What do you think about Vbulletin vs Xenforo?
 

I'm using Vbulletin for my forum and I feed good with it, I have got good experience with Vb since more last years so it's friendly with me, otherwise I also using a forum base on xenforo but honestly it didn't have more things that I need for a forum. I think Xenforo needs time to get better.

For me, Vbulletin Cms is useful for me and people to start a forum.

how about you? what is your thought on VB and XF ?

Ohhh boy, here we go again.

I would suggest keeping this thread clean and professional, or it will most likely be closed like the other threads of this sort had to be. :)

^^ you should close it !! using the search will find the drama..:mad:

Why close such topics =) I am liking Vb 4.x over Xenforo. Xenforo is missing so many of VB default functions, and it is no where near it. It just gets empty hypes. Of course new products people tend to receive some hype for a while until it dies out, and that is what it is now. Xenforo would need at least 2 years min to see what it is all about and if they will take a new direction into developing new features for it to out match other forum software or will it just be yet another forum software.

But lately, i want to ditch both for a new project :d i was actually considering Xenforo for that new project, last year but i found what has great potential over both VB and Xenforo who don't want to give us the new social features and we always see the same old forum features.

That software is an open source forum, so it is free to download and test ---> http://www.discourse.org/ it has great potentials once it is stabilized and reaches gold status. They are still in version .98 i think, their gold version is version 1.0 and until they reach version 3.0 many things will be added to it. It has been 1 year in development.

It is using Ruby on Rails but that shouldn't be a problem, only hosting if you are considering it, but coming out of vb, i think many can run it on a vps, shared hosting would be a challenge due its requirement.

I am involved with several long term forums that run vbulletin 4.2.2 and we love the features and functionality. It would be very hard to find a product with as many well developed plug-ins/mods.

Because 4.2 development seems to be on hold/finished, and 5.0 isn't even close to being ready for prime time, and some in customer service lately are rather abrupt - it hasn't exactly set a level of confidence in the future of the product. I think the pricing model of only getting paid for new major version numbers, versus a small yearly fee, encourages a rushed development schedule. (and a desire to abandon old versions, so people will re-fill the kitty and float the company)

We did purchase Xenforo licenses last year - as a backup plan. (to be tested and ready if things don't work out here. We have done mock conversions, tested add-ons, etc.) But we have not pulled the plug on our VB installs.

I sincerely hope that things start to look better at VB, because this is a fine product that I would like to see have continued success. VB needs much stronger leadership, customer service, and goals, in my opinion. This is where it could win over new, and existing, customers.

These are my own personal impressions/opinion, and I hope this stays polite/friendly.

Rhody

In my honest (and personal mind you) opinion...

vB4 > Xenforo
vB5 < Xenforo
vB3 < OR > OR = vB4 (it's a Tomatoe, TomatO, Potatoe, PotatO type of deal)
vB4 > vB5

That is based on the current versions of each, the most recent. I do expect to see vB5 improve vastly over time, the only thing it can do is improve unless they spend more time and resources into other ventures such as the cloud. I do not like the idea of the cloud for experienced forum owners but for those new to vBulletin it should make things super easy for them :cool:.

I completely agree. VB3 is looking very dated, VB4 not too far behind. But it's still the best choice, IMO.

Why you want to close thread, I think it's good and useful for someone want to know everybody's opinion on advantages/disadvantages of Vb and XF. I'm too. :)

I did not say I wanted it closed, please re-read what you quoted. :)

vBulletin does have more features out of the box than XenForo, and you can make both of them to fit your needs if you put the time in. However, from what I've seen in vBulletin 5, I would rather go with XF as 5 isn't what I was expecting.

I think so but still add a reply to your post ;)

I only use vbulletin for my site, i want to all sites use source from vbulletin, i like vbulletin

My two cents (Canadian funds) is the editor is kind of funky.

A friend asked me to take a look at an issue he was having on his board. After logging into the admin panel I was dumbfounded that it did not resemble what I thought it would (considering it developed by former VB people) I do not know why, but I expected pretty much the same as VB, boy was I wrong.

I guess it is like any software, once you learn how it works it's not so hard going. I'm still trying to learn how to do more advanced things in Vbulletin, and the one thing I really like about this place is the people.

There are a lot of people here who really pitch in to help others, and I am sure it is the same at Xenforo, but you know what they say about us old guys, change is difficult.

