Invision Power Board

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Once one of the best pieces of forum software availble, with the release of version 2 Invision moved to a payware license and removed thier free trial program. On the surface this might have been supportable but was done in such a poor manner and in direct contridiction to the companies previos statements is alienated a vast number of the modual and skin programmers who supported it's previos version and had made it the incredible piece of software is once was. Lacking that community of developers it's just an over priced piece of software lacking much of the functionality needed to make a site unique. With a price tag of approximatily $285 in licensing fees per site with picture gallery and chat options installed other, better commercial options are available.

Author: Thomas

Personally this is the best board there is. There are mods all over the place, and people ready to help you in a heartbeat at their site. If you are looking for a free alternative that is better than any board you would have to pay for, this baby is it!

Author: Danny LeBlanc

Excellent software, as a novice I found it easy to install and use. I found the Support Team supportive and informative. The Admin CP Guide & documentation was self explanatory and useful prior to asking for additional help. The integration with PhotoPro Plus was an excellent add-on feature for my users to just login into IPB. I use the new IPDynamic Lite portal for my main homepage and I hope to see more improvements on the IPDynamic control panel for the administrator. My users like the look, the flexibility, and the features included. I purchase the program a year ago and I have no regrets. Thanks

Author:

This is the best software that I have seen on the internet. It's very easy to use, great technical support and a clean and tidy looking skin and many useful features! Why should you pay for a message board?

Author: Ryan

The newest Invision release has proven to be a real gem. Easy to download and intall, even for beginners! With only few days experience, I had my boards up and running and fully customized. Once you've worked through the customization of the boards, the result is amazing. It is shockingly easy to use for those with out much php/mySQL experience. Definitely the best free boards on the net.

Author: Bart Stinissen

Invision Board is quick, easy to install, easy to use. Everything is running smooth. Conclusion: InvisionBoard is a absolute topper in the catagory Discussionboards.

Author: Gary

For me the install script wouldn't work and there are no manual install instructions that I could find. It would be nice if there were instructions for manually setting up the mysql tables since this looks like a nice board.

Author: Andrew Taylor

I just download the free Invision Power Board for linux I have my own website I planing to redesign my site very soon I not shere when it will be back up it will be back soon I enjoy Invision Power Board it is free and it is very easy install also one site it called Introwizard.com I am a Lite*Mod Helper I they used Invision Power Board I like very much even the staff at introwizard.com they say they like it and it is fun forum to use good job Invision Board keep it free and easy to use.

Author: Nick

I use vBulleting at my forums, and while it is a worht every penny paid for it invisionboard is so close to rivaling it that I use it at all my other sites that require forums. It is simple to setup, easy to maintain and modify. It has many features that pay forums have and is just a really well rounded package. If you need discussion forums for your site and don't have the $$$ to pay for vBulletin, invisionboard is the way to go!!

Author:

...from the very beginning! It's really nice to see how the board develops into really the best one out there! And the developers listen to suggestions carefully - in no time you'll find that invisionboard has ALL the features other products have - and it's free if you like it! Or it's not very expensive should want to use it professionally. I really recommend this board! I've been using it since its initial public release and even then I found it easy to administrate and full of powerfull features - and BOY - it's fast! I'm now awaiting the 1.2 release which will be another great step forward in IBF's history.

Author:

Well, it must be something very good for me to rate it, and it is. the functionality of this forum is awesome, and the admin interface leaves no room for erros. the installation process is the easiest one I've come across, and the multilingual feature is simply brilliant! Skinning is a little bit of a drag, but with all those skins on www.ibplanet.com, there is almost no need for something else! two thumbs up for Invision Power Board !

