help me to buy correct forum software

[AndroidApp]

Hi,

I am not new to xenforo but i am worried about xenforo features. well before i had no issue with xenforo, as i was working on a xenforo forum which was build by a rich company. as it was build by a company so the has used some custom modules, themes to get all complete features. when i checked default xenforo features, i started worrying. Now i have options to use IPB & Xenforo.

IPB have more advance features which xenforo do not have.. or need to spend more money for addons.

- Custom Thread Icons
- Nice And Good Quality Themes are avlaible
- IPB Default front end & backend default UI are really awesome ( You can stay with ipb default theme, as it is nice looking and you do not need to spend money to buy new theme.)
- Theme Options ( Best of One ) - Theme option are really much better... it's alsmost like wordpress theme options. but xenforo theme options are going over my mind.
- More Social Integration Options
- Inbuilt Meta Tags
Here Added More : -
- VigLink Inbuilt Integration
- Mandril Integration
- Email Management ( Emails Templates Can be Customize by Self )
- Statics
- Security Center
- Q&A - A forum type

So please let me know... where should i start ? Xenforo Or IPB ?

 

[Chris D]

Well, it almost sounds like you have made your decision already.

You seem to have some preconceptions about XenForo, I would say most of which are subjective, e.g. the quality of styles, and the UI of the front and back end is something many people prefer about XenForo over other platforms. There's nothing wrong with that opinion, but if you feel like that, it's a perfectly valid opinion and not one that anyone is likely to be able to change.

Other things you have said I'm not totally clear on. What is the use case for custom thread icons, what would you use this for? Which social integration options does IPB have that we're missing? Which do you need? What do you mean by "inbuilt meta tags", and what exactly is "More"? Without knowing what more you need from XenForo it's not possible to tell you if there are any solutions.

 

[AndroidApp]

I have not made any decision .

i know after reading my last post anybody can understand that i am almost impressed with IPB but you should know i have live with Xenforo as i am lived with Xenforo so still i want to live with xenforo because Xenforo Is really different but i am worry because of budget. if i stay with xenforo then i will have to purchase paid plugins or hire developers for those feature.

if i purchase addons ( if avlaible ) then final budget will go over 800+ USD.
In case if addons not avlaible then hiring a developer will be more then 1500+ USD .

So only budget is confusion me else i am happy with xenforo.


Now come to your question.

1.What is the use case for custom thread icons? what would you use this for?

Ans - Not only Custom thread Icon.. but forum icon also. We can use Different icons for each forum & threads.

2. Which social integration options does IPB have that we're missing?

Ans - Microsoft, Linkdin. But it really does not matter... i just mentioned it because .. it's nice one.

3. What do you mean by "inbuilt meta tags"?

Ans - They have meta tags options for better option .

Note :- i just visited Resource Page and found a addon which can be use for meta tags.

4. what exactly is "More"?

Ans :- I have updated this thread and added "More"


A Theme Option is really good in IPB ... it same like Wordpress theme option panel where we can manage colors, fonts and other stuff. But xenforo is missing that one, and i do not think any custom developers can help for it.

In Xenforo i found Style properties > Color Plate to manage color options but managing color plate is not so good idea.. "Revert Option Do only One Undo" ( if i have to 4 times changes then i can revert only last one ). so to know if revert can revert me to default setting .. i done one more change and revert.. and this time it did not revert me.. but applied a new design with black.

i can understand that " Maybe i do not know how to play with it" but i was not able to play it because it was not easy to use features.

that what IPB was able to handle easily.

 

[Dakota Storm]

As far as custom thread icons goes, this is fairly simple and there are at least a couple of tutorials that can show you how to do this. The same goes for category icons.

Styling is subjective, there are several style companies that have reasonable prices and exceptional support, look to audentio and pixel exit. All in all, a lot of what you are looking for you can find in XenForo.

 

[Robust]

- Custom Thread Icons

Possible in XF out of the box. Remember, CSS styling is also possible in XF.