This is only a personal opinion and didn't show reasons why choose vbulletin ? : D

Personal opinion is a perfectly valid reason for what software you choose.

This subject been pushed already so many times, just Google it and you will find bunch of answers. Imho behind Xenforo stays very modern up to date approach to forum software. However with all the features and mods vBulletin offers Xenforo seems like a little plastic toy standing by a full mental cannon which is Vbulletin. And vBulletin 3 has most of it.

I was tempted to move last year to xenforo.

It does seem to be making the better progress, and vbulletin are not supporting vb4 much anymore...

VB5 is rubbish (my opinion), it looks horrible I would lose 50% of my members overnight installing that junk.

While the modification front is far superior for vbulletin, that really makes it difficult as most of my mods I pay for and are only available for vbulletin, if that changes then I would be off like a shot.

The Vbulletin promotions, paid subscriptions, advertising systems are almost useless...

And they could not give a crap about bigger forums, the initial release of VB5 proved that!!!

Mick

xenforo still has a lot of growing up to do - at the rate they are going I give them 1-2 years before they start attracting a larger audience

vbulletin really shot itself in the foot with vb5 - lost many customers ... there are still many out there that haven't upgraded to vb5 or any other platform ... they are just waiting ... still holding on to 'vbulletin' ... many are big boards ... hoping that something happens

If vbulletin continues to lose big board customers they lose their biggest marketing opportunity.

I started with vbulletin over a decade ago because of big board sites that I frequented. They all used vbulletin. If they and other vbulletin big board sites switch today to another platform the potential for new customers will drop for vbulletin. All those big board users will no longer be exposed to vbulletin. They will now be exposed to another platform ... maybe even trying it out for themselves ... downloading ... installing ... exploring - just like I did over a decade ago with vbulletin. It's a lost opportunity too convert a user to customer.

Me, I'm still hoping for a vbulletin turn-around. Still waiting...

I've just purchased a xenforo license simply to have a play with it, first thing that comes to mind is that it isn't really admin friendly, it's not inuitive and not at all like vb back end, that said it has some clean cool features that i can imagine some folk liking.

When i've had a further play and learn how to develop on it i'll be in a better position to comment, so, "out of the box" at the moment it sucks, you have tons of things to change (if you can find them) to get to something that you could start using.

Watch this space :)

I have to agree with this, I once played around with xenforo and the admin panel was not easy.
I guess that was to do with the years of using vB Admin panel, but the vB admin panel is nice and easy to use where I found xenforo admin panel a real headache to work out.

I just gave up with it.

What i think is that they are a bunch of bullies, what i think is that they are unprofessional and a bunch of liars.

Today my name was mentioned by one of their Staff Brogan who tend to stalk these XF topics on VB, they are extremely insecure, and i tried to reply to his false statement and my comments were all moderated, they have restricted my account.

I can't reply to any of my friends on XF or pm them, or reply to any topic. They placed all my comments in moderation. I made a new account to open a topic in their suggestion section regarding who did this to my account and for them to change this absurd restriction and they banned that alt account right away (so you can't contact them and you can't point their wrongdoing publicly)

http://i.imgur.com/TJGpqQY.png

You guys from XF tend to come here, steal few VB members by hijacking topics and mentioning XF almost at least once a month on VBulletin. Then what we see is that few VB customers come and ask question about XF on their forum then you all run toward them trying to convince them that XF is better than VB like some hungry people.

At this point it is disgusting. Just look at yourself and the 5 pages respond trying to persuade and convince a 1 member to switch from VB to Xenforo. And that member noticed XF through threads made on VB.org in the first place.

Is this the sort of company you want to support? The one which censor accounts anonymously, they are breaching their own TOS because i did not see anything there about censoring accounts and altering their posting permissions. I have here a valid reply from XF Staff dated in Dec 9, 2013 stating what they have done in the past and ceased doing, it is part of their personality to bash others.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2014/03/63.png

I think it is time to wake up and see the reality and the true faces, no one is perfect. And if you're going to support a company or someone, at least support the good ones, not the one who tend to censor and bully.

Don't you have anything better to do with your time? How many threads are you going to post in sounding like the same broken record. Give it a rest!

I want everyone to look at replies like these from a XF member ^ they will come in here to turn threads like these into a fight to get it locked while doing as they please on their XF forum in term of bashing. This is the reality and we've matured beyond this point. Their strategy is getting old. They are extremely insecure and hypocrites.

