Honest opinion needed: IPB vs XenForo.

[Adam Howard]

As a matter of an opinion...

I find it kind of find it telling that upon the release of vBulletin 5, suddenly we have this thread from September 2012 be bumped in regards to IPB and a few member seemingly "promoting" it every chance they get. Maybe because there are individuals who know that XenForo is the logical alternative to vBulletin and that alone, IPB does not speak for its self, but rather depends on the trolling of XenForo.

Just my own opinion and observation.

 

[whitetigergrowl]

As a matter of an opinion...

I find it kind of find it telling that upon the release of vBulletin 5, suddenly we have this thread from September 2012 be bumped in regards to IPB and a few member seemingly "promoting" it every chance they get. Maybe because there are individuals who know that XenForo is the logical alternative to vBulletin and that alone, IPB does not speak for its self, but rather depends on the trolling of XenForo.

Just my own opinion and observation.

And a rather shallow observation as well. Because you seem to miss the Xenforo trolls out there as well.

 

[rollthebones]

As a matter of an opinion...

I find it kind of find it telling that upon the release of vBulletin 5, suddenly we have this thread from September 2012 be bumped in regards to IPB and a few member seemingly "promoting" it every chance they get. Maybe because there are individuals who know that XenForo is the logical alternative to vBulletin and that alone, IPB does not speak for its self, but rather depends on the trolling of XenForo.

Just my own opinion and observation.

How dare we suggest other alternatives to vBulletin. XenForo or die!

 

[whitetigergrowl]

VB is moving forward in such a way that they're about to destroy themselves. "Another such victory and we have lost!" and all that.

Meanwhile XF is standing still in such a way that nothing major is really lacking. Sure we all like new things and shiny new updates to play with, but if we're talking in terms of functionality, XF can never even have another update and be good as forum software for the next 5-6 years. Again those 10-mil forums are running out there and not a single one is complaining. We've just heard of two-three more 10+mil forums moving to XF in the last month alone.

Nothing major is really lacking? Really? Where do you want me or others to start. Xenforo, because of lack of development is a basic forum that relies heavily on the mod community to survive since there is no forward active development of Xenforo as a software itself. And to make up for features that by many are considered basic in other forum software. Is Xenforo a bad forum software? No. But if not for the mod community, would be hurting more.

You also never stated what those 'other forums' are or what they are moving from.

I've seen forums switch to Xenforo from other forum software for awhile. Then switch back or to something else all together. Switching to Xenforo (or any other forum software) could be for any number of reasons and not solely based on the name. It's not always an indication of the software used.

 

[Slavik]

Yikes, this thread went down hill fast.

Stop with the personal bashings/bickering or the cane will be coming out.

 

[whitetigergrowl]

Yikes, this thread went down hill fast.

Stop with the personal bashings/bickering or the cane will be coming out.

Ohhhh kinky. Didn't know you had it in ya Slavik. lol

 

[Slavik]

Ohhhh kinky. Didn't know you had it in ya Slavik. lol

If you want pictures, I do private viewings.

Just remember, no refunds, and what has been seen, can never be unseen.

 

[whitetigergrowl]

LOL Thanks for the warning.

 

[IcEWoLF]

I was going to jump on the IPS bandwagon but something is keeping me off the buy button and that is that you have to pay for some of the mods that you can get it for free with vB or XenForo.
I like how many needy mods are here at XenForo that are here at no charge, plus I already have a XF License and I am happy with XF pricing structure.
If XF wins the lawsuit at this point I am looking to convert my vB to XF because at least 80% of my users love the interface and how simple things are.
Many kudos to KAM...
I am a strong supporter of vBulletin, and I will continue to do so because that's what I've used since 2003, but vB5 is not for us, just doesn't go well with a gaming type of community and what we try to accomplish.

Did I tell you how much I love XenForo as a product?

 

[Ernest L. Defoe]

Well while I don't run a big community currently (just starting up a new one after years of not running one). I have used in the past all the various forum software solutions. So I can speak from personal experience (again this is from personal experience).

IPB while very nice and has come a long ways from its free days is really bloated. It does run fairly fast considering and is easy to use and figure out. We will see how well it does when the 4.x series comes out.

vB The 3.x series was really good but has been going downhill ever since. While vB5 has potential to be a great product it will likely fall short like the 4.x series has. vB5 has gone in a totally different direction and really slow and resource intensive is such a dramatic change that it will turn alot of people off of vB or will not upgrade to it. I know I wouldn't and I have a vB5 license.

xF While not currently being actively developed (as far as we know) and is basic in design and function is still leaps and bounds beyond what the others have to offer. Yes it does rely heavily on the modding community currently to me even with 20+ addons installed is still leaps and bounds faster than the other 2. Maybe that has to do with my hosting provider maybe it has to do with the software.

The biggest point out of all of this is THEY all have their good points and their bad points. You just have to use the free demos to see which you feel is going to be the right choice for you and your community. On an xF forum you are going to get more xF votes than anything else same being said about the other company forums more votes for that companies product.

Okay my 2 cents have been said so I'm out........