- Nice And Good Quality Themes are avlaible

Audentio. PixelExit. Great companies. Lots of great individuals around here too. I prefer XF customisation over IPB. You should take a look at XF sites. avforums.com, hivemc.com, audentio.com (hexthemes.com), pixelexit.com - there's lots of great themes out there.

- IPB front end & backend default UI are really awesome

Well, the point above says XF front-end is customisable. Only you're going to see the back-end, it's nice and advanced.

- Theme Options ( Best of One ) - Theme option are really much better... it's alsmost like wordpress theme options. but xenforo theme options are going over my mind.

Click "Default Style" at the bottom left here. It's perfect and simple.

- More Social Integration Options

AddThis support out of the box

- Inbuilt Meta Tags

So... The tagging feature that was also introduced in XF 1.5? https://xenforo.com/community/threads/thread-tagging.100267/
Or do you mean SEO meta tags, to which there are so many add-ons out there (and possibly out of the box support, XF is SEO friendly)

- VigLink Inbuilt Integration

A few add-ons to support that already exist.

- Mandril Integration

Mandrill is just SMTP. It's supported out of the box, as XF has SMTP support (not to mention, already-existing add-ons let you just enter your Mandrill username and pass and go that way, but I prefer to enter the SMTP information, it takes 10 seconds to get from Mandrill and that's the normal way people do things)

- Email Management ( Emails Templates Can be Customize by Self )

Possible in XF out of the box.

- Statics

XenForo has support for Google Analytics, alongside core statistics such as post count, thread count, activity information, what months are so active, tracking likes, posts, attachments, and every little bit of activity in XenForo.

- Security Center

The wat?

- Q&A - A forum type

Not out of the box, but (inb4 advertising my own add-on) there is an add-on that exists for it.

XenForo has talented add-on developers and a friendly add-on community that assists with any troubles too. To add, you're really going to need much less add-ons than you think. XenForo is also cheaper than IPB, as far as I recall, and they package a lot of applications separately (which XF does now too, but less over here at XF, and they're cheaper?)

A Theme Option is really good in IPB ... it same like Wordpress theme option panel where we can manage colors, fonts and other stuff. But xenforo is missing that one, and i do not think any custom developers can help for it.

So customising the theme? It's possible in XF out of the box. There's a whole ACP tab on it.

I recommend you go here: https://xenforo.com/demo/
Spin up a demo and experience XF. I don't think you have already.

 

[TPerry]

i know after reading my last post anybody can understand that i am almost impressed with IPB but you should know i have live with Xenforo as i am lived with Xenforo so still i want to live with xenforo because Xenforo Is really different but i am worry because of budget. if i stay with xenforo then i will have to purchase paid plugins or hire developers for those feature.

Errr.. IPB ain't the cat's meow. The editor actually sucks, you can't make custom media BB Codes yourself (you have to create an add-on), the templating syntax is "unusual" and takes a lot of learning, their CSS lacks specificity in styling areas, their gallery add-on is weak in features, their Pages add-on had useful features removed (they are supposed to be added later), their gallery has no direct integration with the editor (unlike with XenForo where you can press a button and add media from your gallery directly), the promotion system is based ONLY upon # of content (NOT posts but CONTENT) items and days of membership - and that's it, you have to create individual groups for each user level you have and assign full permission sets to them (their inheritance features suck compared to XenForo), the templating system lacks the ability merge modifications into it (which means that you have to manually keep up with all your custom changes and then when upgrading to the newer version redo them), there is no template modification history, and I could go on several other items.
And yes, I know wherefore I speak as I run an IPS site (https://thebent.bike) and 2 XenForo sites.

if i purchase addons ( if avlaible ) then final budget will go over 800+ USD.
In case if addons not avlaible then hiring a developer will be more then 1500+ USD .

I'm already into IPS for around $450 myself, and I still don't have functions that I want, nor that I am used to. Numerous things that I can do in simple template edits in XenForo is a mandatory add-on for IPB 4.0.13.1

Security Center

All the security center does is give you recommendations. It's "modifications" it wanted to do served no purpose/effectiveness on my site (since I use nginx and not Apache). All of these are already done.. and it tells me to do them - that's because it expects Apache, which I'm not using.

