Which Forum Software Is The Best?

[MagicalAzareal]

True, but to those who are capable of doing it themselves I say "do it yourselves". You will have much more control over every functionality of your site.

It can be a lot of work, although it depends on what trade-offs you make and approach you take.

It really isn't that hard, as-long as you're not building a general purpose software for every type of site or building an over-engineered thing with a zillion features. Sometimes, you can just get away with something simple.

 

[kingofdice66]

It can be a lot of work, although it depends on what trade-offs you make and approach you take.

It really isn't that hard, as-long as you're not building a general purpose software for every type of site or building an over-engineered thing with a zillion features. Sometimes, you can just get away with something simple.

Agreed, building a general purpose software for every type of site would take a looong time. Build your own site, a simpler one at the start, then introduce new features over time.

 

[Harvey]

Can I ask why everyone seems to like Xenforo so much? I have a crappy Nabble forum that the original developers are abandoning. I need to make a decision quickly and I am guessing Xenforo and many of them would be better than what I have.

My users are not sophisticated and are older so simplicity on that end is key. Most have used forums for years vBulletin and phpBB.

ETA: My site is https://nyskiblog.com - will I be able to format Xenforo to look like just another page on my site, using the image at the top and the same menus etc?

 

[zappaDPJ]

Can I ask why everyone seems to like Xenforo so much?

Initially because it's coded by the same developers responsible for vBulletin 3. In the longer term it's proved to be solid, secure and designed to format that's familiar to owners and users alike. It's also an affordable platform with very healthy third party support for those that want to extend the core product. Finally I think it's reasonable to say that the next release has a fair bit of added functionality that bodes well for the future.

 

[Harvey]

Also has anyone tried the Xenforo WordPress pluggin? Pros and Cons?

ETA: Been reading some other threads, got a XF and Invision demo going.

 

[Harvey]

I bought Xenforo.

 

[yeswecan]

Can I ask why everyone seems to like Xenforo so much?

• Stability
• Reliability
• Security
• The forum is the independant core product (vs IPB)
• Support forum with fast team support
• Community support
• Third party addons
• Third party themes/templates
• Price

Space for improvements:

Above all more and better newsletter options out of ACP plus....

• Smartphone app
• Significantly better XMG (or just buy Sonnb XenGallery and integrate it as an official plugin)
• Significantly better RM

And the usual "I would love to have..."

 

[Harvey]

• Stability
• Reliability
• Security
• The forum is the independant core product (vs IPB)
• Support forum with fast team support
• Community support
• Third party addons
• Third party themes/templates
• Price

Space for improvements:

Above all more and better newsletter options out of ACP plus....

• Smartphone app
• Significantly better XMG (or just buy Sonnb XenGallery and integrate it as an official plugin)
• Significantly better RM

And the usual "I would love to have..."

I'm in. Working on my new forum now.

 

[DigNap15]

I'm using Xenforo
But I know that its far better than MYBB
Can't really comment on the rest as I have seen or used them.

 

[Harvey]

Can I ask why everyone seems to like Xenforo so much?

Power to the mods, I love it. Registration emails don't seem to be working, I can just jump in an approve people I know.

 

[NYCGuy76]

My vote goes to vbulletin. I tried xenforo a month ago and just don’t like it. Vbulletin will always be the best in my opinion.

 

[NYCGuy76]

I have to admit I was completely wrong about Xenforo. I have to admit that it is one good piece of forum software and yes in my opinion it is better than all versions of vbulletin.

 

[zappaDPJ]

I have to admit I was completely wrong about Xenforo. I have to admit that it is one good piece of forum software and yes in my opinion it is better than all versions of vbulletin.

I think it's fair to say that XenForo is what vBulletin could have been and a lot more if it hadn't been for the legal shenanigans. It's the natural successor and a product that former vBulletin users should already have some familiarity with.

Was it anything in particularly the caused you to have a change of mind?

 

[NYCGuy76]

I think it's fair to say that XenForo is what vBulletin could have been and a lot more if it hadn't been for the legal shenanigans. It's the natural successor and a product that former vBulletin users should already have some familiarity with.

Was it anything in particularly the caused you to have a change of mind?

The turning point for me was the built in giphy but to be honest after a few weeks of steady usage and having my custom style designed by sultan themes it just won me over. So I guess you could say it wasn’t just one specific thing.
I have to agree with you in regards to your vbulletin comment.

 

[dojo]

It's been a while since I cared about it, but since I run 2 forums now (one just as a case study to confirm some of my SEO tricks), I chose Xenforo because it's responsive. I loved MYBB back in the day, but not being responsive is a huge deal. XF has some serious SEO issues as well, but I am ranking pretty well on my main keywords even so, which makes it OK

 

[haqzore]

I chose Xenforo because it's responsive.

Just curious - Any other reason?

All of the primary paid scripts are responsive.

 

[borbole]

Before Ipb released their latest version, 4.5. my vote would have been xf without a doubt. But now I did vote for Ipb as 4.5 is excellent and much much better than the other forums imo.

 

[Michael_]

For me personally vbulletin 3 is overall the greatest software ever made.
I also still love the old free burning board lite 1.0.2pl3 because its so easy to modify. Its my favourite as long as you dont need features like multilanguage support and plugin system.
But of course this is already 20 years old software and therefore not what most websites demand these days.

From todays systems i think IPS is the best overall.
Followed by xenforo which is also very nice but IPS in my opinion is better if you also need a CMS.

When it comes to free forum software there have really been better days in my opinion.
I think myBB is great but will they ever come out with 1.9 / native responsive templates?

I've never been a fan of phpBB 3 or smf. It works but i dont like it and would not want to use it on any of my sites.

 

[Pete]

I still maintain the next evolution of forums will be about differentiation from their peers rather than core evolution - the core differentiators between IPS and XF now are the first party plugins ecosystems and the subsidiary functionality in IPS (like clubs or some of the social integrations)

Let's face, the core posting experience has basically been nailed at this point. And even the niche entries out there that do weird things have that figured out - so it'll be about what other options there are for specific types of sites whose requirements are knowable but too big for just collections of mods. (cf my thoughts on RP-focused forum software)

 

[R0binHood]

Let's face, the core posting experience has basically been nailed at this point.

Not really. No one has nailed the first party full cross platform experience yet with native apps (is the IPS app actually out yet?)

And some of the high quality 3rd party apps are insanely expensive or you have to roll your own.

Video is still a nightmare to deal with for self hosted forums, so all the big social media sites still have a massive edge there, and that makes up a huge amount of content created and shared these days. XF has transcoding of video for their media gallery, but nothing for video uploaded directly to posts yet, and I'm yet to see any decent 3rd party integrations to offload that processing requirement.

Mux looks promising though.