Should I leave vBulletin?

Paul Gowder

Paul Gowder

New member
I'm trying to decide on what to do with my forum. I realize this may be a biased crowd since I'm posting on a xenForo forum, but...

I'm currently on vB 3.8.
www.powwows.com/gathering

It's a pretty large vB install with 70k+ users.

My first question is what large sites are running xenForo now in production?

I've considered moving to vB 4x but I hear mixed reviews. Any experiences here with moving from 3,8 to 4?

Our Pow Wow calendar is integrated into vB to pull user info. How difficult is it to do that same type of integration with xenForo?

Thanks!
 
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Hi,

I am in a somewhat similar position.

I am a business coach by profession. People hire me to advise them on such decisions.

I can tell you that holding on to outdated technology only becomes more painful (read "expensive") as time goes on.

3.6 3.8 are by far the best vb's when it comes to modifications. You are talking years of developers coding skins and mods. Great and useful stuff.

BUT it is old style coding and getting older by the second...facebook was still a fad then, and mobile was painfully slow, php 5 was now it, ajax was the talk of the town and jquery was ??????

I can't imagine how difficult it will be to streamline 3.x to todays and tomorrows standards over the next 18 months.

Why build on an old foundation? One that will be harder and harder to update, upgrade, maintain, bug fix and find people skilled enough to work on. Would you still use an old cgi based forum simply because it has a lot of members? I hope not. (I know some places that do!)

I personally have decided to switch and switch now...

starting with one main project, then bringing the others (my own AND my clients) to something new and robust.

not quite sure what that is yet though.

KEEP IN MIND 3.x was JELSOFT..and they rocked
different company.

This 4.x is CRAP from IB. STAY AWAY, do NOT upgrade UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCT to 4.anything.

It is also highly unlikely 5 will be anything more than a way to inspire false hope but to keep things going like it has the last 2 years (yes 2 years since they "leaked" the info about vb4 coming out)

Just login to the vb community area (the one for PAYING CUSTOMERS ONLY - funny how they do that) and look at all the complaints about vb4 that have persisted and not been addressed.

I am not yet 100% confident in xenforo, but so far it is at the top of my shortlist. If for no other reason than the fact that it is using current methodologies and is poised for the future. To grow with the new is easier than trying to keep up with the up old.

just my 2 cents and I don't own xen...yet.
 
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Paul Gowder said:
I'm trying to decide on what to do with my forum. I realize this may be a biased crowd since I'm posting on a xenForo forum, but...

I'm currently on vB 3.8.
www.powwows.com/gathering

It's a pretty large vB install with 70k+ users.

My first question is what large sites are running xenForo now in production?

I've considered moving to vB 4x but I hear mixed reviews. Any experiences here with moving from 3,8 to 4?

Our Pow Wow calendar is integrated into vB to pull user info. How difficult is it to do that same type of integration with xenForo?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I'm all for vB3.8.

I would steer away from vB4 for now. Unless they start FIXING things with it.

XF is a good move, BUT it depends on the mods your using. Because XF is still new and many mods may not be available for you to use yet or not made yet. So that might be a downside for now.

I can say XF seems to be faster and more optimized compared to vB4. So you definitely will notice a speed increase over vB3.8 and vB4.

I'm not giving biased advice here.

So here it is:

If you find all the mods are available for your forum on XF, and you can edit a skin or make one. Then I'd say port over.

If the opposite, then stay on 3.8 till XF has the mods needed. Or you "could" wait for vB4 to get better. But at this rate, I think your better off waiting till vB5 if you want to wait for a vB route.
 
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The case is being heard during the 10am session, not at 10am. It may be hours before we know anything, depending on how many cases are scheduled to be heard during the same session.
 
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Well I will not be wishing Kier luck on this as the truth does not require or associate with luck directly and since he has the truth on his side we will save the luck for the four-leafed clovers , horseshoes, and rabbits-feet of the world. I am confident that regardless how what is presented the, people/group presiding over this case will see the frivolous aura of the claims against XF. I have some faith left in humanity.

I also will not advise what to do...I can say however I am a noob by which you can tell by looking on the vb boards and from when I first started with this. I technically can't code, yet XF allows my little snippets to run inline with the forum and actually work. The styling is simple enough to be able minus the obvious logos and such of course...to skin your site from the administrative control panel in minutes. I will also say jquery. The last and most important thing I can say is..Welcome to the community Paul.
 
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Should I leave vBulletin?
Click to expand...

Hell Yes !!

Do you still listen to Madonna and fall for her stunts ???

image570735x.jpg
 
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another thing I will not tell you to do but something I will tell you...I just updated and because of the way the acp is setup...I now finally understand what reverting a template will do and because of the automatic direction of templates that were out of date, I was able to analyze my changes which were in default templates where they probably shouldn't have been copy and paste my changes to a txt doc and figure out a way to re do them in a way that will remain completely intact. All this without breaking my board in less than 10 minutes...(30 if you count the time I zoned out watching a bad tv show) .. I can honestly say XenForo is solid like plutonic rock and I am developing a platonic love for the software. It is helping me learn how to do things......priceless.
 
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And now that the case is proceeding, I really have to question whether I move now.

It's in vbulletin's best interest to drag the case out as long as they can.