So only budget is confusion me else i am happy with xenforo.

If you are needing a blog (although a rather weak one) then you will need to go with IPS unless you get a bridge to WordPress.
I foresee that IPS will end up costing me more yearly to use than XenForo.

1.What is the use case for custom thread icons? what would you use this for?

Ans - Not only Custom thread Icon.. but forum icon also. We can use Different icons for each forum & threads.

You mean like this?


If so, simple CSS in XenForo, jumping through hoops in IPS and being told "use an add-on".

2. Which social integration options does IPB have that we're missing?
Ans - Microsoft, Linkdin. But it really does not matter... i just mentioned it because .. it's nice one.

Think XenForo does a few more... especially when you click the + icon on the below image (found by clicking on the topic # to share)

A Theme Option is really good in IPB ... it same like Wordpress theme option panel where we can manage colors, fonts and other stuff. But xenforo is missing that one, and i do not think any custom developers can help for it.

For the basics that feature is OK, but it is very weak (IMHO) once you are used to styling it in the manner of a real style. It only allows you to change rough options - which you can do in the ACP -> Style Properties area under XenForo.

In Xenforo i found Style properties > Color Plate to manage color options but managing color plate is not so good idea.. "Revert Option Do only One Undo" ( if i have to 4 times changes then i can revert only last one ). so to know if revert can revert me to default setting .. i done one more change and revert.. and this time it did not revert me.. but applied a new design with black.

Revert in IPS doesn't have a history either (if I remember correctly as I don't use that weak feature set and do it via CSS). I think it just reverts back to the default, not the last one used.

Q&A - A forum type

I've found their implementation rather "lacking" shall we say, compared to other scripts that utilize a Q&A function.

i can understand that " Maybe i do not know how to play with it" but i was not able to play it because it was not easy to use features.
that what IPB was able to handle easily.

I'm here to tell you, it's not as "nice & easy" as you think. It's taken me a long time to even get my style in IPS where I'm half-way happy with it, and due to lack of specificity in their CSS coding, there are some areas that you can't style - you do it and it effects others that you don't want it to (due to lack of said specificity).

I went with IPS to try it out (I like challenges) and also because for that site I may need a "store" type option for actual products built into the script and IPS was the only one with it.

 

[Dakota Storm]

Errr.. IPB ain't the cat's meow. The editor actually sucks, you can't make custom media BB Codes yourself (you have to create an add-on), the templating syntax is "unusual" and takes a lot of learning, their CSS lacks specificity in styling areas, their gallery add-on is weak in features, their Pages add-on had useful features removed (they are supposed to be added later), their gallery has no direct integration with the editor (unlike with XenForo where you can press a button and add media from your gallery directly), the promotion system is based ONLY upon # of content (NOT posts but CONTENT) items and days of membership - and that's it, you have to create individual groups for each user level you have and assign full permission sets to them (their inheritance features suck compared to XenForo), and I could go on several other items.
And yes, I know wherefore I speak as I run an IPS site (https://thebent.bike) and 2 XenForo sites.


I'm already into IPS for around $450 myself, and I still don't have functions that I want, nor that I am used to. Numerous things that I can do in simple template edits in XenForo is a mandatory add-on for IPB 4.0.13.1


All the security center does is give you recommendations. It's "modifications" it wanted to do served no purpose/effectiveness on my site (since I use nginx and not Apache). All of these are already done.. and it tells me to do them - that's because it expects Apache, which I'm not using.

View attachment 119671

If you are needing a blog (although a rather weak one) then you will need to go with IPS unless you get a bridge to WordPress.

You mean like this?
View attachment 119665 View attachment 119666

If so, simple CSS in XenForo, jumping through hoops in IPS and being told "use an add-on".


Think XenForo does a few more... especially when you click the + icon on the below image (found by clicking on the topic # to share)

View attachment 119668
View attachment 119669


For the basics that feature is OK, but it is very weak (IMHO) once you are used to styling it in the manner of a real style. It only allows you to change rough options - which you can do in the ACP -> Style Properties area under XenForo.


