Any news about Xenforo 3.0, can we expect modern forum?

qnkov

qnkov

New member
Hello. For half a year, I have been looking for a modern forum system to start an anime/manga site with various features. For example, a video system for watching movies/episodes, a way to add manga/anime as pages with information about them, topics with posters, etc. I saw that all of this is possible with Invision Community.

I waited to see version 5, but it turned out that the self-hosted platform is extremely expensive and has functionality limits. They also changed the way we acquire add-ons, significantly restricting options, and almost no themes exist for their latest version.

On the other hand, XenForo seems like a better alternative in terms of user base and price, but the forum and themes, in general, look like they’re from the early 2000s. I understand that some may find this nostalgic, but it looks incredibly outdated and is not visually appealing.

That’s why I’m wondering what exactly to expect with version 3.0. Can we anticipate a modern interface similar to Invision Community? I really don't want to go to invision as they may drop self-hosted in next version, as they aim for big comapanies, not common users now.
 
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CedricV said:
Google has been increasing traffic. People's behaviour towards searching has shifted to AI. Nothing to do with Google.
Click to expand...

Google traffic has been decreased several times over the last 15 years. And by that i mean a 10-30% drop in 1 day.


Google Updates — Estimated Traffic Drop (Forums, Blogs, Sites, News)

Note: These are typical ranges based on SEO studies and large site analyses. Real impact varies by quality, niche, and authority.

1. Panda (2011)
  • Forums: 30% – 80%
  • Blogs (low-quality): 20% – 60%
  • Niche sites: 20% – 70%
  • News sites: 0% – 20%

2. Penguin (2012)
  • Forums: 5% – 30%
  • Blogs: 10% – 50%
  • Niche sites: 20% – 60%
  • News sites: 0% – 10%

3. Hummingbird (2013)
  • Forums: 0% – 15%
  • Blogs: 0% – 20%
  • Niche sites: 5% – 25%
  • News sites: 0% – 10%

4. Pigeon (2014)
  • Forums: 0% – 10%
  • Blogs: 0% – 10%
  • Niche sites: 5% – 20%
  • News sites: 0% – 10%

5. Mobile Update (2015)
  • Forums: 10% – 40%
  • Blogs: 10% – 30%
  • Niche sites: 15% – 50%
  • News sites: 5% – 20%

6. RankBrain (2015)
  • Forums: 5% – 20%
  • Blogs: 5% – 25%
  • Niche sites: 10% – 30%
  • News sites: 0% – 15%

7. Fred (2017)
  • Forums: 0% – 20%
  • Blogs: 10% – 50%
  • Niche sites: 20% – 70%
  • News sites: 0% – 10%

8. Medic (2018)
  • Forums: 10% – 40%
  • Blogs: 20% – 60%
  • Niche sites: 30% – 70%
  • News sites: 0% – 20%

9. BERT (2019)
  • Forums: 0% – 10%
  • Blogs: 0% – 15%
  • Niche sites: 5% – 20%
  • News sites: 0% – 10%

10. Core Web Vitals (2021)
  • Forums: 0% – 10%
  • Blogs: 0% – 10%
  • Niche sites: 5% – 15%
  • News sites: 0% – 10%

11. Helpful Content Update (2022–)
  • Forums: 10% – 30%
  • Blogs: 20% – 70%
  • Niche sites: 30% – 80%
  • News sites: 0% – 20%

----------------------------------------

Typical Total Traffic Loss (2010 → Today):

Code: 
Forums → 60% – 90% loss
Blogs → 50% – 80% loss
Niche sites → 60% – 90% loss
News sites → 0% – 30% loss

Key insight:
  • Forums hit hardest by Panda
  • Blogs and niche sites hit hardest by Medic + Helpful Content
  • News sites remained relatively stable due to authority and trust

----------------------------------------

Estimated decline of websites (2010–2024)

Research into web domains and blog platforms suggests the following:

Inactive or disappeared (2010–2024):
  • Personal blogs: 70–85%
  • Small niche websites: 60–80%
  • Forums: 80–90%
  • Hobby / community sites: 70–90%
  • News websites: 0–30%

Note: “Inactive” includes sites with no updates, abandoned communities, or domains no longer maintained.
 
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One of the main reasons forums need to live on and improve drastically so that people actually want to use them, and have features similar to the bigger players.

Here's an example of a recent meltdown when a Linux discord channel was nuked and all the knowledge shared was lost. That knowledge ideally shouldn't have been kept within a walled garden to begin with. But even with that, it's so easy to just wipe out months and years of data because the admin has nothing invested in a free non-monetizable or customisable platform.
 
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It's always been about content.
Forums didn't deliver structured content.
and now they need AI to cut the chit chat so people will even look at them.

Sad.

When forums can even do their own Help documents, you should see there is no vision.
 
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