Moving Over to Xenforo

[Mowgles]

Hello all. Hope you are well.

I own a gaming community for approx 60 members. We are thinking of moving over from Invision v5 to XenForo. Was just wondering if could ask some questions before we commit to the move? Loving the demo so far!

1) migration - does v5 work with migration tool and is the tool available out of the box? We have about a year worth of forum data to migrate over so wondering if worth it.

2) self hosted or cloud? Typically for a community of less than 100 members but with daily traffic is self hosted the preferred route normally or cloud?

3) how much are the marketplace addons typically for things such as blogs, calender and such? Are they easy to install?

4) is the branding upgrade referring to the large XenForo badge at the top left or the copyright elsewhere?

 

[Hatsu]

As it seems you already have the v5 license of Invision with all the apps available, what are you missing that you want to switch? As you already mentioned you need 3rd party addons to get all functionality you already have.

2) Depends on your budget and the willingness and ability to administer your own hosting environment. If you already use your own hosting and you know how to that, why go for cloud? If you want to do the company a favor, use cloud.

4) it's just the line in the footer Community platform by XenForo® © 2010-2026 XenForo Ltd. you must not delete when you don't have branding free. The top left is just the style it is delivered with. You can replace that with your own logo.

 

[Mowgles]

1) great question!
mainly due to the fact Invision have stripped down everything compared to how it was before and inflated the pricing. They took away marketplace and few other things. Myself and my community are now looking at fine tuning our setup and cutting costs. The self hosted option for Invision is more expensive and paying 99 dollars per month for the bottom tier on invision isn’t feasible.

When was originally looking I did consider XenForo but thought the customising etc was intimidating. Now have a bit more experience, I’m more comfortable with running a forum.

2) currently I’m on cloud with Invision and then have a website for handling league tables etc. so if we move to self hosted the website will be there too. If could then it’s just linking all the external stuff together. But yes noted. Thank you!

3) aaaah that’s amazing thank you!

 

[Hatsu]

Disclaimer: I have both, self-hosted XenForo and self-hosted v5 Invision.

Ah, okay. You are on Invision Cloud. I had the imagination you were on self hosted. Well, then I understand the motivation behind a switch.

Both cloud options here on XenForo and Invision cost significantly more than self hosted. Even when considering you need to pay for self hosting environment, too. The plan I would need on Invision would cost me approx. 1600€ a year. Now with a VPS and the self hosted license I'm under 800 a year. And I can use my VPS for several other stuff which I would do anyway.

So if you plan to host several other things like you mentioned and you are able to do that: then go for self hosted.

Compare prices between the different competitors. If you need several other applications for your site you can get them here. But the serious ones have a price tag, too. So it could be you are not far off from the self hosted prices from Invision. And with Invision you get all apps from one vendor which makes it sometimes easier.

 

[smallwheels]

3) how much are the marketplace addons typically for things such as blogs, calender and such? Are they easy to install?

There's everything in between free and maybe short to 100$. Be aware that with XF you might run into the need for add ons pretty quickly. XF works brilliant as a forum, but if you want anything more than the plain basics you run into the need for add ons surprisingly early, sometimes for what can fairly be considered a basic functionality that should really be part of the core.
Installation of add ons is very easy, however: If you use lots of add ons you will quickly realize that not all share the same quality level and that not all are supported and maintained equally (or at least ok), no matter if free or paid, and a relevant number gets abandoned sooner or later. Either for some time or sometimes forever. When a new XF version comes out often, many add ons need to be updated to that and this can take time or won't happen at all with certain developers. So if you happen to depend from a certain add on you might be trapped into a certain version of XF and cannot update w/o losing the functionality that said add-on brought.

Also, when having lots of add ons installed, cost will add up considerably (the more if you decide to pay for updates/maintenance of your add ons constantly). It will quickly and easily cost more than the license and extensions for your XF license.

So while the option for add ons is brilliant and essential for XenForo and many add ons are brilliant as well it is not all shine and glory.

 

[Mowgles]

@smallwheels Yeah in all honesty there are workarounds so don’t need the addons as a necessity. We basically have a website that shows league tables, articles that our members write etc.

The forum is where everything runs eg arranging games, discussions, transfers.

Spreadsheet and player db handles the rest as external link.

