Have very large forum - Thinking of jumping to XF over VB5 - Have questions

  • It looks like the vBulletin product is in serious trouble, and I'm thinking of jumping ship in favor of this product. I was hoping that you'd be able to give me your thoughts as to the pros and cons of the jump, as well as some insight into what's happening with the apparent decline of the vBulletin product.

    I have also heard mixed things about the xenForo product, and was hoping too that you might address some of them.

    Any insight you could provide would be most appreciated.
  • I'm actually interested in XF in terms of:

    - Featureset vs. vB4.1.x. What does XF do that vB4 did not, and, to the best of your recollection, vice versa. (Note that even though I have the CMS component of vB4, I've never used it.)

    - Ability to support large fora (mine is 33GB or so at this point)

    - Ability to support 1000+ concurrent users (depending on server capabilities of course)

    - Customizeability / add-ons (such as what is offered via vbulletin.org)

    - Import functionality from vB4 to XF.

    - Richness of settings and options in XF as compared to the AdminCP in vB4.

    - Timeliness and satisfaction overall with tech support

    - Forward growth path? How stable is this company, and how well funded? How likely is it to be in business a decade form now? (I know that's kind-of an impossible question, but I have to ask it.)

    - Mobile device compatibility and functionality. How are mobile devices supported by this product? Is there an app that iOS and Android users would have to download? What is it called? Is there an addition for the XF software that must be purchased? What is the cost if so?

    - Are there other forum software products that, in your personal opinion, have roughly the equivalent featureset to XF and vB? What are they?​
 
- Featureset vs. vB4.1.x. What does XF do that vB4 did not, and, to the best of your recollection, vice versa. (Note that even though I have the CMS component of vB4, I've never used it.)

Instead of comparing the two, it would be better to list what you use and then see if XF offers that.

- Ability to support large fora (mine is 33GB or so at this point)

There have been quite a few large forum conversions to XenForo (@digitalpoint being one that springs to mind).

- Ability to support 1000+ concurrent users (depending on server capabilities of course)

Someone else will have to answer this one :)

- Customizeability / add-ons (such as what is offered via vbulletin.org)
Again, comparison isn't really fair since vb.org has been around so very much longer than xf's resource area. For the age of XF, I'd say it has a lot of addons that should cover 90% of the functionality that may be missed from vB.

Customisation - is phenomenally easy once you get through the learning curve (which is there with everything new).

- Import functionality from vB4 to XF.
There are importers available :)

- Richness of settings and options in XF as compared to the AdminCP in vB4.
I refer you to my first statement - you'd be best off looking at what you use and what you might miss.

- Timeliness and satisfaction overall with tech support
Fabulous :D

- Forward growth path? How stable is this company, and how well funded? How likely is it to be in business a decade form now? (I know that's kind-of an impossible question, but I have to ask it.)

Obviously, I can't give you inside information, but they managed to survive a lawsuit for a number of years and are still here and developing - that says something, right?

- Mobile device compatibility and functionality. How are mobile devices supported by this product? Is there an app that iOS and Android users would have to download? What is it called? Is there an addition for the XF software that must be purchased? What is the cost if so?
A responsive style is shipped as part of XenForo. There are also two addons for Pushover by @Chris D and @xfrocks - both are good developers!

- Are there other forum software products that, in your personal opinion, have roughly the equivalent featureset to XF and vB? What are they?
IPB is probably the only one that comes up - the big three, so to speak. But again, it's all about what you need for your forum. What might be a sufficient featureset for one person, might not be for someone else.


Finally, I moved from vB back when XF first came onto the scene, I've never been disappointed by it. The staff (@Brogan @Jeremy @Slavik @Jake Bunce ) are extremely helpful and knowledgeable, the owners/developers (Mike, Kier and Ashley - obviously from vB fame) know their stuff. Personally, I think we're in the safest hands where it comes to a decent forum software.

Oh.. and one more thing :D - whatever you decide - welcome to the XF forums!
 
I use every component of vB4 daily except for CMS and RSS feeds.
So.. off the top of my head:-

Threads - > Threads
Forums -> Nodes
Private Messages -> Personal Conversations
Warning System -> User Discipline
User Groups -> User Groups

User Promotions, User Upgrades, Spam Management, very easy to learn Styling customisations and Styling Properties (which far exceed the capabilities of vB4's). Also has built in User Discouragement, which works similar to Miserable Users for vB. Permissions have a learning curve that can take a little time to get used to, but it's far superior in some respects to vBs.

Then there's the usual template editing and phrase editing - with the ability to merge templates upon an upgrade that makes things even easier.

The addon/style resources are growing almost daily and I'm pretty sure if there's anything I haven't listed, I can find an addon for (except social groups, but there's already discussion of a crowdfunded addon for that).
 
The answer to all your questions is positive and XF should fulfil all your needs.

The only slight point is that there's no mobile app per se. Forum runner and Tapatalk both support XF but the XF devs themselves have gone down the responsive design route rather than a dedicated app.
 
In the Demo now. What are "Resources"?

As far as mobile device support, as long as XF supports ForumRunner, I'm good. Even vB5 only supports that app unless one wants to do their own app development, which I have ZERO interest in doing.
 
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