Invision community Vs Xenforo

[vbresults]

This is might be an unpopular view, but I develop for both of these platforms, and all of the snark aside, though they both sell forum software, the primary customers of these two companies are completely different.

As XenForo was founded by developers, it's natural that they pay a lot of attention to code. This was severely lacking in vBulletin, and everyone from that era knows a vBulletin board that has been hacked because of that.

I cannot recall one XF 1 or 2 client being hacked ever due to the core in almost a decade and a half. On the contrary, an SQL injection vulnerability sitting in the IPS code for 5 years was only found and fixed this March.

For that reason, it's weird for them to criticize XF over their focus on code. That vulnerability was a huge deal; a hacked IPS client contacted me recently. But, if you look at the patch, IPS wrote the note below in an intentionally vague way.



OTOH, IPS is more enterprise focused and closure of their plugin marketplace hasn't hurt them. Obviously, XF has a gallery, but I read all of the docs and it's objectively true that the default IPS feature set is miles ahead of XF's.

With XF introducing a cloud service and IPS modernizing their code in 5.x, the two are converging more than people would like to believe. This convergence might be moving XF and IPS into direct competition.

If IPS has the feature set in 5.x that they do in 4.x, IPS will objectively be ahead. It is mystifying to me that neither has yet taken up implementing a Reddit-like layout, but whoever moves first is going to have an edge.

 

[Arantor]

Both vB and IPS back in the day had a threaded comment system similar to Reddit’s. Both products dropped it years ago. It’s very much love-or-hate and clearly both XF and IPS feel it isn’t worth the hassle to reimplement because not enough people actually want it.

 

[Mouth]

With XF introducing a cloud service and IPS modernizing their code in 5.x, the two are converging more than people would like to believe. This convergence might be moving XF and IPS into direct competition.

This. I think both parties doth protest too much. Focus too much on how different they are, and not enough on how similar they actually are. I guess it allows them to believe they don't need to innovate and become different

 

[Mr Lucky]

Focus too much on how different they are, and not enough on how similar they actually are.

UIndeed they are very similar. If I take off my forum owner hat and put on my forum user hat, thinking about the forums I frequent asa user:

All I care about really is that:

• I get notifications of replies
• I can post images easily
• I can easily quote a post
• I can easily follow a discussion
• The forum search is intuitive and accurate
• Not loads of annoying ads
• It just works nicely

The Xenforo forums I use have those (with the exception of the ones that seem to have been customised e.g. by Verticalscope)
The only Invision forum I really dislike and it's down to things like quotes not working, no post numbers. There is nothing about it that encourages me to hop there unless it's for a specific support issue I need it for.

I guess it allows them to believe they don't need to innovate and become different

I don't think forums do need to innovate. They just need to work and be easily navigable.

 

[Deleted member 184953]

Let's ban social media and we will be kings

XenForo the First
​

 

[DragonByte Tech]

It is mystifying to me that neither has yet taken up implementing a Reddit-like layout, but whoever moves first is going to have an edge.

Like Arantor says, this used to be a thing but I never saw any single site using it as default because those layouts are complete and utter trash for keeping up with the flow of an overall discussion.

From a programming perspective, it would require completely rebuilding how thread read marking is stored, as you'd need to store top-level comments as "sub-threads" and start tracking read based on that. It also requires removing the "/unread" link as there is no single thread that's unread anymore.

It also makes normal thread views more complicated, as Reddit layouts rely on seeing replies in context.

As an example, let's say you posted something like "I think we should end homelessness." and somewhere else I replied to a comment talking about how they think <insert genocidal dictator of your choice> was actually a good person, saying "That's the most braindead take I've read in my entire life".

In "threaded view", my reply would appear under the dictator post, no problem.
In "linear view", my reply would appear under yours and would make it sound like I'm saying ending homelessness is a bad take.

Sure, you could force the parent comment to be quoted at the start of the post, but that would still look busy in "linear view" if someone uses the normal post quote feature in addition to that.

 

[80sDude]

I think both invision and xenforo are great forums. What turned me away from invision and got me here was the lack of add ons. When it comes to add ons Xenforo is king. One thing though that I like about invision is how easy it is to create a page.

 

[Taylor J]

Invision had some of the best addons back in their 2.x days. Most of the forums I visited also used IPS over vB at the time (most were GFX forums like fringefx.net and a few others were art contests were held) and oh my the quality of the addons built for those sites were amazing. They also had one of if not the best shoutbox addons.

I always say this but if I was allowed to use any version of a forum script it would be a tie between IPB 2.x and vB 3.8 as now I have the skills to update packages to be able to work on newer php versions.

 

[l3ta]

Cage fight! Duke it out a la Musk vs. Zuckerberg.

 

[⭐ Alex ⭐]

For that reason, it's weird for them to criticize XF over their focus on code. That vulnerability was a huge deal; a hacked IPS client contacted me recently. But, if you look at the patch, IPS wrote the note below in an intentionally vague way.

That's what I got from the style of IPB's staff's messages in that thread linked earlier. More shielded egos, sensitive to criticism and with that comes a greater desire to talk down competitors and avoid using honesty. Attention to public image is in much detail.

