XenForo or invision

[stronge]

I'm hesitating between XenForo and invision. I know I will meet positives for XenForo here. As for the price, I don't see a big difference. Self host xenforo - 385$, self host invision 500$, cloud xenforo 60$, cloud invision 50-100$. So I think they are equal.
1. My question with xenforo is if it is self-hosted after 1 year has expired and does not renew it in the next 2-3 years then if I want to upgrade to the latest version do I have to I paid for these 2-3 years ago?
2. The other question is that there will be a showcase gallery (images and short videos) and users will upload photos and short videos. I won't lie that this is impossible and ugly for Xenforo. It doesn't have good filters and looks really old fashioned. No I have not seen a XenForo forum with a good gallery and, for example, comments on the photos, etc. What is the way to make a nice showcase section - with custom development or what? Can you have a sample forum if you know.
3. Same with blogs, news, etc. I think they look better on invision
4. On XenForo, for example, adding advertising banners, editing pages becomes much more difficult than on invision for one person without skill.
5. If the forum grows I will need a lot of storage or Amazon s3 or other services. I don't know which is better here. I know IPB only work with amazon



One of the things I hear, however, is the problem customer support from IPB. I don't want it to come across as an insult, but rather I want to see where I'm wrong in my opinion. To be honest, I'm leaning towards Xenforo for now

 

[Old Nick]

1. My question with xenforo is if it is self-hosted after 1 year has expired and does not renew it in the next 2-3 years then if I want to upgrade to the latest version do I have to I paid for these 2-3 years ago?

No.

2. The other question is that there will be a showcase gallery (images and short videos) and users will upload photos and short videos. I won't lie that this is impossible and ugly for Xenforo. It doesn't have good filters and looks really old fashioned. No I have not seen a XenForo forum with a good gallery and, for example, comments on the photos, etc. What is the way to make a nice showcase section - with custom development or what? Can you have a sample forum if you know.

Items

Showcase index

demos.xenaddons.com

3. Same with blogs, news, etc. I think they look better on invision

XenAddons Demos

XenAddons demo's site

demos.xenaddons.com

 

[welington]

About XF x IPB software. Compare the positive and negative points between them, only with your day-to-day experience.
I tell you one thing XF is powerful, a "POSITIVE" point and an important strong community with so many members, administrators and several programmers that helps you.
XF the best

 

[Davyc]

@Bob wares are superior in every way and well worth the price. As an ex Invision user, I would always choose XF and would NEVER go back to Invision. XF is incredibly easy to customise once you start getting your hands dirty, if that's what you enjoy doing. If not, there are plenty of add-ons and themes available, both free and paid. Do the research, read the comments, use the demo and see if it's what you want. Good luck!

 

[Hareon]

Invision is better if you want a complete website. They have a blog system and a community system oficially integrated (not a thir party addon).
But Xenforo is faster and lighter. As it has fewer resources out of the box, it runs better on hosts with fewer resources.

I also believe that in the long term he can do better in terms of performance.

If you want a system that has more functions like commerce and blogging, Invision is better as it has official support. If you want more of a forum system, Xenforo is the best option.

 

[Forsaken]

I'm hesitating between XenForo and invision. I know I will meet positives for XenForo here. As for the price, I don't see a big difference. Self host xenforo - 385$, self host invision 500$, cloud xenforo 60$, cloud invision 50-100$. So I think they are equal.
1. My question with xenforo is if it is self-hosted after 1 year has expired and does not renew it in the next 2-3 years then if I want to upgrade to the latest version do I have to I paid for these 2-3 years ago?
2. The other question is that there will be a showcase gallery (images and short videos) and users will upload photos and short videos. I won't lie that this is impossible and ugly for Xenforo. It doesn't have good filters and looks really old fashioned. No I have not seen a XenForo forum with a good gallery and, for example, comments on the photos, etc. What is the way to make a nice showcase section - with custom development or what? Can you have a sample forum if you know.
3. Same with blogs, news, etc. I think they look better on invision
4. On XenForo, for example, adding advertising banners, editing pages becomes much more difficult than on invision for one person without skill.
5. If the forum grows I will need a lot of storage or Amazon s3 or other services. I don't know which is better here. I know IPB only work with amazon



