My experience with XF1 paid resources (Add Yours)

[Dadparvar]

With Xenforo 2 Stable coming soon, and as I see developers are focusing on XF2 and they are adding their works for XF2, I decided to share my experience with resources before preparing to say goodbye to XF1.

• I Just discuss the paid resources
• Just about XF1 resources
• I used all of them and have license for them
• I don't discuss all my paid resources, as I purchased lots of things. I only share the one that really made me happy or really made me upset.
• I won't talk about official add-ons or add-ons by XF Staffs.
• 100% honest (and where complained, it's nothing personal and it's totally Honest Feedback)
• Feel Free to share your experience as well (You don't need to quote me and say opposite opinion. This topic is not to debate. It's to share experience)

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@Bob

• AMS (Article Management System)
• SC (Showcase)
• UBS (User Blog System - Private)
• RMS (Review Management System - Private)

Because my experience is the same for all 4 of them, So I say it once: almost 100% satisfied so far. Great add-ons, awesome support, lots of features, planned to port to XF2, reasonable price, free XF2 version if your license is active when the add-ons are ported and if your license is expired you will just pay to renew. If you are Early Adapter license holder, you get updates a couple of times a week, and mostly they include new features or improvements and they rarely are bug fixes, as you rarely see bugs!
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@Arty

• Email Customizer
• Elegance Style
• Latte Style

Stable, bug-free, updates whenever needed, professional designer, tons of features, plan to port to XF2, no additional payments for XF2 if your license is active and if not, just renew. Very fast support and very nice plans for XF2!
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@Xon

• Bookmarks
• Conversation Essentials

Satisfied with quality and features. Didn't need support as I didn't have a problem so far, so I can't say anything about support, but as I knew Xon so far, there is no doubt that he is professional. Talked to him a couple of times about add-ons, and he was kind and fast enough.
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@Siropu

• Chat
• Ads Manager

Fast in support. Not fast, but good enough for updates. Tons of features. Awesome ads manager. Reasonable price. Plan for XF2 and he will require to just pay for renewing (at least better than to pay full price). More importantly, you don't see critical bugs in his works usually. Satisfied so far.
-------------------------------
@truonglv (Nobita)

• Social Groups

Tons of features, awesome add-on, real Social Group add-on, but unfortunately lots of bugs. Bugs never get finished and sometimes the updates destroy things. It has tons of feature and Nobita is kind usually when you ask for new features. But bugs are annoying, especially when an add-on is playing an important role on your site. Reasonable price, and regular updates. He has the plan to bring XF2 version, but yet not clear if he will let us download without new payment, or it will require a new license.
--------------------------------
@DragonByte Tech

• Optimise
• Security
• Shop
• Credit
• Donate
• Mail
• Global Branding Removal

Tons of features, but lack must-have features, and important that keep you away from using most of them. A very long branding in the footer or emails beings sent from the add-on, and you need will have no choice other than buying branding removal, so, not a reasonable price at all. Filip was kind and open to suggestions but suddenly stopped. No more plan for XF1.(it seems there are some plans for xf1 after working on xf2) You should pay again for XF2 version (at least this is what is announces so far, if I remember, in xf2demo site). <-- (based on @DragonByte Tech 's post in this topic, I'll change this, as Filip said they won't charge, or its worst situation, they will only charge a little and not a full price, if you have an XF1 license active.) 2 of my sites had special situation, and where almost all (95%) developers of the paid add-ons that I had kindly let me install their add-ons in both sites but Dragonbyte required us to buy 2 licenses for all add-ons and even 2 branding removals. We did it, with hope to use the add-ons, but they stopped working on XF1 and we never started using most of the add-ons and even in those that we enabled, they lack must-have features. So, we purchase 6 x 2 licenses for add-ons and 2 global branding removal, and the result is ...! and more importantly, we should pay all these things to get XF2 version of them! <-- (based on @DragonByte Tech 's post in this topic, I'll change this, as Filip said they won't charge, or its worst situation, they will only charge a little and not a full price, if you have an XF1 license active.) And the worst thing is that I invite lots of people to buy all those add-ons with branding removal, and I helped 2 of them directly to buy and they are also upset and I feel bad. I won't recommend DBTech anymore to anyone until I see a very big change.
---------------------------------
@NixFifty

