vBulletin 4.2.2 Migration to Xenforo

[RGX Messiah]

Hello the to xenForo community; i've looked around and got a couple of answers to my questions. Vaguely.

I've been working with vbulletin for almost a decade with a small break at ipb3 i'm wanting to know how 'ideal' it would be to move a fully customised vbulletin forum to xenForo.

Skin/styles, i'm not overly worried about i can recode and develop them.

What concerns me is:

1. user DB
2. Posts and threads
3. The 150 different forums and categories i have in place.
4. what mods are available at xenForo that vBulletin offer, of course it is 'we have lots of mods, this that and the other' but i work on a forum with Forms, auto responders, birthday greetings, SEO software and thats just touching base with the 30-40 mods and plugins which all actively make a huge impact and difference.

I noticed only 2 things are migrated from VB to xenForo but i didn't know how old this was and if there is any update.

 

[Paul B]

There is a built in importer for vb4 - see the pre-sales FAQ in my signature for what is imported.

All resources are listed here: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/

 

[RGX Messiah]

I did see that i misunderstood the images provided! assumed it meant only user profile fields and usergroups could be migrated!

Obviously you won't post Cons to me, but can you provide Pros on the switch and what xenForo provides over vBulletin?

 

[Paul B]

The other steps are only available once the previous steps have been completed.

I have never used vbulletin so wouldn't be able to offer any comparison.

 

[empire]

We just made this switch on a fairly large forum.

Pros:
• A lot of modern themes are available to make the site mobile-friendly
• The admin panel is easy to use and mobile-responsive
• The conversation system in XenForo is fantastic
• Good developers are available for custom work; add-ons are mostly kept up-to-date
• We've liked the advanced search on xf more than sphinx
• Less bloat for our use – we never used the CMS, and prefer the add-on options in XenForo
• The default SEO options are good from what I've seen
• XenForo is well written and stable. Upgrades work smoothly.

Cons:
• There's a learning curve for staff, especially regarding permissions
• If you use the big board importer, prefixes aren't imported by default
• Add-ons are required for some functionality that's built into vbulletin by default
• The 'friends' system is replaced with a 'followers' system that some of our members dislike
• We use a lot of forms and the Simple Forms add-on is not as comprehensive as the vb equivalent
• It's expensive to switch if you use a lot of add-ons and need custom development done.

Switching was a huge amount of work, but it was definitely worth it. It took us about four months from initial testing to the final migration, which is pretty typical for large forums from what I can tell.

 

[RGX Messiah]

well, alot of my stuff is DBtech. Stuff i can live without;

Ajax threads, Ajax posts, Ajax Latest posts. vBsocial 10. I've written code to make all my usergroups quite fancy....nightrider style

But...i might just consider this; IF and only IF...i want to do the migration, on the same server but in to a different Database and location. Can i migrate this way and continue to run my Vbulletin in the background or, will i lose my vbulletin completely ?

i'm fairly new in to this forum i built so i want to make the swap. The above question will be pinnacle before i begin tho

 

[RGX Messiah]

i also meant to ask. IF, i can do that; can i work on it in the background and all future posts on VB, then bring them over to the xenForo forum when it's ready?

the community is only small at the moment but if i takes me a couple of weeks, it would be anouther 2-4 hundred posts i'd want to bring over at a maximum.

 

[Paul B]

You can't do incremental imports.

This thread explains how to do it: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/importing-guidelines.25325/

 

[Dakota Storm]

well, alot of my stuff is DBtech. Stuff i can live without;

Ajax threads, Ajax posts, Ajax Latest posts. vBsocial 10. I've written code to make all my usergroups quite fancy....nightrider style

But...i might just consider this; IF and only IF...i want to do the migration, on the same server but in to a different Database and location. Can i migrate this way and continue to run my Vbulletin in the background or, will i lose my vbulletin completely ?

i'm fairly new in to this forum i built so i want to make the swap. The above question will be pinnacle before i begin tho

@DragonByte Tech is now developing mods for Xenforo, they have already begun by porting their shoutbox over.