I've had an interest in updating these forum systems for a long time now.
vBulletin 3.x is a product we moved to over 10 years ago. It's far from 'modern.'
vBulletin 4.0 was a bug ridden ugly product when it was released. Finally, upon reaching 4.2, it became usable (but still had something like 200 reported bugs.) Further development on 4.x is coming to an end as Internet Brands wants to focus on 5.x
vBulletin 5.x is a disaster.
So 3.x and 4.x are basically end of life products, and I and many others have no interest in moving to 5.x even if they fix the product in the next few years.
All of things means that practically no one uses vBulletin 5.x even a year after its release, and to this day as many boards use vBulletin 3.x as 4.x (4.x has finally passed 3.x...finally). Many forums operators have been stuck in pergatory for years with the hope of finding something that would make the move worth it. This system and many others have tons of customization to the back-end, making moving to a new system a non-trivial task.
That brings us to Xenforo, written by folks that worked on vBulletin 3.x. It's been modern and pretty, but the back-end admin tools in my opinion have been greatly lacking compared to vb 3.x. Xenforo continues to grow, and the ecosystem supports paid plugin additions, unless vbulletin's ecosystem which didn't. I support the paid plug in concept as it encourages serious development of quality plug-ins. I'm happy to pay $150 for a plugin instead of try a free one if it means that plugin actually works better...
Xenforo seems to be reaching a tipping point. It's beginning to see more system migrate from vb 3.x, and now has almost twice the apparent market share as IPB. In the coming months I'd like to take a closer look at Xenforo, with the possible plan of migrating (if we like it and the product continues to improve) later in 2014 or in 2015.
Now what we have, while looking dated, does work, which is why I feel no need to have to migrate that quickly. At some point though, a migration to something should likely happen.
I haven't spent much time with Xenforo, and welcome your opinions.
Here are 3 great posts from admins of large forum systems that did migrate from vbul 3.x to Xenforo:
http://www.avforums.com/threads/vbu...net-brands-have-killed-off-vbulletin.1855705/
http://www.avforums.com/threads/vbulletin-is-dying-no-vbulletin-is-dead.1793735/
https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/one-month-after-switching-from-vbulletin-to-xenforo.2637721/
Forums switched to Xenforo include AVForums, DigitalPoint, IGN, Sony...more: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/the-big-forum-list.26352/
It doesn't work for everyone: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92244
I would especially love to hear from people with Xenforo experience, users and admins... Can you even do a global announcement in Xenforo for example? Not a year ago...without a plug-in.
vBulletin 3.x is a product we moved to over 10 years ago. It's far from 'modern.'
vBulletin 4.0 was a bug ridden ugly product when it was released. Finally, upon reaching 4.2, it became usable (but still had something like 200 reported bugs.) Further development on 4.x is coming to an end as Internet Brands wants to focus on 5.x
vBulletin 5.x is a disaster.
So 3.x and 4.x are basically end of life products, and I and many others have no interest in moving to 5.x even if they fix the product in the next few years.
All of things means that practically no one uses vBulletin 5.x even a year after its release, and to this day as many boards use vBulletin 3.x as 4.x (4.x has finally passed 3.x...finally). Many forums operators have been stuck in pergatory for years with the hope of finding something that would make the move worth it. This system and many others have tons of customization to the back-end, making moving to a new system a non-trivial task.
That brings us to Xenforo, written by folks that worked on vBulletin 3.x. It's been modern and pretty, but the back-end admin tools in my opinion have been greatly lacking compared to vb 3.x. Xenforo continues to grow, and the ecosystem supports paid plugin additions, unless vbulletin's ecosystem which didn't. I support the paid plug in concept as it encourages serious development of quality plug-ins. I'm happy to pay $150 for a plugin instead of try a free one if it means that plugin actually works better...
Xenforo seems to be reaching a tipping point. It's beginning to see more system migrate from vb 3.x, and now has almost twice the apparent market share as IPB. In the coming months I'd like to take a closer look at Xenforo, with the possible plan of migrating (if we like it and the product continues to improve) later in 2014 or in 2015.
Now what we have, while looking dated, does work, which is why I feel no need to have to migrate that quickly. At some point though, a migration to something should likely happen.
I haven't spent much time with Xenforo, and welcome your opinions.
Here are 3 great posts from admins of large forum systems that did migrate from vbul 3.x to Xenforo:
http://www.avforums.com/threads/vbu...net-brands-have-killed-off-vbulletin.1855705/
http://www.avforums.com/threads/vbulletin-is-dying-no-vbulletin-is-dead.1793735/
https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/one-month-after-switching-from-vbulletin-to-xenforo.2637721/
Forums switched to Xenforo include AVForums, DigitalPoint, IGN, Sony...more: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/the-big-forum-list.26352/
It doesn't work for everyone: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92244
I would especially love to hear from people with Xenforo experience, users and admins... Can you even do a global announcement in Xenforo for example? Not a year ago...without a plug-in.
Last edited:




