vBulletin Connect
Online community management software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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$18.74 per month
Free Trial
Free version unavailable
Small
Medium
Large
- Information technology and software
- Manufacturing
- Media and communications
What is vBulletin Connect
vBulletin Connect is a self-hosted forum and community platform used to publish discussion boards, manage members, and moderate user-generated content. It targets organizations and publishers that want to run their own branded online community on their own infrastructure. The product combines forum threads with additional modules such as blogs, social groups, private messaging, and content management features. It is typically deployed by teams that need administrative control over data, permissions, and site customization rather than a fully managed community service.
Mature forum feature set
vBulletin Connect provides core forum capabilities such as threads, posts, moderation tools, user roles, and permissions. It also includes community-adjacent features like private messaging, user profiles, and reputation-style interactions depending on configuration. This breadth supports traditional discussion-centric communities without requiring multiple separate tools.
Self-hosted control and ownership
The platform is designed for deployment on customer-managed hosting, which can help organizations meet internal requirements for data residency and infrastructure control. Administrators can manage database access, backups, and security hardening according to their own policies. This model can be preferable when a hosted community service does not align with compliance or IT governance needs.
Extensible via plugins and themes
vBulletin supports customization through templates/themes and an ecosystem of add-ons, enabling changes to layout, workflows, and community features. This can reduce the need to build a community application from scratch when requirements are specific. It also allows incremental enhancements as community needs evolve.
Requires technical administration
Because it is typically self-hosted, vBulletin Connect requires ongoing server, database, and application maintenance. Tasks such as upgrades, performance tuning, spam mitigation, and security patching generally fall on the customer. Organizations without dedicated web operations support may find the operational overhead higher than managed alternatives.
Limited event and advocacy tooling
The product focuses on forum-style community interactions rather than end-to-end programs such as events, webinars, or structured advocacy workflows. Teams that need integrated event registration, virtual event delivery, or formal customer advocacy journeys often require additional systems. This can increase integration work and total cost of ownership.
UI modernization varies by implementation
User experience and mobile responsiveness depend heavily on theme selection, customization, and versioning. Some deployments may require additional design work to meet modern UX expectations and accessibility standards. This can add project time compared with platforms that provide a consistently modern hosted interface out of the box.
Plan & Pricing
vBulletin Cloud (hosted)
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | $18.74 per month (billed annually) or $24.95 month-to-month | 25 GB bandwidth; includes free forum support; includes a free domain with privacy protection (privacy not available for .co.uk and .ws). |
| Silver | $37.49 per month (billed annually) or $49.95 month-to-month | 75 GB bandwidth; includes free ticket and forum support; includes a free domain with privacy protection. |
| Gold | $74.99 per month (billed annually) or $94.95 month-to-month | 200 GB bandwidth; includes free phone, ticket and forum support; free domain with privacy protection; includes free authentication for a custom email domain. |
| Enterprise | Contact for pricing | 200+ GB bandwidth; enterprise-level support and features; contact sales for details. |
vBulletin 6 (downloadable license and add-ons)
| Plan / Item | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| vBulletin 6 (download license) | $179.00 (one-time) | Includes one year of Maintenance Service (updates) and one month of ticket support. |
| Maintenance Service (add-on) | $79.00 / year | Adds an additional year of Maintenance Service (access to updates). |
| Support — One month phone & ticket | $49.00 / month | Phone & ticket support add-on. |
| Support — 6 months phone & ticket | $169.00 (one-time) | Phone & ticket support add-on. |
| Support — Annual phone & ticket | $329.00 / year | Phone & ticket support add-on. |
| Professional Install / Upgrade (DB size up to 3 GB) | $149.00 (one-time) | Professional installation/upgrade service. |
| Professional Install / Upgrade (up to 10 GB) | $249.00 (one-time) | Professional installation/upgrade service. |
| Professional Install / Upgrade (up to 15 GB) | $349.00 (one-time) | Professional installation/upgrade service. |
| Professional Install / Upgrade (up to 20 GB) | $449.00 (one-time) | Professional installation/upgrade service. |
| Professional Install / Upgrade (up to 25 GB) | $549.00 (one-time) | Professional installation/upgrade service. |
| Branding-free | $289.00 (one-time) | Removes vBulletin attribution from global footer. |
| LDAP Integration add-on | $199.00 (one-time) | LDAP SSO integration add-on. |
Seller details
vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
United States (exact city not consistently published)
2000
Private
https://www.vbulletin.com/
https://x.com/vbulletin
https://www.linkedin.com/company/vbulletin-solutions-inc/
