Should I Buy XenForo? Your Advice Needed!

=MGN=RedEagle

Well-known member
Hello all,

I am an Invision lover who only found out about Xen a few months ago. I started running forums about 10 years ago with PHPbb, invision free etc

I have just gotten back onto the forum ball in the last 4 months. I need to know if I should coninute making my forums with Invision or if all my future forums should be with Xenforo.

Here's the deal, I run a huge social network of several million people on Facebook. I want freedom from dependency on Facebook so I am creating my own forum for all the niches my fans love. I have several large fanpages so I need several forums to satisfy them. I love really like Invision as a techy myself but my fans find it backwards. I am thinking they will like Xenforo more but I am afraid to just to such a new technology.

I would love your advice.

The forum needs to be easy to use, easy to sign up for (even if the visitor is 60+) and easy to return to (visitors should be promoted to return).
 
Well XenForo is all about the "less is more" motto, it's extremely easy to use and register even for the most novice person. If they can use Facebook, they can more than likely use XenForo just as easy.

My advice to you is to simply role out a test site, start with one of the niches and see how well it does. :)

Many folks who have come from IPB say that the interface of XenForo is so much easier to work with, I'm a phpBB myself so can't comment to much on IPB but it's a dream come true compared to phpBB.

Also you can try out an admin demo here if you wanted to look more into the backend(if you haven't already:))
 
I don't think you can go wrong with Invision or xenForo. But if your member base has difficulty with invision, try one community with xenForo first before making the giant leap of converting all of them to xenForo.
 
xenForo has a Facebook integration feature that can easily be setup. whether the user/guest has a facebook account or not, xenForo can manage/link the facebook account to your site's account. users have the option of associating/linking their facebook with yoursite.
 
It shouldn't matter what we think, asking this question here will get you all yes's. Whatever is more appealing to you and meet your needs you should go for. If you like phpbb go for it, same with IPB if you want xenforo buy it. Its your choice and you should decide.
 
Hello all,
Hello and welcome to the community :)

I am an Invision lover who only found out about Xen a few months ago. I started running forums about 10 years ago with PHPbb, invision free etc
I have just gotten back onto the forum ball in the last 4 months. I need to know if I should coninute making my forums with Invision or if all my future forums should be with Xenforo.
pastejob
The forum needs to be easy to use, easy to sign up for (even if the visitor is 60+) and easy to return to (visitors should be promoted to return).
I want freedom from dependency on Facebook so I am creating my own forum for all the niches my fans love. I have several large fanpages so I need several forums to satisfy them. I love really like Invision as a techy myself but my fans find it backwards. I am thinking they will like Xenforo more but I am afraid to just to such a new technology.

If your asking from person to person yes get it right now do it do it do it :) ...Generally speaking however...if your users can sign up for facebook they should be able to with ease register at @a XenForo board. The way things are displayed by default makes it pretty obvious to anyone how to do the basic things and the small details are things people pick up along the way so your pretty safe as far as user friendly goes. Not to mention 1,000,000 users who have facebook already (I'm assuming as I can't pretend to know much about facebook) joining a forum would be the most awesome thing ever IMO but it would be awesome to say the least to see a board run a million registrations :-).

And Wow millions...congrats...the choice to have freedom and independently manage your own content was what made me like forum software so I understand your wanting to host your own database rather than a facebook centralized one.

I have to ask...what is it that you are afraid of?

I would love your advice.
With all that information laid out you make for an easy assessment that just beckons a response when ending with such a friendly invitation. :-)
 
Thanks for the great advice EQ! "I have to ask...what is it that you are afraid of?" - Losing it all to a little Facebook change. Small changes mean big things for people like me. What if Facebook says that all of a sudden Fanpages don't show up in the news feed? I would then be toast. Facebook changes quickly and many such changes have at times left me in the dust (I do not blame them). I just need the peace of mind that comes with being in control.
 
Well you could simply start building a forum up and corresponding style to suit...in the meantime you can filter in little by little your tree of facebook people...maybe trying to acclimate your prospective moderators to the ins and outs of how it works and then as the content starts building if even thousands of your millions of potential members register you won't be flooded with moderation duties.

Also you have to remember as far as styles go...you can make a style and easily change the colors (via the color palette in seconds) in the admin control panel and then you can have users be able to choose the style they like and that doesn't really ever have to change down the road...you can just add new styles when you want to. I can record an example if you would like to see how quick it is...in fact the actual recoding and uploading takes longer than the style customizations :).
 
Welcome!

As Susan and I are still weighing and comparing those exact platforms, I totally understand your position.

From my perspective, it would come down to what functionality you need. If all you need is an awesome, fun, engaging Forum system, with maybe a nice homepage showcasing selected content from the forums, a nice community blog solution (Onimua's LN Blog is quite well done and adding features regularly) and some misc addons, than XF would be my hands down choice. :)

If you plan on monetizing the site via eCommerce, have an extensive Gallery (though there is currently one XF gallery addon and another is expected someday soon(ish) ) etc. Well, IPS has an amazing breadth of existing functionality as I'm sure you know much better than I do! ;)

I would probably suggest getting a single XF license and doing one of your sites with it and see how you like it? You'll probably be a convert shortly. :)
I would however, probably hold off on any major decisions (migrating existing sites etc) until you see what IP.B 3.2 brings, they are making a LOT of good changes from what I've seen.
 
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