And that's why I thought the thread that was posted on both XF and IPB got better attention on IPB. The staff of a community will attract like-minded people. The thread in question sounded like a canned question but served as an opportunity for forum owners to compete in sharing ideas.

 

[Forsaken]

This is might be an unpopular view, but I develop for both of these platforms, and all of the snark aside, though they both sell forum software, the primary customers of these two companies are completely different.

As XenForo was founded by developers, it's natural that they pay a lot of attention to code. This was severely lacking in vBulletin, and everyone from that era knows a vBulletin board that has been hacked because of that.

I cannot recall one XF 1 or 2 client being hacked ever due to the core in almost a decade and a half. On the contrary, an SQL injection vulnerability sitting in the IPS code for 5 years was only found and fixed this March.

For that reason, it's weird for them to criticize XF over their focus on code. That vulnerability was a huge deal; a hacked IPS client contacted me recently. But, if you look at the patch, IPS wrote the note below in an intentionally vague way.

View attachment 305724

OTOH, IPS is more enterprise focused and closure of their plugin marketplace hasn't hurt them. Obviously, XF has a gallery, but I read all of the docs and it's objectively true that the default IPS feature set is miles ahead of XF's.

With XF introducing a cloud service and IPS modernizing their code in 5.x, the two are converging more than people would like to believe. This convergence might be moving XF and IPS into direct competition.

If IPS has the feature set in 5.x that they do in 4.x, IPS will objectively be ahead. It is mystifying to me that neither has yet taken up implementing a Reddit-like layout, but whoever moves first is going to have an edge.

I don't remember if that is specifically the one I mentioned to @TickTackk a while back, but this is not the first time that Invision has had long-standing exploits that have gone unfixed. As far as I'm aware, almost every exploit for XenForo has been related to third-party components, and not the platform itself, and they get fixed very quickly.

 

[RobinHood]

As far as I'm aware, almost every exploit for XenForo has been related to third-party components, and not the platform itself, and they get fixed very quickly.

Speaking of which, I'd love an auto patch feature where XF had the power to automatically push a security patch to an install. I realise that takes a lot of trust on the site owner to be willing to accept any kind of auto update whatsoever, but if it could be constrained to pure security patches that will almost certainly not affect anything else on the site, and even if it did, it's still probably worth the risk to nerf the exploit globally quickly, I'd be game for having that as an out of the box default.

I've got too much **** to worry about when it comes to patching and updating these days, we need to place a certain amount of trust in software vendors to be able to push and auto apply emergency patches. Mistakes happen, lets make it easier to get them fixed quickly (and easily and automatically)

 

[Forsaken]

Speaking of which, I'd love an auto patch feature where XF had the power to automatically push a security patch to an install. I realise that takes a lot of trust on the site owner to be willing to accept any kind of auto update whatsoever, but if it could be constrained to pure security patches that will almost certainly not affect anything else on the site, and even if it did, it's still probably worth the risk to nerf the exploit globally quickly, I'd be game for having that as an out of the box default.

I've got too much **** to worry about when it comes to patching and updating these days, we need to place a certain amount of trust in software vendors to be able to push and auto apply emergency patches. Mistakes happen, lets make it easier to get them fixed quickly (and easily and automatically)

If it just patches specific files, I'd be fine with that, but if it forces an update... I'd opt out if it's updates.

 

[⭐ Alex ⭐]

I made a thread for the security patcher idea. https://xenforo.com/community/threads/security-auto-patcher.223132/

 

[zappaDPJ]

I would always want to be informed of an impending update of any sort so that I could take a backup of my database before it was applied. I've no problem with a one click, automated solution but for me a database backup is essential.

 

[AjayJunkies]

It is mystifying to me that neither has yet taken up implementing a Reddit-like layout, but whoever moves first is going to have an edge.

Just curious. Out of all the things that could be developed, is there a reason why you think a threaded layout would be the defining difference?

My understanding is that both platforms intentionally moved away from that style.

 

[Mouth]

I don't think forums do need to innovate.

The world changes, consumers and technology. Innovate's meaning is; "to develop a new design, product, idea, etc.". Both systems innovate. If you don't think so, you'd still be using XF 1.x or something else quite aged.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I don't think forums do need to innovate

The world changes, consumers and technology. Innovate's meaning is; "to develop a new design, product, idea, etc.". Both systems innovate. If you don't think so, you'd still be using XF 1.x or something else quite aged

No I would not be on v1. I upgraded to v2 so I could have widgets, navigation management, reactions and articles. I will upgrade to v2.3 to have style variations. These are not innovative features as they have been around on other platforms for years.

I think of innovative to mean uniquely new.

 

[findozor]

The stats speak for themselves.

View attachment 305624

this is VERY questionable data

according to this https://www.wappalyzer.com/compare/discourse-vs-xenforo/

and this

https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/Discourse

XenForo Usage Statistics

XenForo usage statistics and trends.

trends.builtwith.com

https://trends.builtwith.com/cms/Invision-Power-Board

the whole picture is completely different

 

[Slavik]

this is VERY questionable data

I would trust digitalpoints data more than these sites any day of the week.