xF & IPB Comparison

The Dark Wizard

Well-known member
This is not a IPB hate thread and every post insulting IPB will kill a kitten somewhere in the world.

Lately I have run into a few sites that jumped ship from vBulletin(Not a vB hate thread either!) and they have never looked so appealing and I was thinking to my self "Hey this site looks so amazing with Xenforo" and when then I finally realize that they are IPB and it looks so much like xF. Can some one explain to me the difference? I don't recall seeing so many similar features but Ive never had any real experience with IPB(never really liked it). Can some one who owns IPB tell me the difference?
 
My experience - I converted from phpBB to IPB about 3 years ago (I think?) and experiece the software from 3.0.something to 3.1.4. My experience may not apply to the new 3.2, but here it goes.

- At first, the feature list of IPB was really appealing. I ended up buying the board, content, gallery and blog.

- My members seemed excited at first with all the new toys. But very quickly, activity started dropping. And it only kept on dropping. There were something about IPB that isn't very intuitive... nor inviting to use. It only got worse to the point I didn't even want to visit my own site. I felt phpBB was much more fun to use. And more intuitive. Despite the lack of IPB's feature.

- After 2 years, I still couldn't find any IPB style the "clicks" for me. I found some styles that had potential and modified it A LOT. Working with IPB template/style was such a nightmare..... And everytime there's an update, it always, always break the style. Something would get out of place, some divs would explode, some stuff would stop working, etc etc. Gawd, I stopped update my IPB completely when it got to 3.1.4.

- IP.Content. I tried so hard to teach my team how to use it. At the end, none of my staff member could wrap their heads around it. It's so not intuitive to use. It's not even that easy to pull stuff from the forum to show on the front page. Gawd, if I ever meet Jaxel I am so going to kiss him all over for his XenPorta.

- IP.Blog.... horrible, horrible default layout. And, well, same deal. A nightmare to modify, and the style breaks with every update.

OK. Now Xenforo.
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Seriously, I don't know where to start. Everytime I grew to hate about IPB are things that are so easy and intuitive in Xenforo.

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I don't know what to say, but If Xenforo is Mario, then the turtles are IPB.
 
My experience - I converted from phpBB to IPB about 3 years ago (I think?) and experiece the software from 3.0.something to 3.1.4. My experience may not apply to the new 3.2, but here it goes.

- At first, the feature list of IPB was really appealing. I ended up buying the board, content, gallery and blog.

- My members seemed excited at first with all the new toys. But very quickly, activity started dropping. And it only kept on dropping. There were something about IPB that isn't very intuitive... nor inviting to use. It only got worse to the point I didn't even want to visit my own site. I felt phpBB was much more fun to use. And more intuitive. Despite the lack of IPB's feature.

- After 2 years, I still couldn't find any IPB style the "clicks" for me. I found some styles that had potential and modified it A LOT. Working with IPB template/style was such a nightmare..... And everytime there's an update, it always, always break the style. Something would get out of place, some divs would explode, some stuff would stop working, etc etc. Gawd, I stopped update my IPB completely when it got to 3.1.4.

- IP.Content. I tried so hard to teach my team how to use it. At the end, none of my staff member could wrap their heads around it. It's so not intuitive to use. It's not even that easy to pull stuff from the forum to show on the front page. Gawd, if I ever meet Jaxel I am so going to kiss him all over for his XenPorta.

- IP.Blog.... horrible, horrible default layout. And, well, same deal. A nightmare to modify, and the style breaks with every update.

OK. Now Xenforo.
...
...
...
Seriously, I don't know where to start. Everytime I grew to hate about IPB are things that are so easy and intuitive in Xenforo.

...
...
I don't know what to say, but If Xenforo is Mario, then the turtles are IPB.
Well said :D
 
IPB is good, but it seems not very user friendly for users and difficult for customize the addons (IP.Blog and Content). I like the new 3.2 version, but i prefer Xenforo (1.1 ftw!!!, eheh).
 
Funnily enough, for me it is a simple matter of how XF feels - how easy it is to use.

Possibly because it is new, lean, visually simplistic - but it's more than that - it's about how things are laid out. How features work. How few bugs and niggles there are, and how you don't have to develop little ways around something because it doesn't quite work as you'd expect it to.

XF just seems to be more intuitive. More in tune with how I work and do things.

I moved to IPS from vBulletin 3.8.4 and got all the bells and whistles. I've made good use of the IP.Board Suite but have now stopped upgrading and will be leaving my larger IP.Board site on 3.1.4 - partly because of the direction 3.2.x has taken, and partly because I just like using XF more and feel it is going in the direction of how I want to operate my sites.

I didn't want to go through all the work of upgrading to IP.Board 3.2 (then 3.2.1, 3.2.2 and now 3.2.3) and then have to put the work in again to move over to XF, so I've made a decision on my future forum software for the next 10 years or so and it is XF.

That's not to say that IPS don't have a great package; if you're after the "site in a box" solution then at the moment IPS has it all, and they're no doubt a great player in the forum software marketplace and are giving XF a good run for its money (and vice versa); however for me it boils down to personal preference at the end of the day, and XF works the way I like.

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
Both have their good points, I bought and installed test versions of IPB 3.2 and XF 1.0 to see which I prefered for my eventual conversion away from vB.

Ironically seems vB to have the most features and is the leader in some areas, particularly moderator logging and post edit logging. There are also lots of free mods and plugins for it. But vB4 looks terrible, is a chore to style and there are few vB sites out there that I think actually look nice (and those that do, have an awful cost when the pain of upgrading hits them).

