IP.Board (now sold as Invision Community) and vBulletin are the two main commercial forum platforms still in active use. Both are PHP-based, both charge for licenses, and both have their own theme and plugin ecosystems that don’t cross over. If you’re hunting for a vBulletin theme, you’re locked into vBulletin’s own style system – IP.Board themes won’t work there, and vice versa.
Licensing models
Neither product is free, and neither uses a simple one-off fee across the board. The details change over time, so check current pricing directly before assuming anything below still applies.
| Platform | Licensing approach |
|---|---|
| vBulletin | Paid license, historically sold as a one-time purchase with optional ongoing support/upgrade plans. Self-hosted. |
| IP.Board / Invision Community | Moved to a subscription model. Offers both self-hosted and cloud-hosted options. |
The practical difference: vBulletin still feels like traditional forum software you buy and install. Invision Community behaves more like a SaaS product with a forum module attached, even when self-hosted.
Extension ecosystems
Both platforms have third-party plugin and add-on marketplaces, but the size and activity level differ noticeably.
- vBulletin’s modification community has shrunk over the years. Many older mods target versions that are no longer current, and a chunk of the ecosystem is effectively archived rather than maintained.
- Invision Community’s marketplace is smaller in raw plugin count but tends to have more actively updated entries, partly because the company runs its own official marketplace with review standards.
If you rely on a specific add-on for moderation, SSO, or payments, check its last update date before committing to either platform. A plugin that hasn’t been touched in several years is a risk on any forum software, not just these two.
Theming: where the two diverge most
This is usually the deciding factor for people comparing the two.
- vBulletin themes use vBulletin’s own template and style system. Free and paid vBulletin themes exist across various marketplaces and forums, but quality varies a lot, and many free templates are old and unmaintained. Paid theme developers for vBulletin are fewer than they were a decade ago.
- IP.Board/Invision themes use a different templating approach entirely and are not compatible with vBulletin installs. The official marketplace has a more curated (and smaller) selection.
Neither platform’s theme system is open like WordPress. Custom development on either one usually means hiring someone who knows that specific product, since skills don’t transfer directly from general web design.
Development activity
vBulletin has had a slower release cadence in recent years compared to its peak in the mid-2000s to early 2010s, when it was the dominant forum platform online. Invision Community has pushed harder into becoming a broader community platform – blogs, galleries, commerce – rather than staying a pure forum product.
Neither is dead. Both still get security patches and updates. But the era where either one was the obvious default choice for a new forum has passed – open-source options like Discourse and even self-hosted phpBB installs have taken share from both.
Which one to pick
If you already run one of these and are looking for themes or plugins, stay within that platform’s own ecosystem rather than trying to find cross-compatible assets – they don’t exist. If you’re starting fresh and haven’t committed to either:
- Choose vBulletin if you want a traditional, self-hosted forum with a large historical mod library, accepting that much of it is aging.
- Choose Invision Community if you want an actively developed platform with broader community features beyond just a forum, and don’t mind a subscription cost.
For a wider view of platforms beyond these two, see the supported CMS overview.