But for me I'm worried about investing time and money in to xenforo when the future of the software is still in doubt.
 
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Paul Gowder said:
And now that the case is proceeding, I really have to question whether I move now.

It's in vbulletin's best interest to drag the case out as long as they can.

But for me I'm worried about investing time and money in to xenforo when the future of the software is still in doubt.
Click to expand...
Why? You would still have a license with XenForo.
You think XenForo is going to go away? It's just going to pick up momentum.
Staying with vB is not even an option.
 
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Paul Gowder said:
And now that the case is proceeding, I really have to question whether I move now.

It's in vbulletin's best interest to drag the case out as long as they can.

But for me I'm worried about investing time and money in to xenforo when the future of the software is still in doubt.
Click to expand...

Sure it is, because they read this forum and know that many are holding off due to the legal case, they should also understand that none of the folk waiting would stay on vB as long as Bob Brisco and Internet Brands controls the software, my options are still open, I could run over to phpBB, stay on vB 3 until the script no longer works with modern web servers or close the dumps down altogether.
 
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iTuN3r said:
I wouldn't worry about the case on moment cause we know at some point xenforo will overcome this problem.
Click to expand...

No, you really don't know that.

I'm running a business. It may not be in the best interest of my business to build my infrastructure on a product that may or may not be around.

I just don't know yet. But the uncertainty does raise some concerns for me. Do the great features of xenforo out weigh that? Maybe.
 
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Paul Gowder said:
No, you really don't know that.

I'm running a business. It may not be in the best interest of my business to build my infrastructure on a product that may or may not be around.

I just don't know yet. But the uncertainty does raise some concerns for me. Do the great features of xenforo out weigh that? Maybe.
Click to expand...
Then no one can make that decision but you.
There is no magic 8 ball.

Added: It may be some time until the fate is known.
If your business needs to make a decision, weigh your other options with what you know now.
 
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Paul Gowder said:
It may not be in the best interest of my business to build my infrastructure on a product that may or may not be around.

I just don't know yet. But the uncertainty does raise some concerns for me.
Click to expand...

Some parties not associated with XenForo probably count on just that

So now you see why these frivolous allegations have been brought to not one but two countries...they have no case...they are counting on xf folding in court before they have to up their ante and deliver a solid product current with the times. Little have they learned however, you can't hide problems in the snow forever....it will melt one day. People are not being snowed any more.
 
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All the lawsuits have done IMHO is work against IB: IB has ticked off enough customers that they are following the development team (Kier, Mike et al.), and modification authors have been pulling their support for vB plugins as well. IB's plan has somewhat backfired on them. Rather than squash the competition, they drove their own customers away, to the same competition they are trying to stop.

Had I known XF was going to be here, I would have not renewed our vB license for 4.0, especially seeing how its performance suffers, and how little users like it.

XF is off to a good start, and I have not hesitated to base a new group of sites around my new XF forum installation. What choices do I have anyway? phpBB3 is just totally mucked up (the admin side is way too confusing), SMF's development is pretty much stalled, vB is out of favor with me (unless I used 3.8), and I know too little about the others out there to be confident in using them. They're all still sort of stuck in the old UBB style of forum layouts--XF just seems like it's more in tune with where internet discussions and social networking are headed. The fact that my users are now participating a lot more, makes me think that XF is doing something better than the others out there.
 
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One more comment, then I'll "put a sock in it," as my friends are fond of saying... ;)

I know from a business sense, XF is a new and relatively untested product (it's not even "gold" yet), and the future is uncertain regarding the outcome of the lawsuits at hand. But even in business, you have to take chances, and often your gut instinct is the right one. I did not hesitate to install this forum on a new group of sites. Reasons? The development team is known. The pre-release product feels professional and finished. It is in active development, and the product is advanced beyond the others out there. It's a gamble I'm willing to take, and quite a safe one in my opinion.
 
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Not sure if you can see this (more than likely can) but here is a thread where 142 people have switched over to XenForo from various forum softwares: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/show-us-your-xf.9236/

To switch over from any software you need to consider what do you need out of the software. If you desperately need all the fancy addons/mods and styles/skins right now, then you should probably post pone switching to XenForo until they've released a "gold" version (which shouldn't be too far now) so that developers can catch up to the changes.
This software isn't that hard to change, upgrade, degrade, transfer, etc, but it is smoother and more fluid than many other forum software that I've came across. It is also designed, out of the box, to be a social item. So you can utilize Facebook and Twitter to promote your site and to keep in touch with your members.
 
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I missed many of the posts, however I will say that you need to get away from Vbulletin. Note, you don't have to move to XenForo, it might not be the right software for you, but that you should definately move away from Vbulletin. Move anywhere, but don't stay there.
 
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Paul Gowder said:
I'm running a business. It may not be in the best interest of my business to build my infrastructure on a product that may or may not be around.
Click to expand...

I am in the same boat and you have to make a decision. Nobody here can make the decision for you.
If you want to know my decision (and I have hold it off for months): I am beginning to convert my sites from vb to Xenforo. The reason? The user experience is so much better and this this gives me a competitive advantage over other sites. Even if this only would last for two years. Two years are a long time in the Internet age.

If there would be not Xenforo available I would have converted to IPB. Not as nice as Xenforo but they have plenty of options available and at least it works.
 
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