What do you think about Vbulletin vs Xenforo?

[Necrovaris]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

This isn't true by any means. I've seen Mike's and Kier's coding skills and when comparing VB to XF, VB wins right away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPwxgml0Q3A

[katie hunter]

Originally Posted by Necrovaris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPwxgml0Q3A

You know, while i find it funny that you're laughing at XF, being disappointed with VBulletin's progress shouldn't be equal to saying XF has better developers because they aren't :0) but whatever. You're going to stick with what you like until you find out the hard truth a year later.

As of now Xenforo hasn't released any or better feature than VB that is worth noticing or saying that they are unique or better. There is a difference between praising someone who is really skillful in web developing and and someone who just knows how to code (XF) like others.

At the end of the day, we know Kier and Mike use to work for VB for 9 years, so any disappointments you had with VB for the past 9 years, better blame it on them, after all you said they were better.

[JacquiiDesigns]

Originally Posted by Necrovaris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPwxgml0Q3A

Hilarious.

[Digital Jedi]

I don't see any problem with XF's backend at all. In any way. Other than if you've had your head buried in vB's backend for 5+ years. But that would be true of ANY software. Once your eyes become accustomed to something, you sorta expect it to always be that way. But if you take a step back and get out of your head about it for a moment, you'll find XF's backend is probably the way it should be. Simplified, and with a search function. The search function is what puts it over the top. I see a lot of people saying it doesn't have a lot of features. This is true. But a lot of things I initially though it didn't have were layered within subcategories in the ACP. I just had to get out of my head about where I thought I was supposed to look for them. Once you do that, it's pretty darned intuitive.

You're going to find things you like about software one way or the other. Visiting each other's forum boards, or simply going back and forth about how wrong each other person is for disagreeing with you is fruitless, and you ultimately miss a greater point. XF is the best thing to happen to us as admins right now. Because competition breeds excellence. When a product is essentially the only game in town, than it has no real incentive to get better. And even when they do try to improve things, it's from a very insulated position. Competition creates an environment where each other's mistakes and each other's triumphs cause the other to rethink, improve and expand upon things in a way their insular way of thinking may have never directed them. And the people who end up benefiting are the consumers.

But you'll never get to enjoy or appreciate that if you're caught up in an "us vs them" mentality. You'll magnify "their" faults. Conflate "our" triumphs. And, basically, miss out on opportunities to direct genuine, constructive feedback to developers of the script you're partial to. Factor that lack of feedback and the generally off-putting nature of these types of discussions towards new consumers, and this kind of back and forth is more of a detriment to the product you like, then it is helpful.

[Adrian Schneider]

It doesn't matter which developers are better. It matters which systems were built better at the time they were started. Since vBulletin 5 is basically vBulletin 4, which is basically vBulletin 3 (as far as baggage goes), XenForo is miles ahead. Until either system is largely rewritten, this will remain true.

XenForo is still a few years behind what I consider modern PHP development... composer for dependencies, a full unit test suite, business tests, proper dependency injection (that isn't a registry), etc. But, it's workable.

vBulletin feels closer to 5-10 years behind. Thousands of silently discarded errors, because you know, that means less defects in the system.

However, this gap is hard to fill until consumers either become more comfortable with modern tooling (git, SSH, etc.), or it becomes as easy as Wordpress (one-click installs for everything, composer packages behind the scenes). That is probably a ways off still, so it won't be for a few more years until we see it mainstream.

Or, you know, everyone can continue to do their own thing and maintain their massive gap in modern development. I sure love editing plugins in a database, through 8 layers of abstraction, all while being unable to track what I'm changing. It's still the early 2000s.

</rant>

[Necrovaris]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

You know, while i find it funny that you're laughing at XF, being disappointed with VBulletin's progress shouldn't be equal to saying XF has better developers because they aren't :0) but whatever. You're going to stick with what you like until you find out the hard truth a year later.

As of now Xenforo hasn't released any or better feature than VB that is worth noticing or saying that they are unique or better. There is a difference between praising someone who is really skillful in web developing and and someone who just knows how to code (XF) like others.

At the end of the day, we know Kier and Mike use to work for VB for 9 years, so any disappointments you had with VB for the past 9 years, better blame it on them, after all you said they were better.