Revert in IPS doesn't have a history either (if I remember correctly as I don't use that weak feature set and do it via CSS). I think it just reverts back to the default, not the last one used.


I'm here to tell you, it's not as "nice & easy" as you think. It's taken me a long time to even get my style in IPS where I'm half-way happy with it, and due to lack of specificity in their CSS coding, there are some areas that you can't style - you do it and it effects others that you don't want it to (due to lack of said specificity).

Completely agree with this, being a tinkerer, IPS 4 sucks in comparison to XF, it's why I switched away from it when I saw the way it was heading during the private testing.

By the way, I did warn you how bad it was

 

[TPerry]

By the way, I did warn you how bad it was

Yeah, but I like a challenge and there are a few feature sets that I really needed for that site if it takes off that XenForo does not have. The IPS "does not have" outweighs the "haves" in comparison overall in - but for that site, it was the best fit -even though it was lacking feature sets I wanted/need.
Either one would cost me extra to bring to where I needed it at, but I figured the store (an actual product store for XenForo) add-on would be more expensive for me in the long run than the other little things that would be "nice" that I've gotten used to.

 

[Dakota Storm]

Yeah, but I like a challenge and there are a few feature sets that I really needed for that site if it takes off that XenForo does not have. The IPS "does not have" outweighs the "haves" in comparison overall in - but for that site, it was the best fit -even though it was lacking feature sets I wanted/need.
Either one would cost me extra to bring to where I needed it at, but I figured the store (an actual product store for XenForo) add-on would be more expensive for me in the long run than the other little things that would be "nice" that I've gotten used to.

Surely if you'd have offered a dev, an option of something like 'pay to release' you'd have been able to get it cheaper? Anways we're derailing the thread slightly. Feel free to create a topic if you want to continue the discussion

 

[AndroidApp]

Errr.. IPB ain't the cat's meow. The editor actually sucks, you can't make custom media BB Codes yourself (you have to create an add-on), the templating syntax is "unusual" and takes a lot of learning, their CSS lacks specificity in styling areas, their gallery add-on is weak in features, their Pages add-on had useful features removed (they are supposed to be added later), their gallery has no direct integration with the editor (unlike with XenForo where you can press a button and add media from your gallery directly), the promotion system is based ONLY upon # of content (NOT posts but CONTENT) items and days of membership - and that's it, you have to create individual groups for each user level you have and assign full permission sets to them (their inheritance features suck compared to XenForo), the templating system lacks the ability merge modifications into it (which means that you have to manually keep up with all your custom changes and then when upgrading to the newer version redo them), there is no template modification history, and I could go on several other items.
And yes, I know wherefore I speak as I run an IPS site (https://thebent.bike) and 2 XenForo sites.


I'm already into IPS for around $450 myself, and I still don't have functions that I want, nor that I am used to. Numerous things that I can do in simple template edits in XenForo is a mandatory add-on for IPB 4.0.13.1


All the security center does is give you recommendations. It's "modifications" it wanted to do served no purpose/effectiveness on my site (since I use nginx and not Apache). All of these are already done.. and it tells me to do them - that's because it expects Apache, which I'm not using.

View attachment 119671

If you are needing a blog (although a rather weak one) then you will need to go with IPS unless you get a bridge to WordPress.
I foresee that IPS will end up costing me more yearly to use than XenForo.

You mean like this?
View attachment 119665 View attachment 119666

If so, simple CSS in XenForo, jumping through hoops in IPS and being told "use an add-on".


Think XenForo does a few more... especially when you click the + icon on the below image (found by clicking on the topic # to share)

View attachment 119668
View attachment 119669


For the basics that feature is OK, but it is very weak (IMHO) once you are used to styling it in the manner of a real style. It only allows you to change rough options - which you can do in the ACP -> Style Properties area under XenForo.


Revert in IPS doesn't have a history either (if I remember correctly as I don't use that weak feature set and do it via CSS). I think it just reverts back to the default, not the last one used.


