Thinking about switching from vB4

[StephenK]

Hello and thank you to all in advance for answering my questions.

Currently I own a vB4 license that I was using for a gaming community. I have recently taken the site down and I am looking to start a new site from scratch. I'd rather not build the new site with vB4 due to it's outdated look; even with custom themes I find vB4 to be very flat looking and the design looks like something out of the 90's. I was considering purchasing a vB5 license and sticking with VB because I am familiar with it and I find it relatively easy to use and I like the fact that there is built in CMS.

Before I make a final decision though, I figured I would take a look to see what other options are out there such as Xenforo. I have played around a bit with the demo and I have a few questions that I was hoping I could get some answers to as follows:

- Does Xenforo have a PayPal donation mod? I was using Dragonbytes mod for VB4 and it worked wonderful.
- Will Xenforo work on mobile devices? If so, does it displays a full site or is there a mobile version?
- Is there a CMS for Xenforo? If not, I was considering using Joomla and perhaps looking for a way to integrate Xenforo into Joomla, can this be done?
- How good is Xenforo and stopping spam registration accounts? Are there any effective mods that can help with this?
- How secure is Xenforo compared to other popular forum software?
- Finally, how good is the support with Xenforo?

Once again thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

[dieketzer]

im trying to think of a circumstance in which vb is better...
i will have to get back to you on that.

 

[StephenK]

Thanks for the reply but you didn't answer any of my questions.

 

[oman]

Hello and thank you to all in advance for answering my questions.

Currently I own a vB4 license that I was using for a gaming community. I have recently taken the site down and I am looking to start a new site from scratch. I'd rather not build the new site with vB4 due to it's outdated look; even with custom themes I find vB4 to be very flat looking and the design looks like something out of the 90's. I was considering purchasing a vB5 license and sticking with VB because I am familiar with it and I find it relatively easy to use and I like the fact that there is built in CMS.

Before I make a final decision though, I figured I would take a look to see what other options are out there such as Xenforo. I have played around a bit with the demo and I have a few questions that I was hoping I could get some answers to as follows:

- Does Xenforo have a PayPal donation mod? I was using Dragonbytes mod for VB4 and it worked wonderful.
- Will Xenforo work on mobile devices? If so, does it displays a full site or is there a mobile version?
- Is there a CMS for Xenforo? If not, I was considering using Joomla and perhaps looking for a way to integrate Xenforo into Joomla, can this be done?
- How good is Xenforo and stopping spam registration accounts? Are there any effective mods that can help with this?
- How secure is Xenforo compared to other popular forum software?
- Finally, how good is the support with Xenforo?

Once again thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

1. There are a few donation add ons in the resource manager. You can search here - https://xenforo.com/community/search/?type=resource_update

2. Yes, it will work on mobile devices. It is responsive.

3. There are a number of add ons which allow you to give your site a CMS feel. None that I know of linking to Joomla. Some include Featured Threads, Extra Portal and XenPorta.

4. There are lots of spam prevention and monitoring tools available. Take a look here: https://xenforo.com/community/forums/have-you-seen/. You'll find them in that have you seen section.

5. It's very secure. Any security issues that have been patched have been due to third party libraries.

6. The support is great. Both ticket and community support are available. You won't be dissapointed.

 

[Amaury]

Does Xenforo have a PayPal donation mod? I was using Dragonbytes mod for VB4 and it worked wonderful.

As far as I know, no.

Will Xenforo work on mobile devices? If so, does it displays a full site or is there a mobile version?

There is no mobile version, but it has responsiveness. Resize your browser to see.

Is there a CMS for Xenforo? If not, I was considering using Joomla and perhaps looking for a way to integrate Xenforo into Joomla, can this be done?

No.

As for your other question, I'm not sure.

How good is Xenforo and stopping spam registration accounts? Are there any effective mods that can help with this?

It works pretty well.

Yes.

How secure is Xenforo compared to other popular forum software?

