Hard to know whether I should use Xenforo to start a new community

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I've been visiting the forums for a couple of months now, checking in to see what's happening in the Xenforo ecosystem because I'm not happy with how some of its competitors have really honed in on SaaS cloud hosting with insane markups. But it seems like there's no updates on the big XF upgrade that was originally announced two years ago. So do I trust a forum software that will probably close self-hosted options in the near future or trust a forum software that seems to be in bug-fix maintenance mode?

Does anyone know if we'll get more updates soon? Granted, I'm more used to WordPress community and the more rapid development pace of some of their plugins and themes, but it really makes me hesitate before I invest again in a license that is a couple hundred dollars (and money is tight these days). I also have a small fear of XF being bought out by private equity and we'll have another vBulletin situation.

This is not made to be argumentative or overly negative — if I am thinking it, other potential customers are too and it would be great to get some reassurances from the team that there are active long-term development plans that are being worked on. I just haven't come across anything like that lately.
 
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The pace can definitely feel slow compared to WordPress or SaaS platforms, but XF has always released updates when they’re fully ready rather than rushing them out. Self‑hosted isn’t going anywhere, and the team tends to focus on stability first. I’m sure more updates will land when they’re ready, the platform has been reliable for years, and 2.3 continues that trend.

Good luck! :)
 
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Noble™ said:
The pace can definitely feel slow compared to WordPress or SaaS platforms, but XF has always released updates when they’re fully ready rather than rushing them out. Self‑hosted isn’t going anywhere, and the team tends to focus on stability first. I’m sure more updates will land when they’re ready, the platform has been reliable for years, and 2.3 continues that trend.
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And I would add...

2.3 is still updated as needed. And staff still has a presence here in the forums. So no, it's not going away any time soon, and I doubt they would ever eliminate the self-hosted option, as many of us have custom configurations, especially those of us who host larger forums.

We've found most members don't really care if our boards get new features, at least in the boards I've administered over the decades. If members have a place to discuss topics with minimal interference from the user interface, they will participate.

2.4 will come around when it's ready. I'd gladly start with 2.3 and give myself time to grow the community and get participation up.
 
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I'm in a similar boat — I'm evaluating XenForo for a possible new community and joined the forum today to do my homework. Reading through this thread, the stability-first point from Noble and Wildcat Media genuinely reassured me: for a new community, I'd rather build on something stable than chase feature releases. Still weighing the decision, but this thread helped. Thanks to everyone who answered.
 
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NinaStanton said:
I'm in a similar boat — I'm evaluating XenForo for a possible new community and joined the forum today to do my homework. Reading through this thread, the stability-first point from Noble and Wildcat Media genuinely reassured me: for a new community, I'd rather build on something stable than chase feature releases. Still weighing the decision, but this thread helped. Thanks to everyone who answered.
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This!

It's all about what your forum topic is.

If it doesn't appeal to your friends then change the topic.

I found that i had one that was about aussie footy. It was the best topic for me. But it brought the trolls.

Mines a footy forum which has a general discussion section.
 
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Well I think there might be a riot if there was no option to use shared hosting or your own hosting. I've been on Xenforo for four years and wouldn't use anything else. It's slick, adaptable to needs, can look amazing (there are themes available, particularly pixel exit ones), nice to manage (the admin control panel has many options and mostly intuitive), users like it and I chose it because it rivals social media in that it has the like emojis and easy to upload images. Links unfurl - youtube links embed. I think you'd like it.

So if you're thinking of starting a forum, this is the software for it IMO. Budget for a few addons to tailor it - you don't have to spend too mucb though. I use Bob's Article Management System as a home page - which is an option if you want it to look like a web page with a forum. Updates are fairly regular and easy to do. Addons are easy to install. It's good software. Also lots of SEO friendly options inbuilt.

Why the need for more updates? If it aint broke .............. It gets security updates and the odd new feature now and then.
 
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NinaStanton said:
for a new community, I'd rather build on something stable than chase feature releases.
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I see it like this.

First of all, XF 2.3 is not abandoned--we still get bug and security fixes regularly.

And second, I've administered forums for decades, and unless the software is egregiously difficult for an average person to use, people will take part in conversations no matter what software is running.

The new features are nice, but they are not a deal breaker. It's not like the sites I manage are suddenly ancient and out of date just because new versions are announced. Just about all of the forum members don't care. Sure, they appreciate the little "quality of life" changes I've made, but they were already members participating regularly.
 
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