One of the things I hear, however, is the problem customer support from IPB. I don't want it to come across as an insult, but rather I want to see where I'm wrong in my opinion. To be honest, I'm leaning towards Xenforo for now

1. XenForo allows your license to lapse; IPB does not, and you lose your license after 2 years I believe.
2-3. Bob's add-ons functionally blow most things by Invision away. As far as filters go, I have rarely seen filters used on any gallery system, so I do not know how worth it is to have that functionality. The XF Media Gallery could use some work, however it does have the ability to be deeply integrated with other content types (https://xenforo.com/community/resources/ozzmodz-xfmg-attachment-mirroring-album.8604/) which makes it very robust.
4. Advertisements aren't difficult, as it is as simple as editing a template, or using an add-on. If you want a fully featured ad solution, Siropu's add-on (Lite: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/ads-manager-2-lite-by-siropu.7002/ or Full: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/ads-manager-2-by-siropu.6153/) makes life simple, and again functionally is better than IPB by default.
5. XF works with any S3; DigitalPoint has released a CloudFlare add-on (https://xenforo.com/community/resources/digitalpoint-app-for-cloudflare-r.8750/) that integrates R2.

Invision is better if you want a complete website. They have a blog system and a community system oficially integrated (not a thir party addon).
But Xenforo is faster and lighter. As it has fewer resources out of the box, it runs better on hosts with fewer resources.

I also believe that in the long term he can do better in terms of performance.

If you want a system that has more functions like commerce and blogging, Invision is better as it has official support. If you want more of a forum system, Xenforo is the best option.

IPB only offers a more complete site when you argue platform to platform, ignoring add-ons. When you include add-ons, XF offers much more capabilities with a better development base.

As far as performance, big board to big board, XenForo outperforms IPB from my experience, and that is a very complex board with a lot of custom development.

Blogging wise, UBS by Bob is better than Invision feature wise, and for commerce IPB no longer supports physical goods and is still fairly barebone. DragonByte eCommerce is fairly equivalent (at least from what I saw when I last checked IPB), and honestly I would go with Shopify or WooCommerce simply due to extensions and integrations, especially for dropshipping.

 

[Suzanne O]

Invision is too expensive and is too strict.

Come to xenforo.

 

[Ricsca]

I have two forums, one xf and the other with Invision.
Xf wins for two reasons, it costs less and above all it has bounce e-mail which allows you to suspend the profiles of users who no longer have an active e-mail and this is essential to have a list of active e-mails in such a way so that you can contact your real users! invision to this option only in the cloud service and it is absurd!
However, I remain of the opinion that both forums are stuck at 20 years ago and cost far too much for what they offer!

 

[Alan_SP]

Self host xenforo - 385$

Where do you see that price? Is it some other type of dollars, not USD?

 

[Chris D]

I assume it's a typo. $395 is the cost of XenForo, Resource Manager, Enhanced Search and Media Gallery.

Or it may be some other combination.

My advice to @stronge is to consider exactly what functionality you will need right out of the gate. Do you already have plans in mind to offer downloads / other resources? If not, you probably don't need the Resource Manager. Will your members need and use the Media Gallery immediately? If not, that can probably be added later. The main benefit of Enhanced Search, aside from some of the additional functionality it offers, such as similar threads and search suggestions, is improved search performance when handling millions of items of content. If this is a brand new forum, you probably don't need it from day 0.

With that in mind, you could pay as little as $195 for the base XenForo license. Additional extras can be added at any time. Or there may be third party add-ons that meet your needs better, which may save you money in the long run.