Future migration to XenForo

[jmk]

It appears that IPB is planning to eventually phase out their self-hosted plans in favor of cloud hosting. The effect of this is we will end up paying almost six times more for the same thing we had before. So I am looking at alternatives to be prepared for when that hammer drops.

Commerce features are the most important thing our site depends on. Our desktop application uses a REST API to log into our website with the customer's account, and check that their paid subscription is active. This is the one thing that would be very hard to live without, since our whole revenue stream is dependent on it.

Are there any upcoming plans for commerce features in XenForo?

 

[beerForo]

You'd have to watch this forum for upcoming features, XF does not announce them as answers to questions unless they have been announced:

[XFA] RM Marketplace

Description RM Makertplace allows you and/or your users to sell resources from the resource manager, like in a marketplace ! Supports three types of products : Digital products (license based): with or without license renewal with or without...

xenforo.com

 

[nocte]

XF has a REST API:

REST API endpoints (2.2)

This document assumes you have already created an API key and setup the necessary headers for your request. Learn more about using the API.

xenforo.com

You can use it to check for user groups, that you can add with "user upgrades":

Users - XenForo 2 Manual

xenforo.com

There are also more feature-rich addons like this one by @DragonByte Tech:

[DBTech] DragonByte Shop

DragonByte Shop is the most advanced shop mod to date. Giving you unprecedented control over what items you can sell, DragonByte Shop is the perfect mod to go along with virtually any points modification. With features like overriding any...

xenforo.com

 

[Muddy Boots]

It appears that IPB is planning to eventually phase out their self-hosted plans in favor of cloud hosting.

Thats hilarious.....

They will loose even more customers - the bulk of them being there bread and butter - leaving the nich market of 'cloud'.......

They will then loose a load of developers, many have jumped ship already due to being disgruntled with IPS so I heard

All I can say is I am glad I moved this year, never looked back, should have moved earlier

They seem to be blinkered and are getting worse in my opinion....

 

[Muddy Boots]

Forgot to add, @DragonByte Tech do both a shop and eCommerce add-on

Ill be buying the eCommerce add-on soon - have used some of their other add-ons and these are very good

Re - Commerce on IPS (Nexus) - Its flaky, old and hasn't had a decent update in years, you should look at leaving sooner to XF with an eCommerce or Shop add-on and not hang around over at IPS...... (Again in my opinion)

 

[beerForo]

[XFA] RM Marketplace/Shop - XF2

Description RM Marketplace allows you and/or your users to sell resources from the resource manager, like in a marketplace ! NOW supporting xF Payment profiles since V5.0.0. Supports three types of products : Digital products (license based)...

xenforo.com

 

[Miri]

They will loose even more customers - the bulk of them being there bread and butter - leaving the nsich market of 'cloud'.......

XenForo will be even more dominant. Force developers: prepare your resumes, XenForo could hire staff.

 

[Valeyard]

It appears that IPB is planning to eventually phase out their self-hosted plans in favor of cloud hosting.

Oh wow. It's hard to tell what their real plan is from the public forum, but one wonders who would buy it today just for running a forum (maybe the other Invision apps would make it worth the money, but the forum software certainly isn't).

 

[Dragonfruit]

I actually got the vibe that’s what they were heavily pushing for. Very glad I didn’t go with IPB. I was comparing the options at the time.

 

[Valeyard]

Very glad I didn’t go with IPB. I was comparing the choices at the time.

I'm running a Flarum forum myself (and am active in their community), but when I compared options I can tell you that I found xF to be an order of magnitude better than anything else for its style of forum, and well worth the cost. You can search on Flarum's and you'll see I've said there as well that I don't think it's the right software for everyone but that's okay and they'll find the sweet-spot that they're looking for.

If Invision is trying to push out self-hosting that's a completely self-defeating exercise IMO. The biggest problem with any commercial forum software (and this goes for xF as well) is that if you block updates to existing users that don't pay the subscription cost you provide a bad experience and consequently trash your reputation due to the end-user experience (especially when you advertise the forum software and make it obvious what they're running). That said I haven't seen a stale xF that is "bad" but I can't say the same nice words about either IPB or vB. If you're letting your commercial clients run buggy forums on outdated software, what does that say about you as a company? The blue forum is on vB4.2.2 Patch Level 4. Are you serious - when you have paying membership and software that is incompatible with PHP5.5+!! Yes, there were PHP versions before 5.6 that nobody remembers any more!

 

[Mendalla]

The blue forum is on vB4.2.2 Patch Level 4.

snorts I am a member on a local site that is still running vB 3.8.11. Discussed with the owner years ago. He didn't like 4 so never upgraded and does not want to put in the work to rejig the rest of the site for new software, since he has other sections tied in fairly tightly with the forums. Won't share his URL due to content (NSFW to the max).

 

[ColinD]

Same boat and agree with OP.

Have found XF to always be responsive and helpful.

Did a test migration 5mill/160G posts in 40mins on a test server, could go faster.

Not quite the same problem as OP, but subscriptions are a key part of our model. Whilst not a total barrier it’s the one thing that stopped me 6years ago… ironically it’s not stopping me this time, add another banana skin to the delorean.

A shop is the last thing on my shopping list to sort, dragon byte or just palm it off to a 3rd party site where commerce is first priority, albeit at the cost of a different login.