Katie, I would love to enter a reasoned debate with you, but your boardering on the realms of fantasy with what you write.

You also seem to have some weird belief that: quality code = features.

And I suggest you look into the vbulletin history a bit more.

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.

It was only however in the final 2 years of their employment that vb was purchased by internet brands, and thats when things started going down hill, for reasons well documented. So who do I blame? Internet brands.

I'm just wondering, have you moved your site to vBulletin 5 yet? If not, why not?

[katie hunter]

Originally Posted by Necrovaris

Katie, I would love to enter a reasoned debate with you, but your boardering on the realms of fantasy with what you write.

You also seem to have some weird belief that: quality code = features.

And I suggest you look into the vbulletin history a bit more.

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.

It was only however in the final 2 years of their employment that vb was purchased by internet brands, and thats when things started going down hill, for reasons well documented. So who do I blame? Internet brands.

I'm just wondering, have you moved your site to vBulletin 5 yet? If not, why not?

I've tested XF and didn't like it, it is really that simple. Two years later, i might look at it again and see where they are at, but i doubt they would make that much of a difference for staff who censor topics discussing future features or closing topics. I found XF messy to track options or settings and a bit simple yet cluttered in the same time when it comes to the admin cp. I found XF doing that XF wants to do not what customers wishes to see, so their conservative mentality of saying they know better what customers wants was really disturbing, that was in Kier's interview. As the product stands out, XF is inferior to VB and now others are not talking about the product but speaking about the developers, seriously.

I never moved my site to vb 5.x because as of now vb 4.x is perfect for me and my users, while vb 5.x needs another year or so to shape up better. Just like i never moved to vb 4.x when it came out, i only moved from vb 3.7.6 to vb 4.x just last year when i felt that it is completely stable now and i won't face issues. I am not someone who rushes and try to test out products, i usually give it a good 2 years or so to see everyone's feedback.

While I want to use VB 5.x for a new project, i can't right now, and my option is looking at Discourse forum but a year or two later, i will see where vb 5.x is at.

[Necrovaris]

Originally Posted by katie hunter

I found XF doing that XF wants to do not what customers wishes to see,

If anything XenForo listen to their customers and implement changes / suggestions quicker than any other forum software going.

When a HYS goes up, useful feedback is usually rapidly implemented.

Just look at the resource manager, from first HYS > customer feedback > release was phenominal.

Or the new smily management system. Same thing, first HYS > customer feedback > a new HYS a week later with a lot of the feedback implemented.

[katie hunter]

Well may be your experience was different than mine. Will just let the days prove it, a year from now to see which product progresses better. I am personally happy with my Vb 4.x, my users love it and are used to its features and I would love to see major changes to Vb 5.x or 6.x so i am sticking with Vb.

I am also not fond of XF renewal policy

To compare

Xenforo is for $140 for new customers + they are adding an enhanced search version for $50 , seriously ? Shouldn't this be part of the core feature, so Xenforo out of the box would actually cost anywhere from $190 - $250 , then you will most probably pay for mini addons to have vb default core features on Xenforo.

If i were XF, i would give my customers the option to use Sphinx Search (VB 5.x already has it built into their system, i think), it is the best out there http://sphinxsearch.com/ instead of saying Enhanced Search for extra. So you're giving me a forum with a not so great search function and you want me to buy the enhanced version for $50

XenForo Enhanced Search - $50*

XenForo Resource Manager - $60*

To summarize

Do you really love this as well? You're actually forced to renew for a higher price if you bought an addon and later decided that you won't use it and the only way to get rid of it is by losing it and removing it so you're not forced to renew for a higher price. So you end up losing the entire addon price you originally paid for. So like throwing your money away.

Jeremy a XF staff
No, once you've bought an add-on the renewal increases. You can't renew just XenForo.

Brogan a XF Staff
You can have the add-on removed from your license, but you would need to purchase it again if you want to use it in the future.

Vs.

Vbulletin http://www.vbulletin.com/en/purchases

New customers pay $249 so to round $250 but you get to download VB 5.x , 4.x and 3.x and if you don't like VB 5.x, VB 4.x is there with so many features and wait and see how VB 6.x will look.

Then you don't have to pay yearly like $50 to renew your license, rather you pay a one time fee for the next version and company do know if the next version doesn't improve so well, it won't sell good, so they have to improve it.

[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.