Author:

Being a staff member at Invision Power Services, this will probably seem bias. However these views are mine, not those of IPB as a whole. Personally, I have tried vBulletin, UBB, phpBB and yaBB and they do not hold up to the sheer stability, security and speed of Invision Power Board. Where many of these boards are clogged up with pointless features which many never use - Invision Power Board focusses on what's important whilst maintaining an impressive feature list. With every new release Matt, the developer, never ceases to amaze IPB's community with innovative new ideas and impressive new features. Along with an amazing, free bulletin board solution comes a strong community of over 20,000 members, an amazing support team - with advanced support options for those who need additional help, helpful community staff and many more impressive products and services. Kudos to Matt, Charles, The Staff and community members who made IPB what it is in such a little time.

Author:

Still working my way around the code, but I must say, I am very impressed thus far. The only bad thing I can say about it is that their database on (http://www.ibplanet.com/) is horrible. A lot of the files are corrupt (mods and skins) seems they are moving to a new server, tho. Blows away the competition (v....whatever).

Author:

I searched around the internet for good PHP hosting, only to have to resort to Tripod UK, and yet, it doesn't matter. This board is compatible with Tripod UK's version of PHP 4.1.0, PHP4U. Also the fact that the admin controls are easy to figure out, the control panels in general are effectively organized, and Permissions are simple to grant or deny. Another tidbit: the modifications for this board are some of the sweetest, ranging from language packs, extra skins, and more images, to changing the layout to a radically new interface of your own design.

Author:

My honest opinion of this little package is that it is incredibly useful. I most definitely advise anyone who needs a forum to use this instead of others like phpBB or XMB. As a matter of fact, I owe the Invision Board my whole PHP career, while attempting to make a theme package for my forum I became interested in the way php was use with MySQL and developed from there. Sadly, the software isn't perfect. I see many possible optimizations lacking as well as a few features I would have thought to be obvious.

Author:

This is the greatest forum software I've ever come across! I'm mot the usual person to write a review for products, but I had to give it up for these guys! The admin panel is great as you can customize almost everything right down to the help menus. It includes features to integrate it with your website (such as news posting and members online). Custom skins and mods are a sinch to install and a sinch to find. Invisionboard has set up many websites where you can downloaded some great user-submitted mods that are very easy to integrate. I really don't know why anyone in their right minds would buy VBulletin or UBB, when Invisionboard is better, faster and free!

Author:

Free, functional and fast? It can't be true! Well it is, and I have to say that this is the easiest forum script out there. In the past I have used Ikonboard (versions 2 and 3) as well as openBB. None of them have come close to being as fast and as versatile as InvisionBoard. Although most people find the skinning hard, its quite simple with a little bit of "trial and error" work. I was able to convert a skin from my old board to the new one in about an hour, which going from scratch is pretty good. I really like how fast the board is, much faster than openBB or Ikonboard. The Admin CP is well-organized, with all the functions layed out in a tree-style menu along the side. Mods are easy to add, most install without editing more than two or three files. Installation of the board is quick and easy ( assuming you enter the right mySQL password :P ) and only takes a minute or two. Oh, and running multiple invisionboard boards on one mySQL database is very easy - the installation process includes the option of adding a "prefix" to the tables (ie 'board2_' added to each table name), so that they don't interfere with an already- installed board. This board is simply the best one out there - functional, fast and free. I don't get headaches administering this board like I did others. I recommend this board to anyone wanting a message board for their website.

Author: nexia lys

this forum is far the best free forum ever. most of the forums i know are looking to beat the competition by adding more and more features, building their tool to be a megasized tool. Invision is building the opposite way. the tool is precise, use less resources for your server, have a good template technique that is to be more efficient in time. and the addons/skins teams are working great to make efficient and precise tools that answer the coders/users needs. i don't see any rebellion in the team, a big difference from some other big projects.