 

[Carlos]

Some people may have thought of me as clueless (looking at AWS), and discredit my experience, but this person sums up exactly what I've said.

For example I've used IPB for quite some time. On shared hosting it can run slower. But on Dedicated or Semi-dedicated servers I have had zero problems with speed. I also go through and optimize things. For every one person that makes a video about how slow something is, another can make one about how much faster it is than those people try to show. But in their mind they are right regardless of any evidence to the contrary because of their experience.

....But the problem with that statement is that a company like IPS is trying to reach the greater scale community of forum owners. However, the fact that it really cannot run fast on shared servers is inexcusable. I've seen vB2, and vB3 sites on shared platforms, and it seems like either vB2/vB3 doesn't really punish website owners for being on shared servers. That's how I'm seeing it. IPBoard seems to punish shared servers and the owners that run IPBoard on them. You're more likely to lose customers if they find out that shared servers aren't really recommended for running IPS software/IPBoard.

This is where vBulletin [and now xenForo] seems to have IPS/IPBoard beat: The fact that vB2/vB3 just works, no matter what kind of server it is. It only slows down when the server or site is overloaded. That's what this boils down to. This is my point.

IPS would be wise to make it so that IPB4.0 works on any machine without slowdown. I mean, just installing IPBoard on a shared server, it's a new site, and it's slowing down? INEXCUSABLE. There's just no excuse.

That just tells me it's bad code.

 

[Digital Jedi]

Some people may have thought of me as clueless (looking at AWS), and discredit my experience, but this person sums up exactly what I've said.

....But the problem with that statement is that a company like IPS is trying to reach the greater scale community of forum owners. However, the fact that it really cannot run fast on shared servers is inexcusable. I've seen vB2, and vB3 sites on shared platforms, and it seems like either vB2/vB3 doesn't really punish website owners for being on shared servers. That's how I'm seeing it. IPBoard seems to punish shared servers and the owners that run IPBoard on them. You're more likely to lose customers if they find out that shared servers aren't really recommended for running IPS software/IPBoard.

This is where vBulletin [and now xenForo] seems to have IPS/IPBoard beat: The fact that vB2/vB3 just works, no matter what kind of server it is. It only slows down when the server or site is overloaded. That's what this boils down to. This is my point.

IPS would be wise to make it so that IPB4.0 works on any machine without slowdown. I mean, just installing IPBoard on a shared server, it's a new site, and it's slowing down? INEXCUSABLE. There's just no excuse.

That just tells me it's bad code.

If true, perhaps inexcusable. But not outside the realm of possibility of being intentional. Targeting big boards could simply be a marketing strategy. If true.

 

[Carlos]

If true, perhaps inexcusable. But not outside the realm of possibility of being intentional. Targeting big boards could simply be a marketing strategy. If true.

I don't think it's a marketing move. Mostly because you aren't likely to inspire higher adoption rate of your software this way.... It's why vBulletin was so friggin popular. It was "the most powerful forum software out there." But the reason the adoption rate was so high is because vBulletin is easy to install, and manage.

 

[whitetigergrowl]

It's actually not inexcusable. For quite some time I used both IPB and VB on shared hosting. They both worked fine. Problem is that some shared hosting was poorly (and many times is) configured. It's meant to run basic websites and less server intensive things. Not forums with hundreds and even thousands of people posting and crazy activity. As the resources are not allocated for that.

So I may run IPB or another forum software on one shared server and it doesn't take much to slow it down. But the next one may be fine. Not all shared hosting is created equal. Many do just enough to get by until your website or forum starts to get active. Some have good specs, but as their servers start to get hammered with people, start to cut back on those resources to better balance the load. Thus affecting a forum or websites performance.

I used to run VB3 on a shared server. I couldn't afford a dedicated server at the time and my forum was getting hammered by people. So I would have to do semi-frequent shared hosting jumps to shared hosting that was supposedly better than the previous one. Even if it was, the forum would still experience issues.

In my experience I haven't really had many problems with any forum software on a shared server. Just slightly optimizing it can make it run better regardless of which one it is. It's when the forum starts to actually get crazy busy that problems and slowdown would occur. But thats the thing. Many times people would blame the forum software when it fact it was the shared servers limitations that were the problem.

 

[Carlos]

I could understand this hypothetical:
I installed a fresh vB2/3 on my shared server, and it ran like a butter.
But when my new vB2/3 site got bigger, and more popular, the vB2/3 installation takes a hit (ahem, runs slow) because it's being overloaded.

I could not understand this hypothetical:
I installed fresh IPB2/3 on a shared server and slowdowns are the norm.
My new site is running slow, it's not really getting traffic at the moment, only a few people seeing the site.
It's hard to imagine how it would be like if the IPB instance I installed on this shared server, my site is bigger and popular.

The second one is the one that I experienced.

 

[IcEWoLF]

Well things will change from now on, lawsuit is over, looking forward to XenForo 1.2 and see what it brings to the table.

