vBulletin Cloud

[-Nick]

Announcing the Release of vBulletin Cloud

vBulletin is pleased to announce the release of the cloud-based version of our community software. Forum sites now have the choice of hosting vBulletin themselves or leaving that to us.
vBulletin Cloud provides customers with a fast and easy way to launch and manage a community website. vBulletin Cloud provides most of the functionality and customizability of the downloaded version of the software.

vBulletin Cloud removes the need for sites to worry about hosting hardware purchases and maintenance. vBulletin Cloud sites are hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), providing world-class security and scalability.

Software upgrades are no longer a concern with vBulletin Cloud. Sites will be automatically upgraded to each new version of the software, with little or no work required by you. Cloud databases are the property of the respective site owners, and customers are able to obtain back-ups and data exports as needed. Going forward, the cloud and download versions of vBulletin mostly will both get new features and fixes at the same time, though there will be occasional exceptions such as when a feature is only applicable to one version.


vBulletin Cloud provides low monthly and annual pricing with no set-up charges. Pricing is based on bandwidth usage and starts as low as $15 per month. 100GB of storage is included at no additional cost. Sites have the option of starting with a low-priced plan and growing into higher tiers if needed. For most customers the total cost of vBulletin Cloud site operation will be lower than hosting a forum site themselves.

The initial version of vBulletin Cloud is for new websites. Shortly, we will be providing the capability to migrate existing forums onto this cloud service. If you would like to start a vBulletin Cloud site, please note that in the near term a separate customer account is required for each site. We are working to enable single customer accounts being able to include multiple licenses.

For more information on vBulletin Cloud or to sign up, go to http://www.vbulletin.com/en/vbulletin-cloud/

Helping You Build Better Communities,

Your vBulletin Customer Support Staff

Source - Email

I think this is another step, but I don't think I will enter this as if the cloud goes down every forum which is on it which most forums may use will go down with it. And seeing as they've had over 10+ security breeches this year sounds a bit more dangerous? Thoughts:)

[xxMATTGxx]

Might be handy to some people I guess. Not sure how many people will take up on the offer but their main competitor (IPB) has been doing cloud hosting for quite sometime.

Comments on this on the vbulletin forum seem rather negative so far and people want them to fix the mess vBulletin 5 is instead. Can't say I blame them!

[Firehorse]

I personally hate the idea of outsourced cloud services; you're entrusting the operation of your services to a third party, and pay them a lot of money to do it. You have somebody to point a finger at if something goes wrong, but what use is that at the end of the day.

If you can't afford to host on your own dedicated server, then use a vps; if that's still too much then shared hosting is the better option. All of these give you more control over your own data than using a managed cloud service.

I can see the appeal for people without the technical knowledge who want to run a forum, but then I don't see them coming to something as advanced as vBulletin in the first place unless they were having somebody else configure it for them - and then they're back to being better off having it hosted on a vps.

[GoldenMerc]

No biggie, wish vBulletin would work on their software rather than hosting etc...

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[HarrySX]

clear vB is clutching at straws, the days of vB have been and gone

[Trinity]

If you can't afford to host on your own dedicated server, then use a vps; if that's still too much then shared hosting is the better option. All of these give you more control over your own data than using a managed cloud service.

Valid point, but I don't think this is aimed at people that want more control.
vBulletin cloud would be great for people that aren't looking to splash out on a full licence straight away and want to try it out for a bit to see if they can get a decent forum going, without losing too much money if it doesn't work out. Plus they don't have to worry about making backups, updating or hardware failures (I think).

I'm not a big fan of cloud services either, but I think cloud hosting is a great idea for forums (not all of them though), and I'd definitely use it if I were setting up a new forum.

[HarrySX]

Valid point, but I don't think this is aimed at people that want more control.
vBulletin cloud would be great for people that aren't looking to splash out on a full licence straight away and want to try it out for a bit to see if they can get a decent forum going, without losing too much money if it doesn't work out. Plus they don't have to worry about making backups, updating or hardware failures (I think).

I'm not a big fan of cloud services either, but I think cloud hosting is a great idea for forums (not all of them though), and I'd definitely use it if I were setting up a new forum.

Why don't you like SaaS/PaaS/cloud?