• Tickets
• Gift Upgrade

I was waiting 2 years until Tickets' bugs are fixed. But finally, after 2 years, he brought a working add-on. Tickets is great and now, after 2 years, worth it. The developer is not fast in updates, but good in support. He won't force buying new license for XF2 and you will be able to download it if you have active license.. But if he continues to be better, I'll stay keep using his works in XF2.
---------------------------------
@ThemeHouse

• Scratch Style
• Donate

Mike was good and is becoming better for XF2. But in the time that I was his customer, I don't know why, but everything was awful, unfortunately. This is why one day I decided to say goodbye to them, although I had the plan to be one of their customers for most of their works and I even reviewed their style with 5 stars. But after that, Each update was bringing tons of new bugs. Some bugs were destroying the way the site was looking. Some updates were changing things a lot and adding new bugs again. There was no useful documentation or details about new changes and you only would see them when you finished the upgrade and everything was messy on your site. Then you would open a new ticket but you had to wait a couple weeks until you see an answer like "oh sorry for any inconvenience, we missed this ticket. soon we will reply" and then a week again to see "can you provide more info" and after adding the info immediately, again waiting for days to hear "we can't reproduce it, also please provide admin and FTP access as well" and it was going like this until the end of the game. (I had some good experiences in support sometimes when I was buying resources newly, but its normal. Everyone is fast and kind on first days. Stay like that forever, if you are professional)
---------------------------------

I have lots of other paid resources, including public, or custom and private until I decided to do some works for myself. I also have some more add-ons from some other the developers mentioned above but didn't want to talk about them, this is why I didn't list them above.

I think I won't buy any new add-on for XF1 and will wait until most of the resources listed above are ported to XF2, and then will upgrade to XF2.

Feel free to share your own experience if you also won't buy any other XF1 add-ons, so that other who may newly come or want to stay with XF1 for years, have some more info.

Hope to find it useful.

 

[Alpha1]

My experience with @Bob and @Xon are the same as yours. @Bob is simply amazing with the level of care, configurability, polish, updates. There are no addons so well integrated and so advanced. Bobs addons are more advanced than xenforo itself.
I run 35 addons by @Xon on my big board. and will probably install more.
Both are rock solid developers who deliver quality code and have an immense sense of responsibility and care. This responsibility and care can be seen in support, features but also in the way they rigorously release maintenance updates and bug reports are never open for long.
These developers are so important to me that I would immediately start planning an exit strategy if they would stop developing for XenForo.
---------------------------------

@DragonByte Tech

• Optimise
• Security
• Shop
• Credit
• Donate
• Mail
• Global Branding Removal

Tons of features, but lack must-have features, and important problems that keep you away from using most of them. A very long branding in the footer or emails beings sent from the add-on, and you need will have no choice other than buying branding removal, so, not a reasonable price at all. Filip was kind and open to suggestions but suddenly stopped. No more plan for XF1. You should pay again for XF2 version (at least this is what is announces so far, if I remember, in xf2demo site). 2 of my sites had special situation, and where almost all (95%) developers of the paid add-ons that I had kindly let me install their add-ons in both sites but Dragonbyte required us to buy 2 licenses for all add-ons and even 2 branding removals. We did it, with hope to use the add-ons, but they stopped working on XF1 and we never started using most of the add-ons and even in those that we enabled, they lack must-have features. So, we purchase 6 x 2 licenses for add-ons and 2 global branding removal, and the result is ...! and more importantly, we should pay all these things to get XF2 version of them! And the worst thing is that I invite lots of people to buy all those add-ons with branding removal, and I helped 2 of them directly to buy and they are also upset and I feel bad. I won't recommend DBTech anymore to anyone until I see a very big change.

