So what's all the hype about?

[Turt]

I've been an active user and researcher of various forum software currently on the market (both free and paid products) and have only recently heard about XenForo. I bought an IP.Board license less then two years ago and have been extremely pleased with it as it provides me with everything I need and more.

Why are you here then? Well I am always on the lookout for something more I guess. Something that can possibly "beat" the likes of IP.Board/IPS and so I stumbled upon XenForo.

What is it though that makes this new forum software stand out from the crowd? I have heard about the court case; is there more official documentation or updates about this that I can read about (possibly from the XenForo developers/staff themselves)? I am definitely interested in giving it a go and will be requesting a free demo early next year but I just wanted to get the small talk out of the way and see what all this stuff really is about. I have noticed some good features and I have heard a bit about the developers who are doing fantastic work to bring about this new product and provide support which is definitely a plus. But another thing I have noticed is the price. At US$140 (plus $40 a year for continued support and upgrades) a pop compared to the US$150 (plus $25 $50 a year for continued support and upgrades) that I paid to IPS, what is it that will make me use XenForo?

I'm not hating on XenForo at all and do not intend to start a war because of this, I am merely asking you what it is that makes you stand out from the rest of them and what it is that will make me use this software. Hopefully I can get mature answers to this topic as people saying "This is just the best forum software ever!" is kind of pointless without any evidence or statement to back up that claim.

Let the discussion begin.

 

[DRE]

I've been an active user and researcher of various forum software currently on the market (both free and paid products) and have only recently heard about XenForo. I bought an IP.Board license less then two years ago and have been extremely pleased with it as it provides me with everything I need and more.

Why are you here then? Well I am always on the lookout for something more I guess. Something that can possibly "beat" the likes of IP.Board/IPS and so I stumbled upon XenForo.

What is it though that makes this new forum software stand out from the crowd? I have heard about the court case; is there more official documentation or updates about this that I can read about (possibly from the XenForo developers/staff themselves)? I am definitely interested in giving it a go and will be requesting a free demo early next year but I just wanted to get the small talk out of the way and see what all this stuff really is about. I have noticed some good features and I have heard a bit about the developers who are doing fantastic work to bring about this new product and provide support which is definitely a plus. But another thing I have noticed is the price. At US$140 (plus $40 a year for continued support and upgrades) a pop compared to the US$150 (plus $25 $50 a year for continued support and upgrades) that I paid to IPS, what is it that will make me use XenForo?

I'm not hating on XenForo at all and do not intend to start a war because of this, I am merely asking you what it is that makes you stand out from the rest of them and what it is that will make me use this software. Hopefully I can get mature answers to this topic as people saying "This is just the best forum software ever!" is kind of pointless without any evidence or statement to back up that claim.

Let the discussion begin.

There are a lot of pros and cons to switching over to xenforo. I'll go over some of em.


Modifications

CON: I've seen IPB and been on some IPB forums. I think it's a good forum software. Their Bookie modification has way more options than the vBookie for vBulletin. www.xenfluence.com has a better Bookie modification for xenforo called Pickem and Sportsbook though. Coming from vBulletin 4 myself, I miss modifications like X-Box Leaderboards, Live Thread and All Topics. If you switch over, you will be making a sacrifice if you can't find equivalents to your old modifications. How important are your modifications to your community? A couple members stopped posting when I switched over to Xenforo. I think a lot are real disappointed about losing their vBookie eMoney and Arcade feature. The Arcade that is available needs a ton of work and you'll have trouble trying to get scores to save due to the way it's set up.

Mobile Options

CON: There is no mobile app for xenforo. You can use a third party app like Tapatalk and Forumrunner though. The only mobile style I've seen is xFStop which isn't updated to 1.1. I have not seen any other mobile styles for sale. You will have to create your own or ask a coder to make you one.

No official CMS, Blogging or Album add-ons.

PRO: Xenporta is awesome. The xenporta thread is huge because the thread author didn't include a manual but you can read about it here: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenporta-user-guide-and-faq.24241/ I like xenporta way more than vBCMS and Wordpress/Forum integration. Not so much because of the layout options etc but due to the thoroughness of integration between almost every modification you install on your xenforo site.

CON: As far as blogs go, vBulletin has Xenforo beat in the blogs area due to the amount of features it has. LNBlog for Xenforo is way easier to use than vBulletin or Wordpress Blogs though. You can hit the 'Like' button for blog entries and comments. For extra features, you would probably have to integrate your site with Wordpress if you want the most blogging options or heavily modify LNBlogs to your own specifications which is what I did. Main reason I say this is a con is because coming from vBulletin Blogs, I miss trackbacks, pingbacks, the ability to click on a thread post and turn it into a blog post with one click, who visited your blog and blog background customization etc.