I've found their implementation rather "lacking" shall we say, compared to other scripts that utilize a Q&A function.


I'm here to tell you, it's not as "nice & easy" as you think. It's taken me a long time to even get my style in IPS where I'm half-way happy with it, and due to lack of specificity in their CSS coding, there are some areas that you can't style - you do it and it effects others that you don't want it to (due to lack of said specificity).

I went with IPS to try it out (I like challenges) and also because for that site I may need a "store" type option for actual products built into the script and IPS was the only one with it.

Hi,

Thank you to bringing this out.

As Many of answer are mentioned that i need to work with CSS etc so that is the issue.. One Mistake by beginner will destroy xenforo.

Me :- In Xenforo i found Style properties > Color Plate to manage color options but managing color plate is not so good idea.. "Revert Option Do only One Undo" ( if i have to 4 times changes then i can revert only last one ). so to know if revert can revert me to default setting .. i done one more change and revert.. and this time it did not revert me.. but applied a new design with black.

You :- Revert in IPS doesn't have a history either (if I remember correctly as I don't use that weak feature set and do it via CSS). I think it just reverts back to the default, not the last one used.

this one is still a issue in IPS Revert let us go to default .. but in xenforo sometime it's make weird sometime. yesterday when i tried reverting ... i got a black theme. and if there is revert option then there should be Reset Option also so at least peoples can fix issue.

- Can not delete, edit or change menu nav for front end

about theme option .. Ipb have one please with understanding option to play with color. ( i changed theme completly without any issue .. but in xenforo every time my theme becomes worst one.

Q&A - Q&A is similar to forum but having some advance option... so if we have Q&A then there is no need to use any addition script .. etc.

Almost Query are resolved but xenforo need some work on un resolved work.

 

[TPerry]

- Can not delete, edit or change menu nav for front end

And until 4.1 series of IPS is out you can't do it there either (easily - because you CAN edit the nav bar in XenForo via templates). In fact, in XenForo 1.5 vs IPS 4.0.13, it's easier in XenForo. I had to purchase the Pages add-on just to add some link to the nav bar in IPS.

As Many of answer are mentioned that i need to work with CSS etc so that is the issue.. One Mistake by beginner will destroy xenforo.

And you can trash IPS just as quickly since for several of the items you have to make modifications to the actual templates and once you upgrade you lose them and have to redo them - bringing the chances of mistakes forward with them.

about theme option .. Ipb have one please with understanding option to play with color. ( i changed theme completly without any issue .. but in xenforo every time my theme becomes worst one.

That's most likely because the colors are also controlled in the Style Properties for other settings. The settings in IPS for the styles (colors/etc) are MUCH less - again, due to the CSS specificity.

Q&A - Q&A is similar to forum but having some advance option... so if we have Q&A then there is no need to use any addition script .. etc.

I think there's already an add-on that allows the same baseline function for XenForo.

Almost Query are resolved but xenforo need some work on un resolved work.

I'm pretty much of the opinion you prefer IPS. My suggestion - go with it instead since you will probably be happier. It sounds like you are wanting something simpler to use and IPS is much simpler in most aspects (since it does not have as many "power" functions).
Be ready to scrounge to find a bespoke developer for any special features you need... it doesn't appear that there are that many of them active on the IPS site and their developer community is not as active as the XenForo one.
I've already seen one individual that was swayed into XenForo from IPS and honestly, they shouldn't have moved as their requirements were fairly simplistic and XenForo had way to many options compared to what they were used to and they weren't able to grasp the concepts behind it (permissions, promotions, etc) since they were used to the simple ones from IPS.

 

[Robust]

To me it does seem like what Chris said, that you've made up your decision already. Yes, XF doesn't spoonfeed you. That's because you're a webmaster. Templates and CSS should be a basic to you. It's literally impossible (and considered bloat) to add a separate option for every little thing in the templates. You'll have to dive into the templates here and there, but nowhere near as frequently as you think. Once you've got your site up and running how you want it, there's less template work.