I think that @DragonByte Tech simply entered the XenForo market too late in the game. I was anticipating a lot of their addons. But experience with xenforo developers in general have taught me the hard way to wait and see and only buy when there is a solid finished product.
IMHO with many of the dragonbyte tech products this never happened. I have only bought 2 DBT Security licenses for $300. The other addons never made it to the level where I would use those.
For DBT Security I am hoping that @DragonByte Tech will reconsider and to an update for XF1 so that it is much more complete, integrated, refined and useful.
---------------------------------

In regards to @NixFifty I really like where he has brought his Tickets addon, as its a really good addon now. But I do wish he would keep his bug tracker empty with comprehensive monthly maintenance releases.
---------------------------------

I use @Siropu custom chat and Siropu custom tabs Chat and both works well. I would love to see more feature releases and refinements for chat, but he provides the most comprehensive chat solution for XenForo. I wish he would open up a support site with a visible bug tracker and suggestions forum. Its impossible to go trough the immense support thread to see whats what.
---------------------------------

I use Nobita Social Groups because its awesome functionality. @truonglv is a very creative developer who is able to code very fast and manifest whatever he thinks up. The structural approach of his addon is sound. (I had his addon and Snogs groups reviewed by a senior developer and this lead me to choose for Nobita groups)
However with that speed and creativity there are frequent code issues and bugs. New releases are really frequent and often contain showstopper bugs. Truong does not seem to test his releases on live installs but instead gives you alpha or beta code directly. This is also why there are so many hotfix releases. That being said, Truong does do the work to fix any issue you encounter and will implement suggestions that are important. He is really devoted. When I get really stuck with his social groups addon, then I will forward the issues to another developer and provide fixes to truong
---------------------------------

@ThemeHouse is a mixed bag to me. They should have never bought hundreds of low quality addons. Some of which were especially developed in a round the clock race because developers knew that Themehouse would likely buy their code. It doesn't seem they ever reviewed the code that they bought. Else they would never have bought it. It resulted in many bugs. If you compare how they handled addons in the past 2 years with for example Xon then there is a very stark contrast. Where Xon rigorously worked to improve quality for the addons he took over, Themehouse barely did so. While Xon released hundreds of updates, many Themehouse addons got only one update to mention it was under new management.

Themehouse has been kind but slow. One security vulnerability I reported (with fix) only got addressed after involving the XF team 28 days later. Communication has been sharp and defensive in some cases and kind in others. In general I find quality of TH addons severely lacking. Many addons I previously sponsored before Themehouse bought, had to get rewritten by other developers. I applaud Themehouse for recently deleting and marking unmaintained hundreds of low quality addons. I really hope that they will approach things differently for XF2 and put a lot more emphasis on quality and much higher standards. @Jake B. indicated that they wanted to make such change. I use 3 addons by TH and really hope that they will do a full code review for those to finally get rid of the ongoing issues.
For XF2 or any new addons by Themehouse I will only use any after I see bug free code for a full feature set.
That being said I do see some really beautiful sites developed by them. The addon experience has kept me from considering their custom styles.

 

[Alpha1]

I would like to add the following developers:

@Russ and @Steve F PixelExit
These guys have a stellar reputation simply because these guys deliver stellar work and care. Their rates have gone up significantly but its worth every penny. @Russ has created many styles for me. Their success does mean that they are always busy which naturally can cause delay in when they have time to schedule my projects.
Something that I really respect with @Russ is the level headedness and the way he approaches addon conflicts and scope.
I think the way a developer / designer copes with addon conflicts says a LOT about them. Some xenforo addon companies can react very adversely or try to dodge such. In contrast @Russ addresses everything he reasonably can and when its not reasonable, he explains that clearly.
In short: PixelExit styles and custom styles are top notch and very close or better than what I was shooting for.
---------------------------------

@pegasus With Vaultwiki
Vaultwiki is an immense addon with a wide range of settings and functions. It was ported to version 4 which was buggy as can be. Over the years Pegasus has worked hard with thousands of bug fixes to bring it to what it is today. Any bug that I report to him is fixed within hours. On many occasions he has checked out conflicting addons and provided fixes for bugs or vulnerabilities of addons of other developers.
For some reason the initial deployment of Vaultwiki on a unique environment is likely to cause some bugs. @pegasus will address it quickly. After which the wiki addon will run smooth.
This is another developer who has earned my respect for his level of care and professionalism.
---------------------------------