So people like him/her, I tend to ignore. They are used to Bashing, not addressing issues and used to sugar coating. They don't even feel ashamed of supporting wrongdoings. What can they say when the truth is in front of their faces ? Probably nothing much.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2014/03/63.png

If XF members wants to bash, keep this garbage on XF and in your "Off Topic" forum section to bash all you want, just like you keep doing and did in the past, and don't bring it on VB. VB members do not start bashing, it is always those from XF who come here, bash and leave later.

Xenforo doesn't support troll/spam on their board.

Seriously, remind me again just what planet you come from?

vBulletin.org used to be a fun place to visit, sadly people like you bring it down a notch or two.

Not quite. They don't support people trashing XF on their board but you are free to trash any other software that you want. The way their forum is run was one of the reasons I decided to go with VB. It reminded me too much of a situation I had just left where there was one board always trashing us while our board prohibited all mention of them on ours.

It's always easier to trash another person or board or program when you can control the responses. It's quite obvious what they do over there and it is very sad.

I never once saw Kier (one of the xenforo founders) be an arse to anyone so I know it's not him doing it and we should not judge a software and their business ethics based on the mistakes of one or more staff members (unless its simply unforgivable, use your imagination I'm speaking of a worst case scenario etc) and I never knew Mike that well so I can't say one way or the other about him.

So ladies and gents how about we just leave out the moderation of posts and compare the actual software to each other not the actions of people, having posts moderated or deleted is something no one likes not even me but such is life. No matter what you pretty much have freedom of speech on the ORG so long as it's within the correct forum and related to the topic (ohh and me personally I just hate seeing some of you be mean to each other, uncalled for at best) :cool:.

Sorry Gemma but this is just nonsense.

You may not agree with Katie (neither do I particularly) but she is perfectly entitled to her views.
To claim someone brings a site "down a notch or two" because they have differing views to you is just wrong.

Mike, i have an open ticket with Xenforo and as of now this restriction was not addressed, nor lifted, nor an apology was rendered, despite asking for my ticket to be forwarded to a higher up management either Mike or Kier. As for the bashing, it doesn't have to be Kier himself doing it personally, they extensively allow it and are aware of it and never denied it, especially against VB, and XF Staff/moderators allow it like Jeremy and Brogan, they talk about VB all the time especially in their "Pre-Sales Question" and "Off Topic" sections.

I haven't posted on XF for quite few month since Dec 2013 but i don't expect Brogan a staff from XF to talk about me and saying lies and when i tended to reply properly, my comments are all moderated and deleted, not even approved and shown visible and Jeremy backed Brogan saying in a ticket.

So their entire management system is based upon censoring and sugar coating. Still pending to see a proper respond from Mike or Kier and i doubt they care to address customer satisfaction, actually Mike told me this in the past :

and changed his tone later to this

I never experienced this sort of respond in tickets from a Vbulletin staff or management. That is the difference. Sure i want to see VB advances better and want to see nice social features and disappointed with VB5 but i also pay attention to customer satisfaction and how company's staff respond via tickets.

In any ways, enough is enough seeing XF members turning each topic into a fight on VB while doing as they please over there. It is time that we address features as adults and see the difference and what we can do for VB to become better, i believe with time, it will be better. I think what VB needs is more attention from IB management and for more new Web developers and Web designers to join the VB team with new ideas, a vision, and innovation to help with the work load.

Let them talk Katie, if they do spend time bad mouthing others that's fine I'm doing my job here and working on things today I have a family and a business to run proper not goof off... If they continue to do so then it will be apparent, from what others have also stated it already is, if true then that is all on them my friend however if we continue to sit around and talk about it too then we are no better honestly.

Karma - It's real, nuff' said.

Ok : )

What i really love to see VB5 to improve upon is adding social features with feeds like similar to "Twitter" discover feature. ex http://i.imgur.com/HesyR1M.jpg you would see your friends or followers feeds when they share pic, videos etc. I think that is a very unique approach VB can have beside focusing on a CMS feature .

I also think the layout of the forum needs to be renovated, it doesn't look good in term of default design. Sleek designs now days have an auto scroll under the header like IGN http://www.ign.com/ or my site or discourse actually.

Also improving the SEO features and sitemap. Google has been changing lately a lot and solid seo features helps improve the site rank and traffic and prevent duplicate content (this needs a thread on its own).

