Half way through creating a forum with phpbb I made another research to confirm if that is my final choice of software I want to use. Not sure how it happened but I have not seen all the cons of phpbb earlier (I think I was heading toward free option forum). So few days ago I was hesitating between mybb and xenForo. And today xenForo is the direction. I think the price of xenForo is significant point to consider... but if you take market available options (and own needs) it seems like a fair option. 
And what my forum aiming size is? Tens millions of posts of course...
Anyway I have researched biggest xenForo forums on the net and I am pretty aware of basic functionality from the user experience side.
You might feel the questions are a bit overthinkers but I like to think big despite the fact that I am not professionally connected to any kind of IT job.
So here is my list:
1) Do you get continous/any security patches with the version you buy? If yes, what happening after the 12 months period when you do not continue with support? Is it difficult to update the forum?
2) Refering to a test-version on a password protected website. Can you get that version without paying on password protected website? Can you also get paid extensions for free to see how they interact with each other? Or do you need to ask every developer separately? Basically I would like to create test version of my forum and see how it works before purchase. Remember I wanted to start with beautifuly-free phpbb.
3) What are servers requirements for a forum with 100K, 1M, 10M, 50M posts. How many of them do you need? Is there a problem with separating forum on few servers, do you actually do it? Do you need to employ a developer from certain size of the forum if you do not have experience? Only rough estimates please or some suggestions. I know it is dependent from extensions etc. I am thinking about forum with blogs for users, maybe some pictures and quite rich in throphies, points, badges etc., adverts. Maybe you know some examples.
4) Looking at the biggest xenForo sites seems like they all are fairly similar (like no additional work have been done):
a)Do you think they have lots of additional code developed by third party programers?
b)I have not noticed forum rich in thorphies/badges/points at once. It normally look like they use one extension maybe two. I would probably like to use few. Are there any know issues of incompability if you use few? Do you have any guidance like...do not use more than two user performance extensions?
5) I would like to have an extension to Media Wiki. Seems like no effective one exist. How much would that cost? Can I ask a programmer who is familair in a subject or xenForo team can do it?
6) Thinking about saving my own server resources....Some forum have exensive gallery developed (for example disney forum)on their platform which can be nicely used. Is there any way you can use other sites like Instagram or Pintrest to store a pictures and just make some links on the xenForo website.
7) Extension detail question: There is an extension (not sure which one is that) which allows to give badges after user donated/paid in participating in something. Then the badge appears in a user profile. I have notice that maximum of badges appearing is 9. Not sure if this is correct. Anyway, can you set the limit of badges that are appearing on user profile and once someone click on user then whole list of badges appears? It is looks a bit messy to me when all that badges are directly near the messages.
8) I saw there is an option to put color category (like a tag) block near the thread. Is there an option to give two of those? For example [Football], [Country]? Do you need extension for that?
9) I would like to give automatic titles to users depending on group(s) they belong, amounts of post, times, points gathered etc. Is there a system to unify it all?
For example minimal requirements to get into a group is: user who registered >6mths ago, wrote 20 posts, belong to at least one group, donated once and helped 10 times get a certain badge. Does that looks complicated?
10) If forum drops dead for some reason, what support xenForo can give? How quick can you get the answer?
11) (edited)...What is the cheapest way of starting additional copy forum in another language... With same extensions would that cost same as first forum? Do you think few days would be enough to start and test?
As you can see I have done my amateur (over)thinking on the subject.
Thanks for all advices.
And what my forum aiming size is? Tens millions of posts of course...
Anyway I have researched biggest xenForo forums on the net and I am pretty aware of basic functionality from the user experience side.
You might feel the questions are a bit overthinkers but I like to think big despite the fact that I am not professionally connected to any kind of IT job.
So here is my list:
1) Do you get continous/any security patches with the version you buy? If yes, what happening after the 12 months period when you do not continue with support? Is it difficult to update the forum?
2) Refering to a test-version on a password protected website. Can you get that version without paying on password protected website? Can you also get paid extensions for free to see how they interact with each other? Or do you need to ask every developer separately? Basically I would like to create test version of my forum and see how it works before purchase. Remember I wanted to start with beautifuly-free phpbb.
3) What are servers requirements for a forum with 100K, 1M, 10M, 50M posts. How many of them do you need? Is there a problem with separating forum on few servers, do you actually do it? Do you need to employ a developer from certain size of the forum if you do not have experience? Only rough estimates please or some suggestions. I know it is dependent from extensions etc. I am thinking about forum with blogs for users, maybe some pictures and quite rich in throphies, points, badges etc., adverts. Maybe you know some examples.
4) Looking at the biggest xenForo sites seems like they all are fairly similar (like no additional work have been done):
a)Do you think they have lots of additional code developed by third party programers?
b)I have not noticed forum rich in thorphies/badges/points at once. It normally look like they use one extension maybe two. I would probably like to use few. Are there any know issues of incompability if you use few? Do you have any guidance like...do not use more than two user performance extensions?
5) I would like to have an extension to Media Wiki. Seems like no effective one exist. How much would that cost? Can I ask a programmer who is familair in a subject or xenForo team can do it?
6) Thinking about saving my own server resources....Some forum have exensive gallery developed (for example disney forum)on their platform which can be nicely used. Is there any way you can use other sites like Instagram or Pintrest to store a pictures and just make some links on the xenForo website.
7) Extension detail question: There is an extension (not sure which one is that) which allows to give badges after user donated/paid in participating in something. Then the badge appears in a user profile. I have notice that maximum of badges appearing is 9. Not sure if this is correct. Anyway, can you set the limit of badges that are appearing on user profile and once someone click on user then whole list of badges appears? It is looks a bit messy to me when all that badges are directly near the messages.
8) I saw there is an option to put color category (like a tag) block near the thread. Is there an option to give two of those? For example [Football], [Country]? Do you need extension for that?
9) I would like to give automatic titles to users depending on group(s) they belong, amounts of post, times, points gathered etc. Is there a system to unify it all?
For example minimal requirements to get into a group is: user who registered >6mths ago, wrote 20 posts, belong to at least one group, donated once and helped 10 times get a certain badge. Does that looks complicated?
10) If forum drops dead for some reason, what support xenForo can give? How quick can you get the answer?
11) (edited)...What is the cheapest way of starting additional copy forum in another language... With same extensions would that cost same as first forum? Do you think few days would be enough to start and test?
As you can see I have done my amateur (over)thinking on the subject.
Thanks for all advices.
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