@xfrocks has provided a ton of essential and good addons to xenforo. All of those free. As a result he was very busy and custom work was not delivered or responded to for months. When finally delivered I could not use the custom work without issues as it seemed outsourced quality. One of the addons I ran for some time until it because clear what detrimental effect it had on performance of my big board. I wrote it off. @xfrocks has contributed a lot to xenforo freely. Including large important addons that took him many hours to create. So all in all I feel I am getting a fair deal.
His generally available work is all highly recommended. Many of his addons should be core and in a way several of his addons were implemented in XF2. Last year he added his paid support package which I think was a good idea, because I do not think a large portfolio of free addons is a sutainable business plan.
But support and response is extremely slow if at all. I asked for quotes for different addons to be developed and average response time to each of my messages was 1 month. I heard from others they have the same experience. I do hope that he will become active on xenforo again because @xfrocks has a lot to offer. He seems to be working on XF2 versions of his addons. I would not run a xenforo site without @xfrocks essential addons. In general @xfrocks offers quality and I do hope to see more.
---------------------------------

@au lait is kind, very support oriented. My suggestions were quickly implemented. I think the language barrier is a problem here when reporting bugs and implementing features.
So far his addons Dead Links Manager and Advanced Rules did not work without critical issues. I am hoping to see updates for advanced rules. Else I will write it off and see if another developer can offer an advanced rules addon for XF1. I will not use DLM anymore. Instead I am waiting to see if @AddonsLab their Dead Link manager will reach stability or not.
---------------------------------

@tenants has always been highly responsive and motivated to provide quality addons. His addons are essential and save us a ton of work. IMHO its a shame to see him leave Xenforo.
---------------------------------

@wmtech deliver quality addons are very professional and all seems to be rock solid code. They state to deliver high quality code and I can only confirm that. I do wish they would provide more updates for their addons. All in all highly recommended.
---------------------------------

Furthermore I work with other developers whom I will not share here because they are always fully booked.

The above is my personal honest opinion and perception on addons and service. No ill will or personal criticism is intended in any way.

 

[we_are_borg]

I have add-ons from @Bob Showcase (SC) and Article Management System (AMS). Like Alfa1 i most tell the samething about the two add-ons i have they have so many options that you lose track asap when you are configurating those add-ons the options you have is only met with other add-ons from Bob. The support is awesome and when he has time he explains why something works like that or why it can or cant be done, that alone is pure gold so you know what to expect. His add-ons follow XF so you have uniformity throughout your site.

- - - - -

@Russ and @Steve F PixelExit i use a premade style and i love it its called Splash Style and its a great style. I dont have a custom style because my site is only a hobby site where i dont make any money on.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

Tons of features, but lack must-have features, and important problems that keep you away from using most of them.

There are no outstanding reported bugs in any of our XF1 mods, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Filip was kind and open to suggestions but suddenly stopped. No more plan for XF1.

This is 100% false. I have never stopped responding to suggestions, and nowhere have I ever said that there are no more plans for XF1. I would be very much interested in a link to the post where I said there would be no more XF1 releases.

I'm struggling to understand why you would post blatantly false information like this.

For the record, the reason why I stopped updating the XF1 mods is that they all needed to be updated to support XF2. When all our existing XF1 mods are up and running on XF2, and the portfolio has been fleshed out a bit more, I will continue to update the XF1/XF2 mods, together, as they will both be updated simultaneously.

You should pay again for XF2 version (at least this is what is announces so far, if I remember, in xf2demo site).

This is also 100% false. I have never, ever stated that we plan to charge for existing customers to download the XF2 versions.

While plans are never set in stone until they are actually implemented, the plan has always been to offer the XF2 versions as a free download. In fact, the plan is to offer the XF1 and XF2 versions in the same download, so if you ever were to upgrade an existing XF1 site to XF2, you wouldn't even have to download anything else.

I'm really starting to wonder where you get this information from.

2 of my sites had special situation, and where almost all (95%) developers of the paid add-ons that I had kindly let me install their add-ons in both sites but Dragonbyte required us to buy 2 licenses for all add-ons and even 2 branding removals. We did it, with hope to use the add-ons, but they stopped working on XF1

Can you please link me to the support tickets you started where you illustrated any of your purchased modifications stopped working on XF1, or is this yet another piece of information you are unable to back up with facts?

