Xenforo has twice the market share of vBulletin

Stuart Wright

Stuart Wright

Well-known member
Great to see that according to the Digital Point cookie tracker, Xenforo has more than twice the market share of vBulletin and Invision has about the same.

1.webp


I'm still rooting for the final demise of vBulletin (y)
 
I wonder whose idea it was to purchase vBulletin from Jelsoft, and then promptly decide to start ruining it.

I used to use vBulletin back in the early 2000s (when it was owned by Jelsoft), and at the time, it was fantastic. I'll never forget what happened when they got bought out.

And the fact that there are still forums running vBulletin 3.8 is very concerning.
 
PumpinIron said:
And the fact that there are still forums running vBulletin 3.8 is very concerning.
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Whats more concerning to me, is the link found here: vBulletin, bottom left on the page: Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Take a look at that form you need to submit for IB to not sell your personal information. That strongly tells what they think of their remaining customers. When did they start selling their customers personal info?
 
Lawrence said:
Whats more concerning to me, is the link found here: vBulletin, bottom left on the page: Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Take a look at that form you need to submit for IB to not sell your personal information. That strongly tells what they think of their remaining customers. When did they start selling their customers personal info?
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Oh wow, good find! Most people would never even notice that link, and therefore they wouldn't have any real idea that their information was being sold. Talk about a shady, shady company to say the least. I hated them before, but now I hate them just a little bit more knowing this.
 
I am on (but don't visit much) a VB board that is still on an old version (forget which one). The owner and I chatted about it years ago and he had basically given up on VB but didn't have the time or resources to switch the site (there's other site elements beside the forums) to something else though I did plug Xenforo.
 
Mendalla said:
I am on (but don't visit much) a VB board that is still on an old version (forget which one). The owner and I chatted about it years ago and he had basically given up on VB but didn't have the time or resources to switch the site (there's other site elements beside the forums) to something else though I did plug Xenforo.
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I've heard a lot of similar accounts. I think since vB3/4 was leader during the booming days of forum software, a lot of the largest established forums became so entrenched on the platform (plus running extremely custom setups with addons that are key to their operation) that it was just too much a hassle for them to move on - though I believe many would like to.
 
You need to understand some history here.

Internet Brands (who purchased Jelsoft / vBulletin) was one of the largest users of vBulletin - running dozens of large commerce sites (I believe they operate nearly 100 sites, but I don't know how many of those run vBulletin).

They presumably purchased the company to have a greater say in the direction of development to suit their own needs - basically bringing "off-the-shelf" software "in-house" - which makes sense from a risk management point of view.

To my mind, the purchase was never about improving vBulletin (that always seemed to be a side-issue), it was only ever about their own interests.

That being said, if you can continue to develop what is essentially in-house software and have 3rd parties help fund that development by purchasing licenses to use it - that makes pretty good business sense.
 
PumpinIron said:
I wonder whose idea it was to purchase vBulletin from Jelsoft, and then promptly decide to start ruining it.
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They bought Jelsoft. They ruined vBulletin because they
  • didn't know how to run a forum development company (clearly, otherwise they would have done a better job),
  • had shareholders to keep happy (and had to deliver vB4 in a shorter time than it would take to re-write it, and a rewrite was the best way forward)
  • (most importantly) didn't appreciate that the staff of Jelsoft were the most valuable asset that they had acquired, and instead of listening to and nurturing them, forced them out.
They IB tried to ruin Xenforo by suing them. My animosity towards IB remains at a relatively high level.

@Sim, yes purchasing Jelsoft was most likely a good business idea if they could continue developing the software of the same quality. But they clearly couldn't. A whole bunch of IB owned forums are still on vB3. Probably trapped there because vB5 isn't good enough and moving to Xenforo would be embarrassing.
 
vB3.8.x was one, if not the best forum software ever - from an admin and user perspective. We would still be at vB3.x today if - like vBulletin.org - it would run with up to php 4.

Unfortunately, even with XF the problem is that with XF 1.5 you are forced to switch to xf2 because the operability is not adjusted with newer PHP versions. If XF does shoot an "own goal" with the procedure? : /
 
Stuart Wright said:
They bought Jelsoft. They ruined vBulletin because they
  • didn't know how to run a forum development company (clearly, otherwise they would have done a better job),
  • had shareholders to keep happy (and had to deliver vB4 in a shorter time than it would take to re-write it, and a rewrite was the best way forward)
  • (most importantly) didn't appreciate that the staff of Jelsoft were the most valuable asset that they had acquired, and instead of listening to and nurturing them, forced them out.
They IB tried to ruin Xenforo by suing them. My animosity towards IB remains at a relatively high level.

@Sim, yes purchasing Jelsoft was most likely a good business idea if they could continue developing the software of the same quality. But they clearly couldn't. A whole bunch of IB owned forums are still on vB3. Probably trapped there because vB5 isn't good enough and moving to Xenforo would be embarrassing.
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I didn't realize Jelsoft was a publicly traded company.

Also, when you say IB, are you referring to Internet Brands or InvisionBoard? I wasn't aware they tried to sue XenForo... that makes me hate them even more.

I agree that purchasing Jelsoft was a good idea, and you're right about the staff being the best thing they acquired in that purchase. I was just shocked that going from vB3 to vB4 was such a huge step backwards. I remember doing that myself back in the day and thinking to myself, "Wow, I need to go back to vB3 pronto!".

The thing is, you would think that after all this time they would have sorted it out and gotten better, but it appears that their software has progressively gotten worse, not better.
 
Kier said:
Please appreciate that the terms of the settlement are confidential, and that as much as you might want to ask questions about it, we are unable to answer. Be assured that the three of us remain absolutely committed to and involved in XenForo's present and future success, and expect to become more active in the community once again.
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It's sorta annoying... I've always had a (some would say) obnoxious urge to know as much as possible about everything. I'm just glad everything worked out the way it did in the end. And I can't believe how long ago that was...

(Incidentally, you can't multi-quote messages in threads that've been locked... I had to hand craft that quote.)
 
PumpinIron said:
I didn't realize Jelsoft was a publicly traded company.
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I don't think Jelsoft was ever publicly traded - my understanding is that they were a private company who was purchased by Internet Brands.

Internet Brands was publicly listed the same year they purchased Jelsoft (2007)

Internet Brands were then purchased by a private equity firm in 2010 and delisted from the stock exchange. A different private equity firm then purchased the business in 2014.
 
Sim said:
I don't think Jelsoft was ever publicly traded - my understanding is that they were a private company who was purchased by Internet Brands.

Internet Brands was publicly listed the same year they purchased Jelsoft (2007)

Internet Brands were then purchased by a private equity firm in 2010 and delisted from the stock exchange. A different private equity firm then purchased the business in 2014.
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One thing I do know for sure, is that Internet Brands not only ruined vBulletin, they also ruined pretty much every forum they bought up as well.

I can remember so many good forums from back-in-the-day, that all turned to crap once Internet Brands bought them out.
 
Lawrence said:
Whats more concerning to me, is the link found here: vBulletin, bottom left on the page: Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Take a look at that form you need to submit for IB to not sell your personal information. That strongly tells what they think of their remaining customers. When did they start selling their customers personal info?
Click to expand...

Isn't that something all California-based businesses have to have now, with the CCPA thing going into effect?

(Edit -- yeah, check out Walmart.com, for example, same thing in the footer)
 
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