The eternal question: vB or XF?

One of the reasons that I joined AT was to get an opinion on the "Eternal Forum Software Debate".

I will be starting a forum of my own this summer and for the forum software, I have an inclination towards vB. One of the reasons for this is that it has been in the market for longer and skins, widgets, coders, etc. are easier to find. Also, I have been told that vB is noob-friendly. I will probably be starting off with vB 4.2.

But (oddly, for me) I have seen that the forum admins like XF better (I know that this forum has a fan here too. ).

So for a newbie, which forum software would you suggest getting?

 

If I was just beginning my forum journey "today", I would go with XF. It's only going to go forward.

I like IPB. I like that it's fresh and all inclusive IE: gallery, blog. Just my preference.

 

If all you want is a forum.... that looks "pretty" go with XenForo.

I look at it as a fancy paid version of phpBB. It is forum software that works.

If you want to run a community... and will need a gallery, blogs, ability to create pages easily, and want to have it monetized with paid membership fees..... then you need to go VB or IPB.

 

That's all it is, xF is basically a more complex and fancied version of phpBB, if you're good enough with coding, you can make your phpBB board look exactly like an xF board with ease, but I guess xF is good for those of whom are into just management or something like that opposed to coding and maintenance. However, with your last statement, I don't believe vB would be a good choice at all for anything, not only do they still have a bunch of bugs in vB 4.0, but they've hit a rock and their ship is sinking, and will continue to sink as xF rises and returns to production.
I think the honest debate should be, for paid platforms, xF or IPB. IPB sucks when it comes to notifications though because users have to manually turn them on, in board or for email notifications, but other than that, I've seen boards on IPB that I could've never imaged to see on any platform, they were that beautiful. IPB is for Galleries and simplicity, xF is for functionality and ease of use for users, vB is for... Well, I don't know what vB can do that's better than xF or IPB to be honest.

 

At this point in time, go XenForo. vBulletin 3 was good software back in the day, but the latest versions have been kind of terrible simply due to IB's bad management and terrible coding practices. Indeed, many people would argue vBulletin just has no future at the moment, period.

If you go XenForo on the other hand, you'll get a piece of software that's currently a bit basic, but is in active development by some very skilled coders and with a bright future ahead of it.

If you want a fancy all in one solution however, go IPB. Seriously, nothing compares to their addons for blogs, galleries, downloads or content management. Does vB have blogs and a 'CMS'? Yes in technicality, but the former is so basic as to be useless and the latter is more of a portal + generic article system rather than a viable CMS. IPB has add ons that feel like whole products on their own and can now apparently even be used without the forum part.

So yes, XenForo for most cases, IPB for sites with a lot of community features and major add on sections, stay the hell away from vBulletin until at least IB clean up vBulletin 5 significantly.

 

Wow, things just got a lot more confusing for me. Thanks a lot guys!

The thing is, I haven't been to a lot of IPB forums so I never really considered it. Maybe I do not hang out in the right places.

I think I'll give a few more details and see what you guys can suggest for me.

1. One of the most important things about my community will be the looks - I plan to get a custom skin for it done within the first few months. I sort of associate styling with professionalism when it comes to websites. It is easy to find a 100% custom skin for IPB and/or XF for, say, under 400 bucks?

2. There will be a lot of sub-forums grouped under, say 10-15 sections. The forums are going to be big and ever expanding - think of WAHM forums, DP, etc. in terms of size.

3. Lastly, 2 more things are really important as far as my forum would go - Ease of use for the members and SEO. Also, I'm going to use social media to its core so I'll need Twitter, Fb widgets.

P.S.: I'm not a coder. I just know very basic html.

 

1. xenForo looks perfect, and people say that styles for it are super simple. It would be easier to find a styler for vBulletin, but xenForo is easier to make styles for. You should look on the internet, and I'm sure you will find someone (I believe Brandon [admin here] can make xenForo styles. Could be wrong).

2. I would say xenForo. Why? Digitalpoint use it, and it is still running well Also, the sub-forums appear as drop-downs, which is nice.

3. Definitely xenForo. They have SEO links built in, and xenForo is super easy to use (the alerts system is excellent).

Really, it is up to you, and personal preference. I used to think vBulletin, but now I love xenForo

Liam

 

XenForo here, I've always been a fan of new stuff that's constantly being innovated on. Also, after vB's bullcrap suing of XenForo, and how crappy their software has been, they're just not a good option anymore. Plus they're overpriced.

 

vB3
then xF

too many things missing for me in xF still.

 

XF. One of the things that a customer needs is support and backing from the owners of any software. Sadly it is becoming very obvious that Vb is not interested in supporting their customers.

 

I think there has now been a radical shift in perceptions regarding this question. Xf is clearly emerging as the frontrunner.

The inability of VB to see the wisdom of looking after its customers is driving their customers away in droves.

At a time when exciting new opportunities are presenting themselves and XF is taking advantage of them, VB is rapidly going backwards.

 

Xenforo is still incomplete and due to the law suite it's already outdated. But it's currently the most modern software available.
Vb is in shambles and it's highly doubtful it will recover.
Ips suite 4 is coming though. That may prove interesting.

 

I think what XenForo needs is a public timeline of their projected features list. If I knew that, say a year from now, XenForo would expect to have features on par with IPB then I would safer investing in XenForo.

Is there a place where we can see what the short- to mid-term plans are for Xenforo?

 

I expect XenForo LTD will keep working on amazing releases for the coming years. Just take a look at whats coming for XF 1.2 and you will see that they are very aware of whats missing and they are adding vital functions fast.

 

For me vB has always been the best software out there for my usage. I want to build a huge community and provide them with a lot of functionality, which is what vB allows me to do. I don't have any experience with Xenforo besides being a registered member on a few sites, and whilst it's visually pleasing to me it basically functions the same as phpBB, which I found to be pretty basic.

That said, vB seems to be lagging behind and vB 5 Connect has failed to impress me. I'd say stick with 3.x or 4.x of vB, at 'least then you can get all the mods, skins etc like you said before.