So really the only addons was looking at would’ve been Events Calender and Blogs possibly instead of posting on webpage. But it’s not a deal breaker.
Great info about the add one and maintainence! Thank you!

@Hatsu appreciate that! Sorry what’s VPS? Yeah I’m swerving towards self hosted but even the cloud makes a huge saving going from 79.99 pounds a month to 43 per month.

We have a VIP subscription so costs will basically be covered by members.

Thanks you both for the great feedback!

 

[Mowgles]

Advanced search looks great. Worth getting? Also how is the support and updates for XF?

 

[Mowgles]

Also did anyone move from Invision v5 recently and does the migration tool cater for that? Or is it still only v4 from invision covered?

 

[Hatsu]

@Hatsu appreciate that! Sorry what’s VPS? Yeah I’m swerving towards self hosted but even the cloud makes a huge saving going from 79.99 pounds a month to 43 per month.

A Virtual Private Server. A server in a virtual environment hosted by a hosting company.

 

[Mowgles]

A Virtual Private Server. A server in a virtual environment hosted by a hosting company.

thanks!

 

[Alvin63]

Advanced search looks great. Worth getting? Also how is the support and updates for XF?

Updates are easy - they appear in your admin control panel and you just click to upgrade. Likewise updates for addons, you download them to computer and just click to upload them in the ACP. It's very simple and quick to use.

Personally I'd go self hosted and then buy whatever addons you need. Once you're set up and running there is not a lot to do, but it's worth taking time to go through all the ACP settings just to find out what you can do. In terms of addons there are style ones, functional ones, some that add extra features, some for spam prevention. Some very good ones. You can basically tailor it to what you want. The only time it could get particularly expensive is if there is a particular addon you want that doesn't exist - then it would mean paying a developer to create one.

 

[Mowgles]

Updates are easy - they appear in your admin control panel and you just click to upgrade. Likewise updates for addons, you download them to computer and just click to upload them in the ACP. It's very simple and quick to use.

Personally I'd go self hosted and then buy whatever addons you need. Once you're set up and running there is not a lot to do, but it's worth taking time to go through all the ACP settings just to find out what you can do.

thanks! yeah i am just looking around at hosting at moment now. appreciate the help

 

[Alvin63]

thanks! yeah i am just looking around at hosting at moment now. appreciate the help

Just updated my post a bit above.

 

[Mowgles]

Just updated my post a bit above.

yep just read it. I have found a couple such as calender etc, I think the main worry/concern is the thought of starting fresh if the migration doesnt work from Invision v5. Although i guess even if pay the extra to have someone assist with that, it still comes out cheaper than paying Invsion every month

Will look into it. I am currentlt using a demo version just to test some bits and configure things similar to how its set up. ACP is nice.
Thanks!

 

[Alvin63]

I'm sure someone could help you work out migration - I'm not that up on that. Unless it's just a case of exporting and importing a database.

What kind of functions do you want particularly?

 

[Alvin63]

Also you might want to have a look at Russ's Pixel Exit styles - he has some great ones for gaming and all his styles come with a lot of extra goodies.

XenForo Styles

pixelexit.com

 

[Mowgles]

I'm sure someone could help you work out migration - I'm not that up on that. Unless it's just a case of exporting and importing a database.

What kind of functions do you want particularly?

its mainly the data eg the posts, threads, members, groups unless they are configured differently.
In terms of functionality everything runs great - if not better on XF!
Its more a worry about my members having to start fresh and losing data.

 

[smallwheels]

So really the only addons was looking at would’ve been Events Calender and Blogs possibly instead of posting on webpage. But it’s not a deal breaker.

For both there are pretty solid add ons available. I'm pretty sure you'll discover the need for a couple more after a while.

Great info about the add one and maintainence! Thank you!

What is also important is that the price is not tied to the value that an add on brings. There are a lot of excellent free add ons and there are very good paid add ons as well but also some paid ones where I am a bit baffled about the price for the functionality or some paid ones that lack features, support, further development and quality control, some all of that. Surely not the standard but it is worth reading the discussion threads of an add on you are interested in and you'll probably quickly get an idea.

 

[Alvin63]

https://pixelexit.com/products/fusion-gamer.2/

 

[Mowgles]

Also you might want to have a look at Russ's Pixel Exit styles - he has some great ones for gaming and all his styles come with a lot of extra goodies.

XenForo Styles

pixelexit.com

thanks will check out!