PRO: XFR User Albums. It's easier and more intuitive than vBAlbums or even something sophisticated like Photopost. You can comment and 'Like' albums and photos. There are Public and Private Albums. Public Albums and pics are viewable only if your logged in and have met the album permissions requirement listed above. Private Albums cannot be seen by regular members. You can post a pic link from your private album if you post the direct url though. You can display random or latest photos in the forum home, sidebar and there's even a xenporta block available for it as well.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

PRO: My site was stagnant. Before switching over, my site stayed at a constant 200,000 US ranking for the past 5 months. After switching over to xenforo my site jumped up to 45,000 US in a span of 3 months. I didn't really do anything special. I'm not sure how it happened because members made less threads, less blogs and I lost my arcade. For this reason alone, Xenforo is the savior of forum software, even if vBulletin is the most powerful. You don't need any snake oil forum modifications like vbSEO to increase your rank. It's right out the box. It's amazing.

Speed and Intuitiveness

PRO: A good amount of my forum members have never joined a forum before. Explaining vBulletin to them was a pain. With Xenforo, I don't have to do much but slightly guide them in the right direction because Xenforo is intuitive out the box with a short learning curve. The alerts system and member account menus are very easy to get around to. It's like the best features from vBulletin and Facbook were brought here and married together in perfect harmony. My forum is super fast now. The only thing missing was a bachelor party.

CON: When you install or uninstall a style or add-on, your site blanks out. It's a very annoying feature and your members will get pissed off if your doing it while they're online.

Styling

PRO: I love it. It's awesome. All of the forum themes on my forum use the default forum template with slight adjustments in color/wallpaper etc. This way whenever I upgrade the site there will be less template edits I need to do. Because default xenforo looks so great, that's an added plus which is why I don't have to change it much.

CON: Once you add over 5 skins it takes a long time for the site to rebuild templates and cache. When this happens the site blanks out.

 

[LPH]

The8thLegion did a great job explaining the pros and cons. As a complete newbie, let me explain why we changed from vBulletin to XenForo. First and foremost, vB is a fine product but the community surrounding XF is far superior. Second, the bridge between WordPress and XF is actively being developed. Third, a default installation is easy; it's the content that is important, and XF allows us to focus on the content. Fourth, we were going to make significant changes to the forums and XF seemed to fit into the direction of the sites.

Now, we were on the edge for a few reasons but the fast replies on here made the choice for XF easy - and we haven't looked back. We were helped on conversion almost immediately on several snags (because I hate reading): setting up userIDs, permissions, WP-XF bridge, and adding AdSense.

 

[28ten]

For me it was about my users. XF is really easy to use and has all the basic features we need out of the box without a load of bloat. My users love it, there were no complaints about the migration from SMF and it has been a complete success. Downsides? no decent mobile theme

 

[Turt]

Thanks for letting me know Rob Fritz. I've got enough debt as it is, but I've managed to pay one out of the two off now thankfully.

Expression Engine is very minimal but seems to serve its purpose for you craigiri. I'm happy that it's working well for you.

An awesome post The8thLegion, thanks for taking the time to post such a descriptive post. The pros that you have listed are great and the cons can always be developed or have a way of getting fixed. There is nothing that cannot be done with XenForo, not yet at least anyway. Furthermore, the cons tend not to negatively effect me either which is a major plus. My current board is not heavily modified and I'm sure the developers here will be able to create a mobile app of some sort when they feel it is necessary. Everything seems to be catering for smart phones and tablets nowadays so it's really only a matter of time in my opinion. In regards to blogging, I use WordPress for my own personal blog and really do not want to integrate it into my forum anyway, another reason why using this forum software will be a good move. The SEO, speed and styling are definitely things I'm looking for and XenForo passes these requirements with flying colours. What more is there to say?

Your opinions and comments are greatly appreciated also lph and 28ten. Thanks guys.

 

[Turt]

Is there anyone else that would like to give their honest opinions about this forum software?

 

[Hyperion]

Turt—

Hi, again. I hope the following is relevant enough, and sorry for the free write but I am lazy and do not want to edit. I hope I am at least coherent.

When switching to xenForo one of the greatest concerns I had when under phpBB 2.x and later vBulletin 3.x remained, which was that a guest had to do quite a bit of browsing to find a lot of content, as she is initially presented with just links, titles, statistics, and other things that do not give him much "meat" to "chew."