Lets face it, vB is still #1 out there because the sheer numbers of 3.x and 4x forums, where IPB is #2 because of communities that are run and there are other boards infront of XenForo, but based on this discussion I'd have to say XenForo is #3 because the amount of people that use it and the features that is currently lacking vs the other 2 competitors.

XenForo is a nicely designed software, I still think the editor needs to be updated, I also think XenForo needs a better spam management tool to block spam bots from registering the forums, also I also feel that XenForo eventually needs to great their own CMS/Blogs system to compare to the other two companies.

As a standalone forum software XenForo is great.

Anyways, I am sure by this summer we will see a lot of changes coming from XenForo.

 

[Digital Jedi]

Well things will change from now on, lawsuit is over, looking forward to XenForo 1.2 and see what it brings to the table.

Lets face it, vB is still #1 out there because the sheer numbers of 3.x and 4x forums, where IPB is #2 because of communities that are run and there are other boards infront of XenForo, but based on this discussion I'd have to say XenForo is #3 because the amount of people that use it and the features that is currently lacking vs the other 2 competitors.

XenForo is a nicely designed software, I still think the editor needs to be updated, I also think XenForo needs a better spam management tool to block spam bots from registering the forums, also I also feel that XenForo eventually needs to great their own CMS/Blogs system to compare to the other two companies.

As a standalone forum software XenForo is great.

Anyways, I am sure by this summer we will see a lot of changes coming from XenForo.

Spam management is not something you'll ever get great out of the box, nor should you. You need specific tools for spam management that are going to be unique to your situation, and useless to another admins situation. That's why spam tools should be basic, with the more complex, specific stuff being left to add-ons.

What's wrong with the editor? Pretty standard stuff from what I've seen, and I've always felt that editors pretty much have peaked as far as functionality.

 

[igneous]

I have been an IPB user since its free days (1.*) and vB user since v2. I've migrated all my forums to IPB by the time vB 3.6 came out. I simply liked IPS' direction and community features more than those of vBulletin. Mind you, I still like the direction they're taking IP community suite, but lately I've been felling that the software has become too bloated. I've turned off more features than I have enabled in the last several releases, and that, if anything, is a sure indication that things aren't quite going the way I'd like them to in the IPS world.

I've been keeping an eye on XF, of course, but the lawsuit has made me wary of investing in it. Now that the lawsuit is over that particular issue is resolved, but I still have my reservations about committing to something as serious as changing forum software. I think I'll wait and see what IPB4 brings, and if it turns out to be just more bloat, I won't wait long before converting to XF.

 

[Chris D]

I think that's a sensible move.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or particular concerns about XF, there's many people here who will be happy to answer.

 

[Mario Rodriguez]

I'm a IPB user and tried Xenforo a couple of times. Simple said, I did not feel at home using it. I heard a looooot of good things about Xenforo, but I felt more at home with IPB.

Xenforo may run faster and as forum and had many free add-ons. But for me that is not something point.

Free add-ons is good, but many times means, that a free add-on on the long run one day won't be longer updated. I have experienced that on Wordpress, free plugins usually do not live long. I prefer to go the "I pay for the pluging" road. Woothemes is a good example. They grow because the earn money, they can hire developers, support staff and all their themes and scripts get updated on regular basis.

It is true that IPB has many functions built in already and could also be that could make it run slower (although I never had any of those issues) but I know those functions and modules will be updated from time to time by IPB and I won't have to depend on some developer that today is active and tomorrow is gone.

I also find IPB very active in development and their support is pretty good. I'm sure XeroForo excells als a Forum or even as a lot of more things thanks to their add-ons. But considering all in all I find IPB a more rounded and complete product. Their next 4.0 versión seems promising and so as it looks, they are addressing many of the issues discussed in this thread.

That said, the possibility to start for just for $10 a month a complete Community solution with all IPB Moduls included (except the eCommerce Modul Nexus which is available on a pricier plan) and 24/7 unlimited support included, that's for me is an amazing price start point and a super simple way of starting a Community, perfect for users who do not want to deal with all the technical stuff, since you don't need to worry about hosting, installations, updates or whatever... and then you can decide to upgrade to a better plan when your community grows or move it to a dedicated server or whatever you want to do.

It is not only how good is a product, but also how you market it. I think Xeroforo marketing could be improved a lot, it that respect, IPB guys are miles away from Xero. Just compare the websites from both presenting their products and you can notice a huge difference. I must say I'm not even sure what is Xero capable of, since it is not clearly exposed in their website. It is like you have to find out your self, that's IMHO is a mistake. The user should not find out what a product can or can not it should be presented cristal clear.

Said that, bbPress is making its way in the community now that it is a real plugin and works with single sign on and BuddyPress 1.7 now in beta, works with any wordpress theme. There are many add-ons por bbPress and BuddyPress which make it a very powerful solution if you want a really flexible platform. Let's not forget Wordpress is by long, the most used web platform in the world and its free.

Let's face it, Xeroforo, IPB, Vanilla or VB do not have the power, the flexibility, the beauty and the immense user and developer user base of Wordpress by any means. I'm starting a new Community Project and I'm not quite sure if going now the WordPress+bbPress+BuddPress way or the IPB way...