I am following Discourse and I hope VB learn few of their features. They do listen to improvements which is what i like https://meta.discourse.org/t/will-po...184/25?u=katie

There are a lot of simple ideas which VB can learn from Twitter, Google+ and FB, i think the new innovative approach should work on social interaction and feeds.

I also think VB profile needs to be more simple with a style, make use of interactive design http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/member/868-wayne-luke compare to something like this may be ? http://www.nihonomaru.com/profile/rina-touin.1/about , http://www.nihonomaru.com/profile/rina-touin.1/wall

I guess it all depends on what kind of board you are running. Personally, I have no need for anything other than the bulletin board itself. I don't need Articles or CMS at all and have no need for any connection to Facebook or other social network site. In fact, Facebook would ban the content of my board right off the bat as it is only targeted at adults. Not everyone is hooked on social networking.

I would much prefer a package that can be expanded upon to meet the specific needs of an online community. Those who only require a board can get only a board. Those who want or who require more, can purchase the modules they require at an extra charge. I find that everyone is trying to bring out a software package that is everything to everyone. It's similar to the anti-virus market where the products have now become so bloated and complex that they cause more problems than they solve.

Is Katie even an active xF customer?

It was unlocked later today, so no harm was done, at least here on VB they review moderation actions and not become bold about it =)

I was active in the past but i am not a customer, meaning i never bought XF because i never liked their admin system compare to VB, i still want to see what it will become in 2 years from now but judging the way their staff acts, i wouldn't want to invest and put money on something where later i know i will be mistreated badly and see hypocrite comments and excuses by their staff.

I also never seen them wanting to improve and the moment i criticized their use of redactor http://imperavi.com/redactor/ over CKeditor http://ckeditor.com/ as their editor of choice, i was neglected and to me they didn't appear to listen to improvements which i suggested, they have a certain path that they want to follow. They never wanted to bring anything new to the market of forums, what they want to do is use the shortest shortcut to get to the level of VB. They have no vision, no new social features, and that is why i said they just want to be "just another forum software wanna be" for the sake of business $$. They don't have a vision of bringing something new and exciting to the forum market.

Just look at how mature Discourse http://www.discourse.org/ forum is and that should be something everyone should look at when it comes to customer's requests but then it is an open source forum and not paid, still they pay attention to advises and actually address them right away. There is a sense of community discussing each and every feature they add to it. Discussing features over there and carrying conversation is very mature, which is something i liked.

Community wise, you will be criticized if you ever disagree with certain features XF releases like the redactor, all i saw was comments that praises them, but criticize them and it is another story. You will almost hear this very often "You don't like it, don't use it" then your suggestions will render useless and you will feel that you are wasting your time.

^ Well I just thought it ran off topic and on a tangent and should be closed it had nothing to do with you being the thread starter or me trying to be unfair. Katie is correct it was later unlocked by Paul as he did not see the need to lock it, and some of you think he's too harsh or blunt he's actually more fair than most on here to be perfectly honest with you all. I try my best to do my job here sometimes I may "over-moderate" but I'm not slapping anyone in the face when I do it and I try my best to always pm members letting them know why I did what I did unless I post before closing a thread stating why etc - common courtesy imo ;).

Awesome example of how posts in threads like this should be!

What i meant is social features like for ex Twitter's to be on VB with a unique style, like the way Feeds display on Twitter, to have that feature on VB. Not to connect VB with FB etc. features =) that is what i mean, something new that connect members better and make sharing news, pic, videos etc even more exciting and better.

A forum after all is about community, sharing and the friends you make. So what if you tighten the concept of sharing even more to make it special with better new features that were never before seen in a forum market ? Then, if VB took this approach, it would be the first ever to look more unique. I certainly see something like this would make VB5 more appealing to many. People love new ideas, not repetitive ideas done differently.

Ditto. :)

I am using VB from 4 years, and as i am Web Developer i have developed some Free vBulletin Templates to help the community. I found vBulletin a very easy to use and powerful PHP Application and Smarty template engine is also a very good friend of PHP.
But i am really disappointed with what VB have done with VB5, i have never thought of Upgrading from VB4 to VB5.
And for XF i have not seen its admin panel yet, but as i am an active member at Digitalpoint Forums where Shawn is doing a great job. The Frontend of XF is very clean and light weight, and the Notification area is really cool. VB5 should come up with something like that

If we are going to try and make sure that design and creativity shape a better world, then we need to talk about it : )

http://vimeo.com/70851927