What does XF have that vB3 doesn't?

[Amaury]

Nothing like vB5 is though. We upgraded from vBulletin 3.8 to vBulletin 4.0 I believe at version 4.0.2, and it was fine other than us needing to rewrite the search function (we had more than 12,000,000 posts a the time). vB4 was at least a viable option. vB5 *can't* run a 12M post forum no matter how much you like it, and has nothing to do with missing features. It simply can't run. vbulletin.com is really too large to run on vB5... they had to do all sorts of crazy things like build a massive Varnish system just to make it sort of work (and it's still insanely slow).

Even if vB5 was missing no features from vB4, the way it was architected internally really makes it unusable from a technical standpoint.

I do agree. I don't like vBulletin 5, either, but I do believe it'll get better with time. Unfortunately or fortunately (whichever way you want to look at it), most people have lost patience and moved to XenForo.

I used to be regularly active on vBulletin Community Forum, but now I just visit whenever. I'm still regularly active on vBulletin.org Forum, though, and usually get support there.

 

[digitalpoint]

I do agree. I don't like vBulletin 5, either, but I do believe it'll get better with time.

I'd certainly hope so. It would be very difficult to somehow make it worse. vB5 has improved since 5.0.0... The issue isn't a question of if it's improving, but the rate at which it's improving makes it a non-viable product.

95% of the problems it has are things that should have never been an issue to begin with if the people designing/coding it were good at what they do. When I look through the bug tracker, the vast majority of their issues are all common sense things to a normal developer and things a developer should have thought of while they were building it... but they simply don't. Trying to not be harsh, but therein lies the problem... the reality is that from a design/developer standpoint, they simply don't know what they are doing. And how do you fix that? There's no amount of JIRA bug reports you can make that will make them fundamentally better developers/designers.

 

[Digital Doctor]

The biggest issue with vB5 is that it can't (for technical reasons) realistically run on anything but the smallest sites with little or no traffic. It's a resource hog to the point of absurdum.

I could listen to digtalpoint talk about vBulletin all day.
I don't know why I found the above quote so funny, but I'm wiping the tears of laughter away.

I miss the thread at Xenforo.com that detailed the vBulletin 5 launch.
I was hoping to document vBulletin's progress.

An excellent aspect of vBulletin 5 is it's ability to resize depending on screen size. But the bugs and look of it are horrid. And the Hidden (From the internet, Google) Customer forums are just plain depressing. Angry user after angry user.

ex-vB fanboy.

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

As far as features go, yes, XenForo is prettier and modern. But it is still lacking features that ARE present in vb3

Albums
Social Groups
Blogs
Profile customization

And a myriad of little things like

• Password rules
• Enforcing a password change after X time
• User Notes
• Tagging for Threads
• Similar Threads
• Thread Ratings

.. and if you are into a threaded forum, vb3 does that, XF does not

 

[Mike]

Please only continue the primary topic of this thread. Other sites are more suitable for the other discussions.

 

[Alpha1]

XenForo also has trophies. Although its still a basic implementation, I like that it allows you to add some gamification to your site so your users can hunt for trophies.

 

[Liam W]

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*ducks*

Love meatloaf

I don't see the fuss around @Shelley... Do I need to get to know them?

*hides behind the sofa, and assumes the aformentioned user hasn't already ignored me, which I sort of expect they have...*

To go back on topic, xF has a much more modern design, and requires less clicks and page loads to do anything...

Lia

 

[TheBoss]

Best answer in this thread. End users dont care about code or frameworks.

If they didnt care they would still be using the other brand...
If the core or framework isnt right the rest will not run to well , again that pretty much describes the other brand...

You wouldnt build a Gaming PC with top end components and run it on a crappy £25 motherboard...

Regards

 

[TLMD]

Best answer in this thread. End users dont care about code or frameworks.

However, they start to care, if the software doesn't work because of poor code.

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

If I wrote all the code myself, Object Oriented, or Procedural, Zend Framework,
Symfony or CakePHP, my users do not give a damn. A couple IT users might have a personal interest. Most of them don't care.

Other than that, the users care that the forum loads fast, have the features that they want, and enough content to keep them busy and entertained.


Do people choose Google+ because it is coded in the superior Map Reduce solution?

 

[TheBoss]

No. But we as Admins of our respective Forums care , coz we are the people who have to keep them up and running....

 

[Daniel Hood]

No. But we as Admins of our respective Forums care , coz we are the people who have to keep them up and running....

In which case, there are tons of explanations. He's asking for things to offer his community so that they're accepting of the switch though. "It's coded in OOP" is not going to mean anything to majority of his user base (assumption, I don't know his community). This is the point @Rigel Kentaurus is making.

 

[Digital Doctor]

Best answer in this thread. End users don't care about code or frameworks.

