Drupal 8 isn't hard, its just different from what forum builders are accustom to. CMS building takes time. Especially when it is so open ended, meaning... how do you know what you want, or can do...
until you start building it. Its like endless amounts of Lego's.
The past versions of Drupal were pretty complicated for everyone but those days are gone. Its a core open to the world of plugins.
Stock Drupal 8 is setup to install and start building a CMS. The complicated thing about Drupal 8 is when you start to expand individual needs and have to figure out how to do it sensibly. But its also fun because you know its possible.
The stock install is all most people need but once you discover how open it is, you will be amazed and without question, start thinking outside the box. At that point you need to put your thinking hat on and take time to learn how to get it to do what you want.
If you run into problems, need advise... online tutorials are very helpful. The Drupal community is like a Xenforo community. We all want it to keep growing and become greater. The add-ons available are massive and free. However, there are also others, just like here where people build things and may charge a fee too.
The contributors and core coders take security and improvement very serious. Updating is easy as well. Add-ons, including themes can all be installed from your CPAdmin. You simply find modules (plugins) to try, copy/paste the link of a module into your CPAdmin, hit upload and it installs right from the Drupal database. If you don't like it, you uninstall it much the same as xenForo. Its direct link to link.
The minds behind Drupal are brilliant and in constant touch with "today". I may be making this sound simple because I understand it but I am also not a coder.
I know enough to keep learning because I realize how much more it offers than just a forum. There are thousands of forums and they are all the same. They offer not much more than the next one, So we pick a forum and hang there until someone else repeats it.
I have been running forums since 1998 and right from the beginning of those years (I'm sure others can relate) , I have always wished for a CMS around my forums. Its finally here.
So, I am planning to migrate a xenForo forum to Drupal forum this coming winter. Its not intended to replace xenForo, its intended to move on from forums, thus using the past forum content and expand into a CMS that goes way beyond a closed in system.
I believe we have reached a time where we need to work with open source cores like Drupal or Joomla etc. Where we have a main core that is designed to expand the excellence of other modules. I don't believe xenForo has the ability to be the core. I see it as a plugin to a global system.
As an example: In the music recording world, the companies growing are modular. Meaning, I choose a core recording system (called a DAW) that opens my recording studio up to a hybrid system that allows me to use other third party "software or hardware" to create the perfect recording system for me.
My main recording software (DAW) has all the basic essentials (same as example Drupal). My DAW ( core) has the ability to install plugins to expand my needs.
The recording world is no different to a xenForo / Drupal world. I want a xenForo forum plugin for my CMS. If xenForo doesn't find a way for me to use it in my main core (Drupal), then I will be motivated to drop it the moment I find another way to get a forum (close enough) inside Drupal.
Drupal has a Forum already that works flawlessly, its just not much of a forum in comparison to xenForo. Does it matter? That I don't know yet but what I do know, if someone comes along with a better forum plug-in, I will be all on it. Drupal forums work like articles or pages with comments. You can include deeper linking to posts that cross reference and expand into other sections of the the CMS. Everything from a personal website to a huge corporation is possible.
I would like to see a xenForo Drupal plugin. If it was possible, I would pay 5 times for a xenForo Drupal plugin. Plugins are where it's at. Drupal is open to the world and growing.
I don't see the logic of ever trying to make a Forum into what Drupal does, or where its going.
In a nut shell... I want a xenForo plugin for my Drupal CMS. Not the other way around.
That's how I see it.