So, we purchase 6 x 2 licenses for add-ons and 2 global branding removal, and the result is ...! and more importantly, we should pay all these things to get XF2 version of them!

Yet more false information.

Even IF we were to require an upgrade fee from XF1 to XF2, it would be nowhere near the cost of a full license. For comparison, we charge $10 per license for transferring vBulletin licenses to their XF equivalents.

The idea that we would charge full price for an XF2 version if you owned an XF1 version is ridiculous, and I have to ask that you stop spreading false information.

And the worst thing is that I invite lots of people to buy all those add-ons with branding removal, and I helped 2 of them directly to buy and they are also upset and I feel bad. I won't recommend DBTech anymore to anyone until I see a very big change.

I would recommend any potential buyers of 3rd party modifications to take your entire post with a grain of salt, considering how many outright false claims you've made in this post.

If I did something to offend you and that is why you filled this thread with false information, I can only apologise. I'm sorry our products didn't meet your exact needs. I hope you will consider editing your post to remove all the false information and perhaps be a little bit more mindful before posting false information in the future.

Thank you.


Fillip

 

[DragonByte Tech]

I think that @DragonByte Tech simply entered the XenForo market too late in the game.

If we hadn't gotten told to F off by pretty much everyone back in 2012 when we first entered XenForo, perhaps we'd have a more complete portfolio available

EDIT: I wanted to clarify this point in particular. What I wanted to get across was that no-one from our team wanted to work on XF after the reception we got, albeit from a vocal minority.

That reception delayed our re-entry into XF, but I completely agree that we left our re-entry way too late. Even if we had returned a year or two earlier, the community would have been vastly different and vastly more positive.

I was anticipating a lot of their addons. But experience with xenforo developers in general have taught me the hard way to wait and see and only buy when there is a solid finished product.

None of our products are in "early access" / beta, so I would consider them all finished.

(Not counting the fact that the updated versions with XF2 support will be flagged as Beta for their initial release, of course.)

IMHO with many of the dragonbyte tech products this never happened. I have only bought 2 DBT Security licenses for $300.

2 Lifetime DB Security licenses would cost $90, although if Branding Free was required that would put the price up to $249.

For DBT Security I am hoping that @DragonByte Tech will reconsider and to an update for XF1 so that it is much more complete, integrated, refined and useful.

Reconsider what?

It won't be possible to prioritise updates for XF1 add-ons over making them available on XF2, that would make no business sense whatsoever. Every developer that does this for a living (including the XF devs themselves) are prioritising XF2, not updates for XF1 or the XF1 add-ons.


Fillip

 

[Dadparvar]

@DragonByte Tech

I'll answer your sentences one by one, to make it clear that I didn't provide anything with no supporting fact. But for further discussion, we can continue privately or new thread by you, to keep this topic on its subject.


First of all:

It won't be possible to prioritise updates for XF1 add-ons over making them available on XF2

OK. Nobody can tell you what to do, and what not to do. You are totally free to choose what to do. As we are totally free to share our experience.

although I don't want to compare people, I have to say, because the goal of this topic is to share EXPERIENCE, that ONLY 1 of Bob's add-ons (and I mean only 1!) is a lot bigger than ALL of your add-ons. He is alone, and not a Ltd. He is proving daily fixes, improvements, feature adds, documentation, support etc... and he definitely will port them all to XF2. Last feature adding was yesterday, and that single feature is bigger than 1 or 2 of your add-ons. I didn't paid him to add it, and I can't remember the last time I had a payment to him for his add-ons. Yes he marked some suggestion to be implemented in xf2, but they in fact are so big and not so important at this time even for us. But he/xon/nixfifty/x/y/z are never stopped developing xf1 versions because they have plan for xf2 (again, I didn't start this topic to say you are bad and x is good. I opened this thread to share my very own experience)

This is also 100% false. I have never, ever stated that we plan to charge for existing customers to download the XF2 versions.