Good point.
Another good point: End users don't buy Forum software ! .. admins do.

 

[0ptima]

If they didnt care they would still be using the other brand...
If the core or framework isnt right the rest will not run to well , again that pretty much describes the other brand...

You wouldnt build a Gaming PC with top end components and run it on a crappy £25 motherboard...

Regards

However, they start to care, if the software doesn't work because of poor code.

Guys, we are taking about VB3. Even today it works perfectly fine and still powers many big boards.

 

[Razasharp]

This thread reminds me about one of the things I like about XF/vB - the community.

Remember those really long 'announcements' threads? lol them dayz

 

[Mark3121]

If I wrote all the code myself, Object Oriented, or Procedural, Zend Framework,
Symfony or CakePHP, my users do not give a damn. A couple IT users might have a personal interest. Most of them don't care.

Other than that, the users care that the forum loads fast, have the features that they want, and enough content to keep them busy and entertained.

Do people choose Google+ because it is coded in the superior Map Reduce solution?

I think it's you that doesn't give a dam... you give your users no choice

Here's what happened when I gave my users XF over VB

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-happened-when-we-swapped-to-xenforo.44545/

 

[Rigel Kentaurus]

I think it's you that doesn't give a dam... you give your users no choice

Here's what happened when I gave my users XF over VB

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-happened-when-we-swapped-to-xenforo.44545/

Your statistics are really nice, and I am happy that XenForo increased your user engagement, but most likely what users liked about it was the speed, notifications and likes system, not the fact that the software is Object Oriented and using the Zend Framework.

 

[steven s]

I think it's you that doesn't give a dam... you give your users no choice

Here's what happened when I gave my users XF over VB

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-happened-when-we-swapped-to-xenforo.44545/

I guess it depends on the community.
I installed a demo of XF, imported everything. My members couldn't care less.
At the time there weren't many addons.
My forum tends to be more of a resource than social.
Perhaps I'll take another look at what's available.

 

[ScottLott]

I converted over from vB4 to XenForo a few years ago. We had used vB3 for quite a while before that, so I've got some experience.

In my personal opinion, there are dozens of reasons to switch to XenForo from VB4 or VB3.

Better Administration
- The control panel in vBulletin is a nightmare, I always felt like I was digging through settings on a linux PC from the 90s. XenForo's control panel makes sense, it's crazy simple, and works great.
- vBullettin's template modification system is a pain in the neck to work. Making changes on our vB3 forum always took days to get right. XenForo does the same in minutes.
- Getting around the vBulletin system to moderate users, posts, etc is like trying to fix your car on the side of the road during a rain storm.. The inline moderation of threads, users, and posts in XenForo is genius and always works flawlessly.

I'm constantly surprised by the no-nonsense layout in XenForo. Not just for me, but for the users as well. People know where to find things. You can't really put a price on that.

Efficient Code Written for Modern Web Standards
- From what I can tell, up to VB4 (and maybe VB5), the same code base was used since VB1. They never took the time to rewrite the software from scratch for modern standards and it shows. It's the same issue as Windows. Decorate it all you want, people can tell your core system was built in the 90s.
- The modern coding used in XenForo allows it to take advantage of new technologies in a practical way. Our forum saw an increase in users sticking around longer as well as increased traffic from SEO. We saw faster load times and the horrible feature creep vBulletin software seems to be smothered in is nowhere to be found.
- Honestly, the biggest advantage here is it keeps your forum relevant. Users want to know that you're keeping up with web standards for the sake of security and usability.

With better administration and better code, you spend less time banging your head on the screen trying to get forum software to do what you want and more time actually engaging your community. Which is what you should be doing most of the time, anyway. These behind the scenes changes aren't going to bring night and day difference right away, but they pay off within a few weeks.

Less Frustrated Users
As for the users, I've found we get way less e-mails wondering how to get X done on the forum. The XenForo layout of things just makes sense. You wouldn't know it, but tons of people get frustrated with websites over hundreds of things like the navigation, page load times, and arrangement of features. They don't send you an e-mail, instead they just leave to somewhere that meets their needs. In this respect. XenForo gets it right. User's don't leave frustrated because the software is GETTING IN THEIR WAY. The stick around because everything does what it claims to. From my experience, vBulletin fails horribly in this regard.

*steps off soap box*

 

[MagnusB]

Your statistics are really nice, and I am happy that XenForo increased your user engagement, but most likely what users liked about it was the speed, notifications and likes system, not the fact that the software is Object Oriented and using the Zend Framework.

If you present it that way they don't care, but if you say that you can spend less money / time on bug fixing, and more on improving the site they do care. All you have to do is to present your own reasoning in a way your users understand it, and more importantly how it benefits them. For the technical stuff of xF, it all boils down to freeing up time for the admin to do something more constructive is something most users understand.