Some people may wonder what the difference is between vBulletin and Invision Power Board. Both vBulletin and Invision Power Board, also known as IPB, provide community software people can use to make their website more sociable. While both can give someone the ability to set up a forum and a blog that people can use for discussions, only IPB also gives the customer the added option of gallery software. Besides this difference, perhaps one of the most noticeable differences is in pricing and the products that you get with your purchase.

vBulletin offers a leased license plan, meaning you have the rights to run their software on one website or domain for a period of one year for a fee of $100. By becoming a member under this agreement you will have access to updated versions of their software in the member area for the full year. For $180 you can purchase an owned license, for which you can run their software on your domain for an unlimited period of time. You will still only have access to the members area for one year, however, but the cost to continue to use the member area for the following year is only $60.

For a one time $60 fee you can also have access to their project tools software which you can use as long as you hold a license to run their software on your website. They also offer professional installation for $150 per license, as well as a $170 per license branding free option, which allows you to remove the Jelsoft/vBulletin copyright text at the end of each page. They don't charge anything for using email support or the technical support forums, but if you insist on telephone support it is a $60 fee for one month, or you can choose the options of six month telephone support for $180 or $300 for twelve months.

They do however provide an 877 number for any pre-sales inquiries you may have. With IPB, you can either purchase a self hosted license, or have them set up a hosted community for you. Self hosting licenses come in the form of a standard or business license. The standard plan runs $149 and gives 6 months access to support and upgrades.

You also get toll free phone support for the first 30 days, a ticket response time of 2 days, and one active and one test installation. The business license runs $299 and also provides 6 months of support, but gives quicker access to upgrades, one day response time for tickets, and 6 months of toll free phone support. 6 month renewals are $25 and $50 respectfully. Their hosted communities have four options, starting with the Basic 10 for $9.99 per month which includes file storage of 150MB and allows 10 people to be one your website at the same time, along with the ability to maintain a 25,000 post count.

The Standard 25 plan for $19.99 per month provides file storage of 200MB and you can have 25 people on the site at the same time, with a post count of 75,000. The Plus 40 package for $29.99 per month gives you 40 online users with a 250,000 post count and 400MB of storage. The Super 65 for $44.99 per month offers 65 online users,650MB of storage, and a 500,000 post count. You can include a blog, gallery, and downloads with the first two packages for an additional $7.49 per month, and they come free with the purchase of the two bigger packages.

IPB also offers a package called Community Suite which includes the board,blog, and gallery products for $249.99. They also supply an 800 number for pre-sales questions. While you can see there is a vast difference in pricing and what you get for your money, another difference in the two is the ability to use fonts. vBulletin allows the user to add any fonts that can be found on the internet, whereas Invision Power Board does not allow fonts to be added. However,while both seem to be reliable,vBulletin is said to run slower than IPB.

IPB support may not be bad, but vBulletin's support is said to be the best available, and also seems to supply easier modifying capabilities. The differences vary between these two community creation portals, so the choice of one over the other just seems to be a matter of personal preference and the qualities that would be most important to a particular individual.