While plans are never set in stone until they are actually implemented, the plan has always been to offer the XF2 versions as a free download. In fact, the plan is to offer the XF1 and XF2 versions in the same download, so if you ever were to upgrade an existing XF1 site to XF2, you wouldn't even have to download anything else.

I'm really starting to wonder where you get this information from.

Sure. Although I remember your discussion where you said something like "we have a family, we are spending time, ..." things like that (I don't say you shouldn't charge people and I don't say you have to let us freely use everything. I was just sharing my experience and info), but because RIGHT NOW you are saying this new sentence, I'll be more than happy to go ahead and update my first post. Glad to hear it. (this happened to @NixFifty as well. I told that I don't know what is their plan. But he told me his plan. And I updated my post. and this is how things should work, to provide accurate info)

Can you please link me to the support tickets you started where you illustrated any of your purchased modifications stopped working on XF1, or is this yet another piece of information you are unable to back up with facts?

I didn't say your ADD-ONS STOPPED WORKING. I said they lack some must-have features that STOP YOU FROM USING THEM. English is not my language, but aren't these 2 sentences a little bit different?

This is 100% false. I have never stopped responding to suggestions, and nowhere have I ever said that there are no more plans for XF1. I would be very much interested in a link to the post where I said there would be no more XF1 releases.

I'm struggling to understand why you would post blatantly false information like this.

For the record, the reason why I stopped updating the XF1 mods is that they all needed to be updated to support XF2. When all our existing XF1 mods are up and running on XF2, and the portfolio has been fleshed out a bit more, I will continue to update the XF1/XF2 mods, together, as they will both be updated simultaneously.

My last payment to your is around Nov 2016, and since even months before it, I'm your customer. Since we saw first XF2 ever, you stopped updating, either for improvements, or adding features (at least must-have features) although we kept posting that we are not yet started using the add-ons because of those things. All 6 add-ons of you that I listed above, have their last update in Feb, Mar, Apr.
+
You are now focusing on XF2 until you completely do your job with it. Till that time, most of big add-ons (if not all) will provide the XF2 version. So we will also upgrade to XF2.
=
We paid in early 2016 for XF1 version, and we (may) will be able to start using them one day in 2018 or 2019 in XF2.

OK we accept that you have plan to add all changes and added features of XF2 version to all XF1 and VB version of add-ons. Awesome. But it will absolutely happen when you finish your job with XF2 versions. That means, you will do it when we said goodbye to XF1. So, it means we don't care about XF1 version anymore in that time.

I'm not going to invite (at least those who purchased your add-ons after my recommendation) or other customers to say if they agree with me or not. Even me, I have good experiences using your add-ons or your support. (as you can see there is only person giving you 5 start here and that is me: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/dbtech-dragonbyte-donate.5261/)

None of our products are in "early access" / beta, so I would consider them all finished.

Anyway, a beta resource is not just a resource that has a [beta] prefix. And a Stable resource is not the one that the owner says it is. (not interested to go into details as this topic is for something else)


Again, this topic is not to complain any body, and if you take a look to my first post, I only said goodbye to 1 single resource owner, which is not you. It means I still am a fan of your works (as long as a better option is not our there!). So, calm down and keep in mind that nobody is againts anyone here. We are just sharing experiences.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

Sure. Although I remember your discussion where you said something like "we have a family, we are spending time, ..." things like that

You mean this post? Where it literally says

At this time, we have no plans to charge extra for the XF2 version, although this may be subject to change

You mean that post?

So, calm down and keep in mind that nobody is againts anyone here. We are just sharing experiences.

There's a difference between sharing experiences and making false claims, claims that 5 minutes of research would have shown were false. I do get a bit upset when someone makes false claims about me and my company.

You're free to say that you believe I don't update the XF1 mods often enough for your liking. You're free to say you won't recommend our products to anyone.
That's sharing your experience and your point of view, and that's fine.

Claiming I said things I never said, that's not fine.

Your first post still contains 2 false claims:

No more plan for XF1.

You should pay again for XF2 version (at least this is what is announces so far, if I remember, in xf2demo site).

Can you please also remove these claims from your post? Thanks!


