I'm creating a forum…

[Marcos88]

Hello, good afternoon
I'm creating a forum in phpBB format... and I came across this Xenforo platform, which is a paid service...
And the truth is that it has a lot of options, very similar to Phpbb, or at least that's what it seems to me…
I'm fairly new to this…
And I'd like to know what options Xenforo has that are better than Phpbb.

Greetings and thank you

 

[Ricsca]

Objectively, xenforo is much better than phpbb.
If you want, you can start with phpbb and then migrate to xenforo later if your community is working and has members.

 

[Rene_V]

And I'd like to know what options Xenforo has that are better than Phpbb.

You can give the free demo a try and see for yourself what options XenForo has that are better than phpBB.

Create a XenForo demo

xenforo.com

 

[Marcos88]

Thank you very much for the reply. I've been using phpBB for about 25 years; I had several amateur forums... back then, in my circle of friends, it was like TikTok is today, it was all the rage...
It's been about 15 years since I stopped and disconnected from the subject... and now I'd like to return...
I started by buying a server and installing phpBB, and I'm still going through it to refresh my memory, until I came across xenforo, which caught my attention… I was looking for a plugin to add a portal to the forum and I found you…
Well, the reality is that 25 years ago, spending $200 on a forum wasn't feasible... but now I can afford it, obviously without telling my wife...
I tried the demo version of Xenforo and it's pretty good. From what little I saw, it seemed similar to phpBB... I haven't looked much yet, I'm taking it slow when I can...
I thought about starting with phpBB and then switching to xenforo, but then I considered the data migration issue and the possibility of having to handle several steps…
I can understand that xenforo's visibility is much better than phpBB's, and its security too, but I don't know…
I don't want to have to switch later, so I'm investigating. I've already located the Spanish Xenforum, but I tried to register and I can't because I don't have an official license… only people who have a Xenforum account can register (I think)…
And I registered here with you to see if I can finish the conversation and acquire the license

Thank you so much for the replies, I'll stick around and continue investigating.


By the way, I tried to change the language to Spanish and I can't seem to find a way to do it…
I'd like to be able to see it in my own language without Google Translate, which is often right and sometimes wrong…

Good night

 

[ES Dev Team]

We moved from phpbb and the search sucks ( we ended up using google as the primary search function ) compared to phpbb but everything else is way better.

It's higher quality software and it also runs faster.

The process of moving a 2 decades old board wasn't too bad either. Better than expected.

Most importantly, we stopped a decline in membership by updating from a very outdated platform to one that is a lot newer and more familiar to today's users

 

[Ricsca]

@ES Dev Team i like seeing what the old forums looked like on archive.org...
I'd like to ask you why you changed the forum directory from /forums to /sphere, thus losing indexing. And how the home page is a static image that you have to click to go to the forum, which is causing you to lose further access...

 

[Wildcat Media]

I can understand that xenforo's visibility is much better than phpBB's, and its security too, but I don't know…

Support is way better. I quit my last phpBB install 15 years ago and back then, the snotty attitude towards users on the phpBB support forum was a major reason for me leaving. One particularly annoying moderator would close topics he didn't like with "Locky locky." XF was far and away a better product, much easier to work with on the admin side....and it's actually supported through this support forum as well as a ticketing system. And there are add-ons for even simple improvements I'd never have been able to find, or write myself, in phpBB.

 

[ES Dev Team]

@ES Dev Team i like seeing what the old forums looked like on archive.org...
I'd like to ask you why you changed the forum directory from /forums to /sphere, thus losing indexing. And how the home page is a static image that you have to click to go to the forum, which is causing you to lose further access...

We put work in to make sure all old links worked and tested redirects it before converting. Even image redirects work from the old forum. Did you find an instance where that is not the case?

( there are goin to be some exceptions to the above, for example, if a thread was moved or deleted in either system, the redirect may not work, but otherwise a majority of them were working the last time i checked )

We are well indexed, still the top forum in our category since 2006, google loves us, and we have had that image on the front page design for a long time. Why do you think this that's hurting our site?

 

[Alvin63]

Hello, good afternoon
I'm creating a forum in phpBB format... and I came across this Xenforo platform, which is a paid service...
And the truth is that it has a lot of options, very similar to Phpbb, or at least that's what it seems to me…
I'm fairly new to this…
And I'd like to know what options Xenforo has that are better than Phpbb.

Greetings and thank you

Everything IMO. It's chalk and cheese.

 

[Marcos88]

Hello good morning
Thank you so much for the replies, they are a great help
I'm pretty much decided on buying a xenforo license.
The only thing I'm not convinced about is that I usually pay for everything with PayPal, and I can't find where it lists the payment methods...
And I was looking at it, and when you buy it they offer you a series of accessories... which I suppose if you don't buy them right away you can buy them later...
But then in the notes I saw that when you buy Xenforo, all those resources are already included, right?
The first resource I would look for is the portal... I saw some free options here if I remember correctly...

My main idea for the forum I want to create is that, as a hobbyist, I buy and sell items... and I'm fed up with the limitations some platforms impose... and to access more features, you have to pay them even more money when you're already paying a fee and a percentage...
My idea is to create a kind of "shop/catalog" and use the forums as categories to classify everything. Anyone interested can register and contact me privately to discuss the item, exchange information, or whatever comes up. I'll also include a few chat forums. Obviously, it will be local; my intention isn't to grow and become a global platform, but rather to have all my items classified and well-organized online and make them available for public display.
What do they think?

 

[PhineasD]

The only thing I'm not convinced about is that I usually pay for everything with PayPal, and I can't find where it lists the payment methods...

At the bottom you'll see the option to pay with PayPal.

 

[Alvin63]

Hello good morning
Thank you so much for the replies, they are a great help
I'm pretty much decided on buying a xenforo license.
The only thing I'm not convinced about is that I usually pay for everything with PayPal, and I can't find where it lists the payment methods...
And I was looking at it, and when you buy it they offer you a series of accessories... which I suppose if you don't buy them right away you can buy them later...
But then in the notes I saw that when you buy Xenforo, all those resources are already included, right?
The first resource I would look for is the portal... I saw some free options here if I remember correctly...

My main idea for the forum I want to create is that, as a hobbyist, I buy and sell items... and I'm fed up with the limitations some platforms impose... and to access more features, you have to pay them even more money when you're already paying a fee and a percentage...
My idea is to create a kind of "shop/catalog" and use the forums as categories to classify everything. Anyone interested can register and contact me privately to discuss the item, exchange information, or whatever comes up. I'll also include a few chat forums. Obviously, it will be local; my intention isn't to grow and become a global platform, but rather to have all my items classified and well-organized online and make them available for public display.
What do they think?

It'll be a work in progress probably. At the time of purchase you could get the resource manager if you think it will be useful. But I think it can be purchased later as well (not sure). If wanting to create some kind of shop/catalogue, you may later want to look around for a suitable addon. For example on my site I have Bob's Article Management System and use that as a home page (link below). Not sure if that would be right for a shop/catalogue though. There are quite a lot of useful addons, some are free, some are paid. You can check the demo to see what resource manager looks like. I quite like having it but to be honest mine doesn't get used that much by members - but maybe because I have the articles home page as well.

 

[Grump1!]

Don't waste your time.