Invision community Vs Xenforo

Awkward

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Just saw this post from the team at invision, when asked why their software was more expensive than XF. I love me some drama so I thought I'd share it, Nothing against either company ofc. View attachment 305478View attachment 305479View attachment 305480
I'm glad to have been able to provide some entertainment for the masses.

After their initial response as well as the rest of the discussion with them, I ended up renewing my XF license. They're not worth my money and they shouldn't be worth the money of anybody with how "professional" they were.

They're definitely a really complete suite, that I won't deny.. but they lack very much in professionalism.

What had me fuming a bit was their futurology as if they had some sort of "magic ball". They were ready to lose a customer because they "know that a forum-only community will fail". Like.. who the hell are they to know my community even before I purchase a license with them.
First, a forum-only community will not survive in 2024. Secondly, we want to strengthen the relationship between apps and that is impossible to do when an app may be missing.

It's like going into a dealership and having the dealer tell you "Well, electric cars will not be a recurring thing in the future so that's why I won't sell you the Tesla you're looking for which I also have stock for". :ROFLMAO:
 
What had me fuming a bit was their futurology as if they had some sort of "magic ball".
There was also this message which is inherently wrong:

If you go to McDonald's, you can set up your burger and remove pinkles, onions, tomato.


If you go to starred restaurant, you will not discuss the menu. It's like that. Will you ask to speak to the chief and tell him your Adobe story ?

Where I'm from, dining in a starred restaurant means having food prepared to order. A starred restaurant can provide even finer customization than a fast food place because starred restaurants are more likely to prepare more elements of the meal in-house where as a fast food restaurant gets frozen prepared menu items.

So... unfortunately given that analogy, the brand the user defends would be the restaurant that strives to be starred but receives bad reviews and thus artificially reduces their customer market as it flat out refuses to accommodate some people.
 
Just throwing some additional data in here.
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Wappalyzer shows how many websites they have found in the message board category. As its a plugin browser that is used a lot, its another interesting piece of the puzzle. Of course a browser plugin data collection is limited to the sites that 2.5 million people browse to.
It seems that Wappalizer shows similar results to @digitalpoint cookie search. Just with more software included and a different data points.

I think the number of websites using a specific forum software is an interesting metric, but certainly not the only one to consider. A more interesting metric is how many end users are using the software. i.e. how large is the adoption by end users. I think this is the most interesting metric. If users love the software then that's an important metric.
Wappalyzer offers a top 5000 most visited forum websites report, but this is a paid report you can retrieve on that page.
Another interesting metric is how many busy big boards are using the software.

That's a bit weird, how are there 2200 'reddit' sites? Reddit is just one site, not a distributed platform.

Are they saying 2200 subreddits are the equivalent of 2200 independent forums?

If they're doing that, they'll need to also add the millions of facebook groups as independent message boards.
 
Are they saying 2200 subreddits are the equivalent of 2200 independent forums?
I think so.

they're doing that, they'll need to also add the millions of facebook groups as independent message boards.
That would make sense. The main difference I see is that reddit is forum only, while Zuckbook is a social media platform that has social groups as one of their many apps. ZuckBook is a walled garden, while redfit is not.
 
I think so.


That would make sense. The main difference I see is that reddit is forum only, while Zuckbook is a social media platform that has social groups as one of their many apps. ZuckBook is a walled garden, while redfit is not.
Reddit is social media
 
They are young and inexperienced, don't get angry...
Funny you say that, but Matt M has been around the block, he's been there for the entirety of Invision's life, and even built Ikonboard before that.

The thing is, Invision's philosophy isn't entirely wrong, it's just not pitched at the same audience. Us hobbyists might be perfectly happy with a forum and a few add-ons to suit our specific community but the people they're targeting with hundreds of dollars a month to spend are looking for something quite different.

But I will agree with Matt that a forum only forum is a tall order in 2024. Almost anyone seriously looking at running it as a community-as-a-business will be looking at heavyweight addons, whether it's content on the side in AMS or a gallery in the form of XFMG or something else, and other add-ons of similar scale, because "just a forum" really does have trouble.

The thing is, we price in "forum plus our needs" as the baseline not what IPS considers is the baseline. But then again we're not the audience. Their audience is companies like Squarespace and Fiverr. These want more out of the box than a forum, don't particularly want to spend time finding plugins and worrying about plugin compatibility with versions, they just want it to work out the box and to be left alone to do the community thing.
 
Funny you say that, but Matt M has been around the block, he's been there for the entirety of Invision's life, and even built Ikonboard before that.
Oh, don’t tell me...! So he's an old-timer like me too?! From the way he wrote, I thought he was much younger and immature.
 
He was writing forum software 25 years ago and describes himself as being in his 20s then so he’s at least mid-40s if not pushing 50.

But his core point stands: if you launch just a forum in 2024, even the folks here will tell you that’s a bad time coming, because even the staunch advocates will talk about having articles and similar “not really forum” content to bring people in.
 
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