The Dark Wizard
Well-known member
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...
xenForo or XenForo, not Xeroforo.