Why not vBulletin...

[StarShaper]

Hi,

i'm just wondering why you use SMF? Why not vBulletin? This site is pretty big. It would be a major step to move to a really professional bulletin board, like vB or Invision.

vBulletin is much cleaner, performs better, has a better usability for moderators and users. Migration from SMF to vB is easy.

Is this a open-source thing? Dont want to use a proprietary forum software? 

[Tonie]

At the time SMF was chosen as a forum, it was doing very well with resources compared to the other forums tested. This turned out to be a good choice, with the amount of traffic we are having.

[brad]

It's a bit of everything

Open Source (GPL) is preferred, as Joomla! is GPL, but not even SMF is GPL.  We're always on the lookout for an open source forum that can also handle our needs. It would be a major step for open source/GPL and Joomla! if we were to move to a GPL forum

vBulletin does not perform better than SMF in my testing and experience, though. I've used both for a long time.

[StarShaper]

Understood!

Thx @ Tonie and brad!