Thinking about a move from vB 3.8.6

Jeff Fuqua

Well-known member
I've been running vB since 2000 but am considering a move to XenForo. For those of you who has recently made the decision, what should a non-techie (like myself) consider before making a decision?

I'm compiling a list of features I use hacks now for. I would probably need help in making the transition along with help designing a custom skin.

Any suggestions appreciated.
 
Jeff, "non-techie" here. Honestly, played around with vB for a while, never felt comfortable. Decided to go against the grain (at the time), got xen, and I have never enjoyed doing forum stuff as much as now.

Between Brogan, Jake, Floris, and a slew of others, any questions you could possibly find will be answered. Tons of features, the best add-ons I have come across (mesh very well with xenForo, almost looks to be a core addition), help that you will not get or find anywhere else.

Simply put, scroll up, purchase, start the conversion, come back once you are running and start selecting the add-ons you need. This is the easiest forum software I ahve came across, and I actually feel pretty comfortable going in and editing things.
 
I moved from vB3.8 having used it for a very long time. I found Xenforo very easy to style. The import from vB was very smooth. You will be missing some features that vB has, some of these can be put back in through add-ons, some can't, but on balance you won't miss them (I haven't). There are lots of ex-vB users here who will try and help if you need it.
 
Jeff, "non-techie" here. Honestly, played around with vB for a while, never felt comfortable. Decided to go against the grain (at the time), got xen, and I have never enjoyed doing forum stuff as much as now.
I just visited your site and your front page has a ton of nice features. Integration with Facebook is important to me (and don't have it now). Is your front page XF "out-of-the-box", add-ons or custom code?

I think I need to spend some time checking out some XF sites.
 
Yes you can install it on the same (or different) host/server, for example in a different directory. Run it for a bit, style it, get your staff or mods in to have a play, also useful to do a test import from vB to make sure it goes OK. I did it this way, rather than install it locally on a PC as suggested above, so staff could also go in and get used to it. When you have finished styling it, you can save the style out to use it when you change over for real.
 
What I have learned over the past few years has come from tinkering but the bulk of what I have learned has come from here. My first purchase was at launch and I have added more since. The software is easy to learn and modify. When I get that occasional brain-fart, I know that I can stop by here and get the answers either through the extensive support documentation found throughout the site here or by posting a question.
 
I have not migrated VBs to XF (to be honest I'm apprehensive since the last migration from MyBB to VB caused all the links to stop working (couldn't handle the re-write between the 2 scripts), but I have started a forum just to test XF. I am so thrilled with it, it's crazy. It's so clean and nice. If I'll start any other forum (which I hope I won't :D), XF is the way to go. The support here has also been tremendous.
 
I have not migrated VBs to XF (to be honest I'm apprehensive since the last migration from MyBB to VB caused all the links to stop working (couldn't handle the re-write between the 2 scripts), but I have started a forum just to test XF. I am so thrilled with it, it's crazy. It's so clean and nice. If I'll start any other forum (which I hope I won't :D), XF is the way to go. The support here has also been tremendous.

Off topic, but in the case of double imports it is possible to setup redirects with some extra effort. Here is an example:

http://xenforo.com/community/thread...-to-xenforo-with-redirects.29979/#post-344747
 
I have not migrated VBs to XF (to be honest I'm apprehensive since the last migration from MyBB to VB caused all the links to stop working (couldn't handle the re-write between the 2 scripts), but I have started a forum just to test XF. I am so thrilled with it, it's crazy. It's so clean and nice. If I'll start any other forum (which I hope I won't :D), XF is the way to go. The support here has also been tremendous.
We very recently migrated 9 years worth of vBulletin posts to XF, about 3,200,000+ posts and it went without a hitch with none of the problems you described. We also changed our domain name at the same time and so we have all vBulletin content on the old domain redirecting to the same content in XF on the new domain.

e.g. http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10692 redirects perfectly to http://www.valvetime.net/threads/i-need-the-assistance-of-the-community.10692/
 
We very recently migrated 9 years worth of vBulletin posts to XF, about 3,200,000+ posts and it went without a hitch with none of the problems you described.
Did you have to shut down your vB site during the transition? How long did it take? I have around 650k messages.

I was thinking I'd setting up the XF site on the same server as my vB site just so I can get it right before the transfer. Do you have to use the same url as the vB site?

Maybe someone needs to point me to a how-to so I don't ask too many questions here. ;)
 
Did you have to shut down your vB site during the transition? How long did it take? I have around 650k messages.

I was thinking I'd setting up the XF site on the same server as my vB site just so I can get it right before the transfer. Do you have to use the same url as the vB site?

Maybe someone needs to point me to a how-to so I don't ask too many questions here. ;)
Yes, we shut down vB during the transition. We had several days of down time but during that time we were adding content, fixing bugs and implementing new features. In terms of the vB to XF import it took around 24 hours. A lot of this time was taken by rebuilding the caches etc.

If you're talking about vBulletin being installed at www.yoursite.com/forums and wanting XenForo at www.yoursite.com/community then no you don't have to use the same URL as the vB site. As demonstrated by my post above, you don't even have to keep the same domain name, though I don't recommend this as it completely destroyed our Google PageRank. Some configurations, especially if you're doing redirection from vBulletin to XenForo may require some advanced set up in terms of URL rewrite. But I'm sure there's plenty of support here who will help :)
 
Since I can't post in the third-party forum, what is the going rate to have someone do the following:

Install (I see the XF folks do it for $50)
Custom skin design
Add-on installation (if this happens like vB, I can probably handle this)
Transfer everything from vB

I may be able to handle some of this but would prefer to have someone with more experience handle the bulk of it.
 
Since I can't post in the third-party forum, what is the going rate to have someone do the following:

Install (I see the XF folks do it for $50)
Custom skin design
Add-on installation (if this happens like vB, I can probably handle this)
Transfer everything from vB

I may be able to handle some of this but would prefer to have someone with more experience handle the bulk of it.
I'm sending you a PM.
 
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