Very secure! Only two security vulnerabilities have come up in its lifetime, but patches were released promptly.

Finally, how good is the support with Xenforo?

Support is top notch.

 

[dieketzer]

- Does Xenforo have a PayPal donation mod? I was using Dragonbytes mod for VB4 and it worked wonderful.
- Will Xenforo work on mobile devices? If so, does it displays a full site or is there a mobile version?
- Is there a CMS for Xenforo? If not, I was considering using Joomla and perhaps looking for a way to integrate Xenforo into Joomla, can this be done?
- How good is Xenforo and stopping spam registration accounts? Are there any effective mods that can help with this?
- How secure is Xenforo compared to other popular forum software?
- Finally, how good is the support with Xenforo?

-you can setup xf to accept paypal payments for user upgrades.
-xenforo works great on mobile devices using its native responsive theme. if you need an app, tapatalk themselves run xenforo, so thats always a viable option as well.
-how much cms do you need? there is no native cms, but there are at least 3 different addons that would allow you to do a 'portal' style front page (featured news, etc). joomla/wordpress integration/bridging... im not sure. ive seen it discussed, but ive never taken an interest so im not sure if they are actually doing that or not.
-xenforo had some great anti-spam addons that leveraged some great third-party apis (stopforumspam, akismet, half a dozen different captchas, etc)... then xenforo did the smart thing... and made them all core functionality.
-ive been here since pre-release and launched a board on the very first public beta. the only security issues i have seen have related to ancillaries (the flash uploader iirc). these were fixed within hours, and even expired license holders were looked after.
-brogan and jake can solve pretty much any problem, but mike himself likes to do support stuff as well.

i cant honestly think of any advantage vb holds over xf. xf has a vision, a plan, a better license, better support, the best addon and style coders, and an actual future.
its like history has repeated itself all over again. a couple guys sitting in the uk have buried a california corporate bb seriously man, vb? when kier and mike left vb, vb became a dead man walking.

 

[dieketzer]

im not sure why they bury this link in the footer:
open a xenforo demo install and look for yourself

 

[New Joe]

Just did the change over from vb4 myself.
I spent around 3 weeks getting my test site just as i wanted it, I basically matched everything I needed from my vB4 to Xenforo.
Took a bit of time finding all the add ons and then making them work how i wanted but finally got it sorted and didn't spend that much at all on extra costs for add ons, the more i searched and asked questions the more I found things.

I did a few test imports then just went for it.
Sure everything didn't go smooth for the real import, but I was ready for that anyway.
Finally a few weeks later kind of nice and stable and enjoying it a lot, and nearly all my members are too.

I got over the 'i can't get used to the new Admin panel' part for me, now I can use it just fine, and many things are so much better than vB in there when you get used to it.

Best thing I ever did..

 

[webducknj]

Just did the change over from vb4 myself.
I spent around 3 weeks getting my test site just as i wanted it, I basically matched everything I needed from my vB4 to Xenforo.
Took a bit of time finding all the add ons and then making them work how i wanted but finally got it sorted and didn't spend that much at all on extra costs for add ons, the more i searched and asked questions the more I found things.

I did a few test imports then just went for it.
Sure everything didn't go smooth for the real import, but I was ready for that anyway.
Finally a few weeks later kind of nice and stable and enjoying it a lot, and nearly all my members are too.

I got over the 'i can't get used to the new Admin panel' part for me, now I can use it just fine, and many things are so much better than vB in there when you get used to it.

Best thing I ever did..

What is the URL please?
THanks,
Bart

 

[HappyWorld]

considering purchasing a vB5

don't do that. using vb5 should be the very very last options.
buy xenforo instead / stick with your vb4.

 

[+DS_DV+]

don't do that. using vb5 should be the very very last options.
buy xenforo instead / stick with your vb4.

If you ask google about VB5 youll read some relay terrifying things (wich are true)
even the demopage of them dont work! The admin backend has so many errors.
and the community is dead