*copies n paste a previous post I made today*
There are a lot of pros and cons to switching over to xenforo. I'll go over some of em.
Modifications
CON: I've seen IPB and been on some IPB forums. I think it's a good forum software. Their Bookie modification has way more options than the vBookie for vBulletin.
www.xenfluence.com has a better Bookie modification for xenforo called Pickem and Sportsbook though. Coming from vBulletin 4 myself, I miss modifications like X-Box Leaderboards, Live Thread and All Topics. If you switch over, you will be making a sacrifice if you can't find equivalents to your old modifications. How important are your modifications to your community? A couple members stopped posting when I switched over to Xenforo. I think a lot are real disappointed about losing their vBookie eMoney and Arcade feature. The Arcade that is available needs a ton of work and you'll have trouble trying to get scores to save due to the way it's set up.
Mobile Options
CON: There is no mobile app for xenforo. You can use a third party app like Tapatalk and Forumrunner though. The only mobile style I've seen is xFStop which isn't updated to 1.1. I have not seen any other mobile styles for sale. You will have to create your own or ask a coder to make you one.
No official CMS, Blogging or Album add-ons.
PRO: Xenporta is awesome. The xenporta thread is huge because the thread author didn't include a manual but you can read about it here:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenporta-user-guide-and-faq.24241/ I like xenporta way more than vBCMS and Wordpress/Forum integration. Not so much because of the layout options etc but due to the thoroughness of integration between almost every modification you install on your xenforo site.
CON: As far as blogs go, vBulletin has Xenforo beat in the blogs area due to the amount of features it has. LNBlog for Xenforo is way easier to use than vBulletin or Wordpress Blogs though. You can hit the 'Like' button for blog entries and comments. For extra features, you would probably have to integrate your site with Wordpress if you want the most blogging options or heavily modify LNBlogs to your own specifications which is what I did. Main reason I say this is a con is because coming from vBulletin Blogs, I miss trackbacks, pingbacks, the ability to click on a thread post and turn it into a blog post with one click, who visited your blog and blog background customization etc.
PRO: XFR User Albums. It's easier and more intuitive than vBAlbums or even something sophisticated like Photopost. You can comment and 'Like' albums and photos. There are Public and Private Albums. Public Albums and pics are viewable only if your logged in and have met the album permissions requirement listed above. Private Albums cannot be seen by regular members. You can post a pic link from your private album if you post the direct url though. You can display random or latest photos in the forum home, sidebar and there's even a xenporta block available for it as well.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
PRO: My site was stagnant. Before switching over, my site stayed at a constant 200,000 US ranking for the past 5 months. After switching over to xenforo my site jumped up to 45,000 US in a span of 3 months. I didn't really do anything special. I'm not sure how it happened because members made less threads, less blogs and I lost my arcade. For this reason alone, Xenforo is the savior of forum software, even if vBulletin is the most powerful. You don't need any snake oil forum modifications like vbSEO to increase your rank. It's right out the box. It's amazing.
Speed and Intuitiveness
PRO: A good amount of my forum members have never joined a forum before. Explaining vBulletin to them was a pain. With Xenforo, I don't have to do much but slightly guide them in the right direction because Xenforo is intuitive out the box with a short learning curve. The alerts system and member account menus are very easy to get around to. It's like the best features from vBulletin and Facbook were brought here and married together in perfect harmony. My forum is super fast now. The only thing missing was a bachelor party.
Styling
PRO: I love it. It's awesome. All of the forum themes on my forum use the default forum template with slight adjustments in color/wallpaper etc. This way whenever I upgrade the site there will be less template edits I need to do. Because default xenforo looks so great, that's an added plus which is why I don't have to change it much.