Of course, you can get a portal, or if you have a "main page" or "larger" website attached to your forum that can serve to present content, but as I run a stand-alone forum and did not want to have a full-fledged portal, I nonetheless wanted the guests to see samples of content from the forum, so they have substance to digest before ever browsing. I figured, why should a guest have to browse the forum to find out if there is interesting content, when she is not even sure she should bother with the forum.

There was a feature called "Sample Topics" that I wanted to have for xenForo, and which I had on vBulletin 3.x only because I paid a fee to obtain it from a person I like to see as a genius and visionary who should have been charged with development of the software. "Sample Topics" is a block above the forum listing/index page that links to any number of topics you want, but also includes a preview of the content itself. I chose to display 2 topics and 400 characters from the opening post of each topic. This feature was replicated for xenForo for a small fee thanks to the generous coder Fuhrmann.

In addition, I used RagTek's BBCode Sidebar Block add-on, to provide "Featured Writings," or particularly worthwhile writings by members of the forum. At this time, I chose to display several sentences from a short story and two types of essays, and included a link to read more below each one.

This way, and along with the guest welcome message I included with xenForo's built-in Notices feature, a novice like me who knows next to nothing about coding has been making a lot of progress working to make his forum listing/index page more worthwhile right away for guests. In any case, my thanks to the generosity of a member of the xenForo support forum who simply saw one of my posts about my interest in a "Sample Topics" add-on, a built-in feature, and a publicly available add-on.

That said, it has not even been a month since I started using xenForo, but I have already been able to accomplish more with it than I did with vBulletin 3.x for several years. I have been surprised by the ease with which every feature and aesthetic change I made to vBulletin 3.x was replicated in xenForo. The AdminCP has been most accommodating, the controls being so helpful and yet so out of the way that I did not think about them.

And when I think even further back to phpBB 2.x, I cannot fathom accomplishing nearly as much as with xenForo. So what has been most notable to me is that the software apparently holds the hand of the novice administrator, and yet has a lot to offer for even the pros. I look forward to this software's progress, as it has already given me a lot despite being such a young software.

What is most striking to me is that the xenForo community is so young and yet add-ons like those mentioned above which are so helpful came so quickly, and many other tweaks I made also came quickly from such a vibrant community. I have even seen a veteran forum administrator who loves IP.B and cares not a bit for xenForo nod in enthusiastic agreement over the quickness and helpfulness of support given his inquiries.

Along those lines, one of the reasons I bit and went for the conversion to xenForo is that at this time the company has an attitude far more open to member input, and far more mindful of taking a direction of software development that keeps the member satisfaction and happiness in mind over reluctant contentment and even minor resentment that the current owners of vBulletin 3.x seem so intent on skirting.

Again, xenForo is so young and I can understand the worry over the lawsuit against a company still building a pedestal upon which to stand. I may even be optimistic by seeing even enormous and old forums making the conversion and Internet Brands making itself look incompetent in court. But what I cannot help is that now I am so happy about the software I have, and that the members are too. If it ends so be it, but I would rather be happy using the forum than to be reluctantly content or to even harbor minor resentment.

Oh, and it was also important to me to preserve all content on my forum. XenForo preserved not only the posts and private messages but profile comments, albums, and even the "thanks" appended to posts. I knew this would be the case since the developers and the community previously worked on vBulletin 3.x, and so converting content from it would be top priority.

My only problem with the software so far is I have not been able to get the rank titles to display right. Apparently almost all of my members have been designated SD Pathogen, the lowest rank which is assigned to members below 10 posts. I tried setting up the min and max post requirements for all my secondary ranks (including SD Pathogen) and then updating titles but no luck. Fortunately it is a minor issue.

 

[Turt]

Very descriptive and informative post Hyperion, thank you very much for taking the time to post it. I am not going to comment on every single thing as they are personal experiences but it has really given me an insight into just how far XenForo has come in such a short time. The community here on their official forum is definitely a major factor in ensuring that XenForo is not just a short term project, and the developers definitely show a lot of interest; not only through developing the software but being as active as they can as well with their customers and future customers. That, to me, shows that the developers have an exceptionally positive attitude and will strive to make this forum software the best it can be.

So far, that's exactly what they are doing and is exactly what XenForo is.

In regards to your last paragraph, I believe you may find this topic helpful. I too was confused but think I understand what to do once I get my own license thanks to Brogan.