IPB 3.2 has a good feature set and almost seems to be IPB3.1 but trying to catch up with XF in terms of presentation and slickness. However I was put off by a couple of things with IPB3.2 and after my testing decided to use XF. The things I didn't like about IPB3.2 are: A complete car crash of a conversion of my vB forum (loss of attachments, smilies, etc); pretty awful customer support (it took them days each time to respond to questions and that was after I became a licence holder - and the converted forum still didn't work properly, I gave up in the end); a community which is moving into paid mods, some of the simple mods are being charged at silly prices, it all adds up.

However do bear in mind IPB3.2 has a loyal following and some people swear by it, and would use nothing else.

XF was very easy to style. As an end user here the experience is light years ahead of using IPB and VB on their respective sites. So if I like it, I'm sure my community will. It also seems very quick.

I always say that only YOU can decide what is best for your community. Only YOU know which features you need and whether the loss of certain things with XF compared to IPB/VB will be offset by the gains in user experience.
 
Lately I actually feel pretty good discussing on some communities running vB4. It felt better than IPB. Such as conceptart.org, cgsociety (both still using 3.8 I think?) and lately chaos group's Vray forum which is vB4. vB4 feels really professional in these sites.

Not comparing to XF btw.
 
a community which is moving into paid mods, some of the simple mods are being charged at silly prices, it all adds up.
Do you have some good examples ?

Is this too much for a Classifieds Addon ?
classifieds.addon.webp


What are fair prices ?
Is the support good ?
Are there Mod developers you are "happy" to give your money to ?

Do you have any ideas how to spur development of Addons for Xenforo ?
 
I believe there's nothing to compare with awesome XenForo..
The only thing I do worry about the lacking of add-ons/developers/coders for the XF Community.
 
What are fair prices ?
Is the support good ?
Are there Mod developers you are "happy" to give your money to ?

Do you have any ideas how to spur development of Addons for Xenforo ?

OK - I am not talking about individual mods which I don't doubt at "just" $10 each for example in the case of miserable users (free on vB and core feature in XF) is good value. I'm talking about the number of very simple mods and plugins like this which people are asking money for, even a nominal fee. When you look at the free mods you have installed on vB and start charging these even at $10-$20 each collectively it adds up. There has been some discussion about this on IPB with community members expressing concern this is happening. The counter argument is of course that if someone develops a useful mod, why shouldn't they charge?

I don't disagree with that by the way, it may well be that's the best model to stimulate developers. After all, the apps market is booming. It's just a change from the heyday of the vB community where everyone worked together as one happy family, sharing their work for free and the benefit of the forum community. Sadly I think those days are gone, the future is charging for your mods, no matter how simple they are. That's OK if people are realistic about pricing for the simpler ones.

This is all very subjective of course :)
 
I would rather mods shift to the app style approach... a small fee to download their mod, which encourages them to update and evolve their mods... which is something that didn't happen on the majority of VB mods... they got developed, lacked support, had constant issues between versions, the developers all ran away due to being constantly attacked for free mods.

Adopt the small fee app approach on download, and suddenly developers are getting paid and have incentive to support and improve their mods.

This is why IMHO, when XF announced the release of their addon repository, if it didn't support this type of app based approach via payment structures, then it would be a less than stellar release, which I have yet to see from XF, so I doubt they will start now.

Mac shifted to apps due to iPhone & iPad. Android copied... Now Windows 8 is copying, and moving into an app based environment, because its simply just so friendly for users.

Moral of the story: The way XF do things... I think that could only be an all round winner, as experienced by major providers already, that XF use that type approach for developers / developers charge small fees for their work, on a per download basis. If they want to release a free + premium version, then still a winner. Its how most people fork out $$$ now with apps, just look at Angry Birds! The free, limited version, sucks you into paying the few dollars for the rest of the levels. Then they don't continually only build on that one version, they do the same in all new versions with different themes, thus capitalising on each uniquely.

VB nor IPB could sustain this modality based on their software build, thus they are both boring compared to XF.

Just my two cents...
 
The sense I got the few times I visited their forums was that add-ons were a privelge, not a right. Well, in actuality, that's true. But there was a LOT less of a sense of that with vBulletin, and now that seems to be the case with xenForo, from what I've seen so far. My theory is this has a lot to do with how much people enjoy coding for a given software. xenForo is new and exciting, so the few people that are coding for it are enthusiastic about it. There seems to be a lot less of that enthusiasm wth IPB. Even vB, which has taken a bit of hit in it's developer community, still has a sense of enthusiasm about it. And I can only imagine that IPB is less fun to code for because it's harder to code for.

But as far as getting new coders to xenForo, well, that's probably going to take time. Nothing will rush it. Just time and word of mouth. You'll need new admins (some who've never heard of vB), more demand, and time for developers to notice there's a place for them. That won't happen overnight. Could take years.
 
I have used both systems and think both are great, well worth the money. That said, my personal opinion is that xF does look better from a design standpoint, but IPB seems to have a richer feature set. I've also not yet seen xF being used on any huge boards outside of this one, but that has more to do with the age of the software rather than its scalability.
 
I have used both systems and think both are great, well worth the money. That said, my personal opinion is that xF does look better from a design standpoint, but IPB seems to have a richer feature set. I've also not yet seen xF being used on any huge boards outside of this one, but that has more to do with the age of the software rather than its scalability.
Theres a thread somewhere on the site with all the huge xF powered boards . .If some one could link it :D!
 
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