End of an Era: vBulletin.org's Upcoming Closure

[Cedric]

Has anyone heard the recent news regarding the impending closure of vBulletin.org on August 24th, 2024? This decision certainly marks the end of a significant chapter in the world of online forums and communities.

The shift now is towards the Social Groups on vBulletin.com, a move that might reshape how we interact with, share, and implement addons. This transition not only impacts developers but also end-users who've relied on vBulletin.org for resources and support over the years.

Let's discuss:

1. What are your thoughts on this significant closure?
2. How do you think it will impact the broader webmaster community?
3. Do you believe this move to vBulletin.com's Social Groups is a positive step forward, or do you have reservations?
4. How should webmasters prepare for similar transitions or closures in the future?

Looking forward to hearing your insights and engaging in a constructive conversation. Remember, while change is inevitable, our ability to adapt and grow is what defines us.

 

[kensonplays]

I have never used vBulletin as an administrator in my life, but I have been on some sites that run it. This does not impact me, but I am sure that does impact quite a few others.

1 & 2) As I mentioned above, I do think does have some impact on the webmaster community at large.
3) I cannot have an honest opinion on this because I have not used it personally.
4) To prepare for transitions like this, they should look into all available options. This means looking at both other paid options and free options. XenForo, SMF, phpBB, and others.

I personally am sticking with XenForo for the foreseeable future. That is until something better comes out. Whether it is paid or open-source. To me, it does not matter as long as it is affordable. I definitely do not want to be paying $500 per year for software that is for a hobbyist site. I am willing to pay a little bit, like XenForo's pricing structure, for a community site that is purely a hobby site, at least for now. I am not making a single dollar really on my community, but $80 a year is much more affordable than 200+ dollars per year. I do not need to renew all my add-ons every year, only if there are actual updates that really affect me. I can usually go without renewing add-ons for a while after its expiration date. Until an update comes that fixes a bug I am experiencing or a new feature.

Hopefully, vBulletin can stay in business, we need more competition to have other software improve as well. If all form software, except for one shutdown, then there would be no competition and they can literally just stop. No updates, no feature updates, nothing. We need competition to be able to have all the software with new features and similar.

 

[Ken]

All I have to say that VBulletin had a great long run.

 

[Cedric]

All I have to say that VBulletin had a great long run.

vBulletin isn't closing, their add on forum is closing and moving to social clubs. You might have misinterpreted this.

 

[Spartan]

vBulletin isn't closing, their add on forum is closing and moving to social clubs. You might have misinterpreted this.

Don’t think I’ve used social clubs before, am glad to see the software isn’t shutting down, really a classic even if I don’t use it, I’m a member on a few forums that do and has always been a solid product from a users point of view.

 

[Cedric]

Don’t think I’ve used social clubs before, am glad to see the software isn’t shutting down, really a classic even if I don’t use it, I’m a member on a few forums that do and has always been a solid product from a users point of view.

Agreed. It's all about preference. I've been curious to purchase a license and test it out, but I haven't done it so far. And I fear vBulletin's prime days are gone ever since they upgraded to vB4.

 

[Al]

I spent an inordinate amount of time on vb.org during the 3.7.x / 3.8.x heyday. It was just a simply beautiful resource. Any no one really charged anything for it either.

 

[Ken]

vBulletin isn't closing, their add on forum is closing and moving to social clubs. You might have misinterpreted this.

How silly of me.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Not going to lie, I always thought it was odd that they had a separate forum for third party addons. I don't understand why they couldn't incorporate this on their support forums to begin with, especially since it's ran by vBulletin support staff. I'd understand it more if it was ran by clients. It was inevitable since it runs on a outdated version of vBulletin and the staff mentioned they've been having issues getting certain features to work with the outdated software.

 

[Empire]

Another bite of the dust in 2023, It's given a year before they go down then again between now and then, it still can change anyway You never know someone might take the project on and keep on going. But then again it has to be hard on them also, and they had to think about it before making that statement.

1. What are your thoughts on this significant closure?

It's not new that they are closing, I mean they are not alone in the matter. It's 2023 and most businesses had to deal with many things in the last five years since they run free software it's hard to keep the funds running, but it might not be the funds it can be from family members or maybe they have been in the game for so long that they want to do something new and different. It doesn't state that well why they are closing.

1. How do you think it will impact the broader webmaster community?

Even those Forums are not as busy as they used to be, it's going to make it harder in terms of free. Days when you can download free software and get your site going with no cost at all Play around and learn and have fun while doing it and be able to say I have a forum. SMF is still going, so that's good. WordPress still can be used and always be used. But not the same really. I never used it but I used it as a member on many.

1. Do you believe this move to vBulletin.com's Social Groups is a positive step forward, or do you have reservations?

Well, most things are going down that road anyway and it seems that they want to build bigger people based there and also less work they have to do rather than building software. It's going to be interesting to see passed 2024 what they going to end up with, less or more.

1. How should webmasters prepare for similar transitions or closures in the future?

Not if you was with paid XD

 

[Jordan]

Not going to lie, I always thought it was odd that they had a separate forum for third party addons. I don't understand why they couldn't incorporate this on their support forums to begin with, especially since it's ran by vBulletin support staff. I'd understand it more if it was ran by clients. It was inevitable since it runs on a outdated version of vBulletin and the staff mentioned they've been having issues getting certain features to work with the outdated software.

To be fair, them continuing to use vb 3 on their own forums just shows that their other software is trash xD

 

[Ryan Ashbrook]

Not going to lie, I always thought it was odd that they had a separate forum for third party addons.

I mentioned this on another site, but at it's height during the vB2 era in the early 2000's, it was not uncommon for vbulletin.org to have twice the amount of traffic than vbulletin.com. So, it actually made sense to have an entirely separate site at the time.

In fact, to this day the vB2 Mod section still has the most submissions of all versions.