Fillip

 

[we_are_borg]

I never had a good feeling about add-ons from DragonByte Tech or i must say from the spokes person it was a gut feeling (is this right saying) and with the posts here i can say confirmed. Instead of asking question and solve it and being a diplomate about it, its now like go in like a brute. Its basic PR 101. Even if your add-ons where the best of the best i would stay away from it how you talk to people or customers.

 

[Dadparvar]

5 minutes of research

Right. I also invite all members to have a 5 minutes research on your 6 add-ons and 5 minutes thinking on our discussion here.

Can you please also remove these claims from your post? Thanks!

Sure. As previous edit, it had to be changed as well, But forgot. My bad here.

 

[Alpha1]

Fillip,
This thread is intended as respectful and honest reviews. The critical parts written are not intended to enrage you and do not null the positive parts of my review of DragonByte Tech. I have sent quite a few customers your way and still will.

2 Lifetime DB Security licenses would cost $90, although if Branding Free was required that would put the price up to $249.

I will be happy to back up any of my factual claims directly to you, including providing payment screenshots showing a total of $293.88 USD paid.

I would consider them all finished

As said my review is my personal opinion. It relates to the functionality that I require for my sites. I have learned not to buy addons in the hope that the functions I need may eventually be added. Because this has proved not to be realistic approach. Instead I wait until its added and then buy.
I would expect that once your addons get a longer lifetime, and mature further these will likely include the functionality I need. There is no aspect of blame in this, but rather a logical result of the current age of the products and the feature freeze caused by XF2.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

I never had a good feeling about add-ons from DragonByte Tech or i must say from the spokes person it was a gut feeling (is this right saying) and with the posts here i can say confirmed. Instead of asking question and solve it and being a diplomate about it, its now like go in like a brute. Its basic PR 101. Even if your add-ons where the best of the best i would stay away from it how you talk to people or customers.

I'll be the first to admit I can be a bit hot-headed. That being said, I know our disagreement stems from the discussion regarding XF staff reviewing 3rd party mods. I've no intention of resurrecting that debate, I'm mentioning here as I believe that debate may be part of why you feel the way you do.

As said my review is my personal opinion. It relates to the functionality that I require for my sites. I have learned not to buy addons in the hope that the functions I need may eventually be added. Because this has proved not to be realistic approach. Instead I wait until its added and then buy.
I would expect that once your addons get a longer lifetime, and mature further these will likely include the functionality I need. There is no aspect of blame in this, but rather a logical result of the current age of the products.

I understand, and I apologise for coming across as antagonistic - as I said above, I can be a bit hot-headed.

I really do wish our mods was up to everyone's standards, but that's very difficult for me to achieve, especially when I'm distracted with a major undertaking like XF2 compatibility.

That being said, if you have a test site separate from your live site, I'd be happy to work with you to test the new XF1 version that has XF2 compatible code in it. If the new code base still works, we could have a sit-down and try to churn through some of your usability issues.

If that's something you would be interested in, feel free to start a conversation when you have a test board available and I'll send you the new files


Fillip

 

[Dadparvar]

I'll regret if I do not share this as well: if you check my first post, I also said some neutral (or negative maybe) sentences about @NixFifty . But this was his reactions:




@DragonByte Tech
Not as a customer, not as an xf community member, not as a complainer, not as an enemy, not as another resource owner. But as a potential friend, I want to say: I really expected a different kind of reaction from you. (I suppose you were tired and misunderstood my first post today. I hope now the post is accurate enough, and if not, feel free to contact me privately to let me know where is wrong and I'll check my post again, and we keep this topic in its own subject from now)

 

[DragonByte Tech]

Not as a customer, not as an xf community member, not as a complainer, not as an enemy, not as another resource owner. But as a potential friend, I want to say: I really expected a different kind of reaction from you. (I suppose you were tired and misunderstood my first post today. I hope now the post is accurate enough, and if not, feel free to contact me privately to let me know where is wrong and I'll check my post again, and we keep this topic in its own subject from now)

Yeah, I apologise for reacting so harshly. I shouldn't have said what I said, and certainly not the way I said it in. I interpreted the post in a completely wrong way and being tired is no excuse for the way I reacted.

I'm sorry.

I'll extend the same offer to you; if you have a test board or you can set one up, I can get you the files for the new versions for testing and for going through a few of the usability issues.