Author:

Okay, so the skinning system wasn't easy to learn. But the new version's system is much easier, and so now I can't see any reason why this software shouldn't be used as widely as vBulletin. A huge variety of features place it well over all the other free boards, and amazing speed and sparsity in queries and stuff make it better than vBulletin. In my opinion, of course, but also lots of other people have switched their forums over. I'd go further than "if you're happy, stay with your current board". I'd install a second forum, get a skin sorted, and upgrade to Invision :)

Author: Howard

When I tried to set up phpBB2 to do certain things and to integrate it to other softwares, phpBB choked on me. Per friends' advices, I tested out Invision board and I have never looked back. Written by the ex-author(s) of Ikonboard, Invision board (in PHP now, of course) is designed with speed, features, and easy of use in mind. Quick look at the code shows that it saves MySQL querries by a clever session management scheme. The web-based template/skin management is quite good. What makes Invision stands out, however, is the way it produce independent .php skin by reading and parsing . html template files. Not only that this will reduce server load and increse speed (by not constantly parsing template files), integration is much easier with .php template file. As a programmer myself, With speed, features, and easy of use that rivals (if not defeat) vBulletin , it's amazing that Invision board is free. In conclusion: if you're happy with your current software, stay with it. However, switch to Invision board if : 1. can't pay for your forum software OR 2. want more features

Author:

All I have to say that this is the one of the best BBS found all over the net! I agree skinning options are not good enough. But IBF 1.1 will be released soon and it will be the best BBS found all over the internet! I am sure no BBS would as good as it!

Author:

Wow, what a bboard. The other that come close to this are either expensive or lack the speed and featureset that ibf has. And boy does ibf has speed. The main page can use as little as 8 (compared to, say, vb2's 24) queries on the main page and less accross the board. ibf is all about speed, but not about sacrificing features either. I've found ibf to be just as featurerich asany other board out there, with more coming in the next versions. Download this board NOW, it'll replace whatever you have now in a second!

Author:

This is extremely good. The only problem I have against it is the skinning department. It's rather confusing and they don't have any help files on it that I know of. If they were to make the skinning easier, I'd rate this excellent but for right now, I rate Very Good.

Author:

...it is easy to install (a newbies dream - just upload the files you unziped, chmod them, run the included installation script and start accepting new members), fast, good looking and very costumizable (thought it takes some time to create a good skin for your board...). Invisionboard has a very good user-controll-panel with lots of options (users can choose between different languages, skins, select whether they want to see other users avatars/signatures/images, ... - you get the idea). Hacks are easy to install (even big ones) and administrators have many nice toys to play with (examples: user groups with different permissions/specifications like avoiding the flood controll, allowing users with a specific ammount of posts to choose a own title, editing the language-ranslation files, ...). Sure, there are no supercool unique features (the ones you don't really need anyways ;)), but here you get one of the best board scripts including all the stuff you need and a bit more for no cash. Invisionboard really can compete with vBulletin!

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Let's go through the normal steps. You download a 50kb installation file (If you don't have PHP Safe Mode enabled. If you do, It's a larger download).. You upload the file to your server, and run it. After a few seconds, all of the files will be uploaded to your server, and you will need to go through a 3 step configuration proccess which takes 1.5 minutes.. After which you just log-in to your board and start using it. Unlimited forums, Unlimited categories, multi-lingual, skinnable, hackable, fast, easy on the server, Easy to use Administration Control Panel, Member control, Forum permissions.. The list just goes on and on. You can have your board up and running and ready to accept users in 5 minutes flat.. Highly recommended!

Author:

IBF is great. It's the fastest and easiest to install board Ive ever used. Everythings set out efficiently and intelligently, but you may say 'This is an entirely new forum system created by amateurs, it cant be as good as vB' that is where you are wrong. IBF is programed by the same guys who made Ikonboard, but without nearly as much bloat. The forum system not only works well but is pleasing to the eye, and hey if u dont like the look there are skins available from ibskins.com or u can make ur own. What more could u ask for?

Author:

This is the easiest setup for any php package I've used. Run the setup file, it downloads and chmod's all the files as needed. Template editing could be easier, but a++ to the team!

Author:

i've been waiting a looong time for this board to be released. And now that it is, it is easily one of the best bulletin board systems i've ever used. There are still some bugs to fix, but they're dropping like flies.