What do you think about Vbulletin vs Xenforo?

[katie hunter]

Originally Posted by nhawk

The resource manager and enhanced search aren't needed by everyone. The resource manager is more for product downloads and such. I use it, but none of my clients do.

Anyway, personally I like the renewal model. There's less of an outlay for the base software and if you add it up over time, it's about 4 years before XF roughly equals the cost of vB.

Now if you add in mods, I'd place vB and XF on equal footing. Many, many vB mods are premium mods to get all of the features. Granted there are more 'crippled/lite' and free mods for vB, but so far as premium mods go, IMHO XF and vB are about equal.

From my personal standpoint. When I release an add-on for XF it's either going to be free or premium. There will be no 'crippled/lite' mods released.

What about the inferior search function ? Why would they charge for a superior search function when they can include it in their core product, after all, they want to sell a good product, right ? I think anyone who stumble upon the XF search addon/plugin, will say "Why am I buying a search addon that should be part of the core function of XF? Are they giving me a product with a weak search function ?"

Now regarding what you said about addons being on equal footing and the price being the same, that is not true but that is your opinion. I see XF as a starting company applying bad policies and we know that, in order for them to generate more revenue. No one wants to be forced to renew for higher price or lose what he or she already purchased if he or she wants to reduce the renewal price.

XF is allowing coders to sell their addons directly on their site. But that doesn't make their product better, in fact it makes it look inferior because look at their pre-sales forum. You have a new customer curious about XF and he or she asks normally this "I use such and such features on VB, does XF has the same functions?" Most of the answers that appear "Yes, you can do this with addons, there are these addons you buy and these addons you can request for and yes we have these as well" So as a new customer, he or she looks and find himself or herself having to deal with tons of addons just to meet VB default functions + some of vb free mods/addons. You think he or she will switch ? Most probably not.

[Necrovaris]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

You think he or she will switch ? Most probably not.

https://tools.digitalpoint.com/cookie-search

Scroll down to

Commercial Forum Platforms
relative marketshare
Invision: 12.3 %
XenForo: 21.8 %
vBulletin: 65.9 %
XenForo21.77%

Commercial Forum Software Migrations
detected migrations
vB to XF: 74.0 %
IPB to XF: 11.0 %
XF to IPB: 7.0 %
XF to vB: 5.0 %
vB to IPB: 3.0 %


Seems like most "probably do".

[katie hunter]

Originally Posted by Necrovaris

https://tools.digitalpoint.com/cookie-search

Scroll down to

Commercial Forum Platforms
relative marketshare
Invision: 12.3 %
XenForo: 21.8 %
vBulletin: 65.9 %
XenForo21.77%

Commercial Forum Software Migrations
detected migrations
vB to XF: 74.0 %
IPB to XF: 11.0 %
XF to IPB: 7.0 %
XF to vB: 5.0 %
vB to IPB: 3.0 %

Seems like most "probably do".

Reading this below, i would say this source isn't reliable at all.

Keep in mind that this is not scientific, this is just a spider built by digitalpoint that visits sites and then sees what cookies it ended up with as a result of that visit. It could end up with various cookies because of redirects, IFRAMEs, JavaScript execution, etc. It also only looks at the root of a domain.

Also there is a difference between small forums migrating to try something new and between big communities actually migrating, as far as i am aware, many of the big communities in the anime, manga and video games niche, hasn't migrated to XF and still uses Vbulletin.

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by nhawk

From my personal standpoint. When I release an add-on for XF it's either going to be free or premium. There will be no 'crippled/lite' mods released.

That is simply because paid mods can be listed on xenforo.com and can't be listed on vbulletin.org unless there is a free version.

As a result users don't get the benefit of a free version on xenforo.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by Necrovaris

Yes Mike and Kier worked at vb for 9 years. In that time they wrote the most successful forum software in the world. Vbulletin 3.

I think what you mean is they helped, more people that those two were involved.

[Necrovaris]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

Reading this below, i would say this source isn't reliable at all.

Also there is a difference between small forums migrating to try something new and between big communities actually migrating, as far as i am aware, many of the big communities in the anime, manga and video games niche, hasn't migrated to XF and still uses Vbulletin.

So just happens that the digitalpoint cookie spider, just happened by chance to spider a lot of vb sites that were going to convert to xenforo regardless?

As for your specific niches, I think you need to look harder. When you have companies like IGN, curse, sony, EA etc converting and using XenForo, people take notice

[katie hunter]

Originally Posted by Necrovaris

So just happens that the digitalpoint cookie spider, just happened by chance to spider a lot of vb sites that were going to convert to xenforo regardless?

As for your specific niches, I think you need to look harder. When you have companies like IGN, curse, sony, EA etc converting and using XenForo, people take notice

Are we now going to throw false facts just to make XF looks better? Really? :0) IGN does use XF but the others, doesn't use XF

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/categories/list.page EA
http://community.us.playstation.com/ Sony PlayStation

and so on. The way i see it and that is probably the truth, is that a bunch of coders who left VB are the ones constantly supporting XF and promoting it while downgrading VB, it also helps with their plugins sales over on XF but other than that, if you went to many regular customers, i doubt that they would enjoy XF more over VB, many are still using VB 4.x and waiting for 5.x to become stable and better. It just no matter how you guys turn it around, things aren't going to change all of a sudden. You can't change XF statistics --> Members: 52,209

What will be entertaining is when VB 5.x becomes better a year later and many will start upgrading, i know for a fact that those who left and code for XF will come back. Only days will prove it.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

i know for a fact that those who left and code for XF will come back. Only days will prove it.

Unless you have invented time travel, you cannot know that for a fact, since you are refrring to events in the future. :erm:

[katie hunter]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Unless you have invented time travel, you cannot know that for a fact, since you are refrring to events in the future. :erm:

Many times, I've said things that were true in the future :d will just let time tell Paul. Right. Unless Vb 5.x doesn't improve a year later and that would be a different story.. but considering that Vb is a product that wants to sell good, improvements will come.

Call it being optimistic may be.

Edit: Found XF official video channel , i guess they don't like youtube http://vimeo.com/xenforo

[nhawk]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

Are we now going to throw false facts just to make XF looks better? Really? :0) IGN does use XF but the others, doesn't use XF

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/categories/list.page EA
http://community.us.playstation.com/ Sony PlayStation

and so on. The way i see it and that is probably the truth, is that a bunch of coders who left VB are the ones constantly supporting XF and promoting it while downgrading VB, it also helps with their plugins sales over on XF but other than that, if you went to many regular customers, i doubt that they would enjoy XF more over VB, many are still using VB 4.x and waiting for 5.x to become stable and better. It just no matter how you guys turn it around, things aren't going to change all of a sudden. You can't change XF statistics --> Members: 52,209

What will be entertaining is when VB 5.x becomes better a year later and many will start upgrading, i know for a fact that those who left and code for XF will come back. Only days will prove it.

So far as I know Sony has converted all of their game community forums. Any forum starting with forums.station.sony.com is running XF.

IE: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php or https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php

I don't know if any stragglers are still running vB.