Fillip

 

[sami simo]

I'm using some add-ons from @Bob and @Xon. their products are top quality.
Bob especially is awesome when it comes to support and implementing customers suggestions. his support is simply the best, I don't think there is or there will be another developer in XF community that gives so much time and effort to customers the same way he does.
I'm also grateful to @xfrocks who provides many add-ons for free, although he deserves to be paid for his work.
I had also a very positive experience with @farang , @Russ and @Steve F.

 

[oO5 Dynasty]

Yeah, I apologise for reacting so harshly. I shouldn't have said what I said, and certainly not the way I said it in. I interpreted the post in a completely wrong way and being tired is no excuse for the way I reacted.

I'm sorry.

I'll extend the same offer to you; if you have a test board or you can set one up, I can get you the files for the new versions for testing and for going through a few of the usability issues.


Fillip

Gotta respect a man who is willing to admit his wrong doings. Much Respect!

 

[Brad Padgett]

I'd like to make a comment that @DragonByte Tech is quite an old developer who I have never had a problem with any of his free add-ons. Haven't needed to purchase any paid add-ons at the moment so I don't really have a place to vouch how they deal with customers on a paid scale, however I've been using his add-ons since he developed for vBulletin, especially the shoutbox mod and he's always been curtious, respectful, and even logged into my forum as the admin to fix a bug when his shoutbox was first released.


So I have no complaints here for dragonbyte tech, only recommending him highly to those who don't know him. I have close to 5 years experience with his add-ons and the only reason I haven't ever paid for one is because I haven't had the opportunity where my forum really needed the paid version. So far my forum has been on a low scale, trying to get things going and because of a small sickness I haven't got my forum off the ground yet. Started with my forum thexboxcloud and then finally decided on making a coding website forum that I plan to get going very soon. It should take off once I get some more active posters which I plan to work on very soon.

Anyways for dragonbyte tech I have nothing but high regards and recommendations for.

I also have recommendations for one add-on I use of @Liam W which is all rich usernames. Simple template hack but he recreated it for Xenforo 2 which I haven't tried yet. Good for coloring usernames on your site. Always found this mod useful.

Style creators I recommend themescorp for the decorating aspect of a forum. Things seem to look much more unique on his side of forum styles and by looking at the code I have always been able to see the amount of work he puts into it. He's good at what he does.

Other add-ons I've used is @Brogan and his cta featured threads. While im at that I'll point out that the OP had a great add-on for changing the layout of cta featured threads and I used to use his add-on (@Dadparvar).

To add [bd] medal was one of my favorites even though I never set up using it yet. Went to @xfrocks site to vote for it being added to Xenforo 2. Hopefully it will. WidgetFramework is what everyone uses and was a neccesity for my forum as well.

I've used other add-ons too but those are just a few creators I recommend.

 

[Dad.]

Appreciate the feedback. We've admitted attempting to support the add-ons we were asked to support from other devs (very few were bought) was unwise and something I've admitted many times, just something I'll have to live with. We are asking our beta team to help weed out anything that doesn't work. So far everything we are aware of is bug free.

XenForo 2 will be just simply amazing products that work and work well. Nothing gets released without documentation, test installs, and thorough feedback from our internal team and our new beta team as well. Actions are being taken. And we only have around 30 to 40 add-ons we plan to release. Definitely looking forward to continuing to prove this by by example.

 

[Dixie McCall]

With all do respect. I've been with Themehouse for about two months now and so far support has been great as is my hosting with them. IN fact, recently I've transferred multiple domains to them and it was a seamless process. No problems with their xf1 add ons whatsoever. XF2 is fresh and so are the add-ons for it so I doubt anyone here isn't expecting to update add-ons until things with XF2 become fully stable. With this exception of one person here offering hosting, I've had nothing but good support for add-ons and we've been with Xenforo since nearly the beginning. I'm not a coder so I cannot vouch for technical ability but I've had on multiple occasions, people reaching out to me to help when I had a dev issue. Xenforo isn't perfect, but the alternative well.... fill in the blank.

 

[Dixie McCall]

@whitesky -support and response has been great as well.