vBulletin to SimpleMachines: Making the Switch and Why I Did It

As many of you may have noticed, MyTechTool.com has changed its CMS from vBulletin to SimpleMachines. I have a lot of reasons for doing this; over the last year, I’ve had a lot of problems with vBulletin. I’m gong to highlight the most glaring for you today, however — for those of you who are trying to make a decision for the content management on your site.

1. Let’s begin with the fact that vBulleting costs (a lot) of money, whereas SimpleMachines is free. And what exactly are you paying for with vBulletin? Well, that brings me to my next point:
2. vBulletin is just WAAAAAAAY too much CMS for me. In fact, I don’t really understand what their niche is. I mean, if you’re a small-time blogger, then you have absolutely no use for the gargantuous vBulletin. And if you’re IBM, you either get something way more sophisticated, or else you just create it in-house. I really don’t get it. Did I say that already?
3. SimpleMachines is… well… simple.
4. vBulletin makes you get a new Social Security card just to use their goddamn forums in order to problem solve. No registration? No participation. Now that wouldn’t be so offensive to me if I were logging into my bank, or checking medical test results. But participating in a forum? The reason this makes me so angry is that I tried to login into the forum after I bought my copy, and I couldn’t get in. I jumped through all the hoops, and I still couldn’t get in. I spent a whole day trying to resolve the issue — I had a registration number. Why the hell couldn’t login?
5. When I finally did login, I got yelled at by about four different administrators right off the bat because I wasn’t following the forum rules. What are those? Hell if I know. One thing I do know, however, is that I’m apparently very stupid and ignorant because I don’t know every single answer to my questions already. Apparently I’m also quite dumb because I don’t know every detail of the miles and miles of totally unnecessary code included with vBulletin. And why shouldn’t I know it? I mean, I didn’t write it, but that’s no excuse. And, finally, I recognize that I’m a veritable baboon for being on the boards in the first place. Why should I want to ask questions or get help? Especially for an application that is too complicated for me (because I’m stupid), and that I paid so much money for. I’m glad the administrators at vBulletin set me straight. I can jump in front of a bus now.
6. SimpleMachines? Free forum. Lots and lots of friends support from users and admin alike. No condescension. No anger. No ridicule. Very nice people. And free. I like free.
7. vBulletin. Written primarily in VB. Complicated and difficult to integrate. Maybe I’m missing something, but the entire universe seems to be using WordPress and php. Not vBulletin. They’ve even made styling CSS a nightmare. It used to be easy, but not anymore. And what do you get if you ask about it? You get informed that you’re a jackass and a moron.
8. SimpleMachines? Lots of PHP and CSS. Very easy to use in Coda, Dreamweaver, TextMate, Notepad++, and just about anything else a dedicated (albeit stupid) developer like me might be using. Oh, I know. Some of those really sophisticated programming weeners out there are going to tell me I’m just not evolved enough to use vBulleting. I agree. Ergo, I am using SimpleMachines.

Look, you basically have to be a programmer and a profession full-time IT person just to keep vBulletin running. I’m both, and I still hate it. What a complex and utterly disdainful application. No, wait. “Complex” doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s just overwhelming. I know I’m not the smartest guy in the world (as they reminded me, ad infinitum), but I’m not having any trouble with SimpleMachines at all.

So I’ll leave it at that.

Paco

www.mytechtool.com