed.

    Yes, it’s very slow at the moment. But do remember that it’s still in beta and as such, it should be treated that way. I’m sure the database loads will also be solved in time.

    And if something is not within vB5 by default, plugins would save the day.

  2. Its not only about the speed – the whole game changes now.

    You need ticket support? Pay!
    You need features that where in vb4? Not available!
    You want to buy vb5 at your distributor where you have bought the software for years and got supber support? Not available!

  3. Yea, I do disagree on those facts. But, plugins later on will fill in the features that are missing. As people always do.

  4. Plugins? Really?
    Come on, I PAID for features in vb4 and and you want me to wait IF plugins will will the vacuum? And you cant compare plugins from third party developers with built in and supported features from the maker of the software.

    And Internet Brands never fixed all of the issues with vb4 – why should I trust them with vb5?

  5. Despite the current lack of “promised” features and minor issues (as I haven’t noticed much or any of them) I still think vB4 is the best forum software out there. I merely said that vB5 is still rushed, unprepared and not finished yet. I’ll stick with vB4, as it’s a great forum software. Besides the CMS that is.

    Don’t get me wrong, but I really dislike XenForo, with one of the reasons being that the search function wraps every single word together (including in quotes) and every thing you copy/paste from the web, the front, hyperlink, etc are being pasted as well on the XF forums.

    XF is no longer, clean.

    Yea, I know you can disable that. But that means you remove most of the features of which is something I don’t want either.

  6. Digital Doctor says

    From the article:
    “Upgrading from vb4 costs you $209 compared to $249 for a new license.”

    Ouch.
    It’s like IB wants out of the forum business.

    Good information about vB5 and the severely poor coding are located at:
    http://xenforo.com/community/threads/vb5-beta-released-and.36137/
    http://adminextra.com/threads/connect-demo.6019/

    Bad coding detailed here:
    http://adminextra.com/threads/connect-demo.6019/page-4#post-52885

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