XenForo vs nodebb vs Flarum

Ryan Kent

Well-known member
A group I am working has decided to update their 15 year old phpBB forum. I made the suggestion they go with XF. They are otherwise looking at Flarum and nodeBB.

Can anyone with experience using these software solutions share the advantages / disadvantages of XF vs the others?

Yes, I did some Google searches prior to making this post. Some of the info was informative but a lot seemed biased or unbalanced. Sure, the answers here may be pro-XF but I would still like to hear them :)
 
I can only comment on Flarum and XF.

XF is a more more finished product than Flarum. I appreciate Flarum is in beta 14 iteration at the minute but I personally found things like messaging missing and had to extend with addons. The addons are not always continually supported so it can become troublesome.

I also had issue with data imports - as a lot of the importers were not finalised and couldnt import my data from phpBB.

However. I do really like the scrolly thingy on the right of the posts to move around
1606297389294.webp

That thing !
 
Flarum, nodeBB and Discourse are more 2.0 than XF which is more classic at the first view but it is completely customizable and has very advanced options. I like the minimalism of Discourse and Flarum but i don't use them so i don't know if they have as powerful as XF.
 
Your users are used of phpBB and jump to XF won't be so "stressful". Flarum and Discourse are different kinds of platform. Once I played with them, Flarum was nice I recall, but nothing to convince me over XF. Tbh, I don't like that kind of platforms, I'm more to classic forums, but it's just me.

I can only say that XF is very customizable and easy to use with many options, add-ons and styles. With XF2.2 you get even more features that are really useful. At least for one of my forums, I can say for sure, that users are glad that I went with classic forum platform like XF.
 
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