Possible new message board software

KenSmith

KenSmith

Administrator
Staff member
I'd like to get some opinions on an alternative to the current vBulletin software that we use here at BJInfo.

The former main developers of vBulletin left after that company was sold, and they are developing a new forum product. If you are interested, please take a look at their as-yet-unreleased product: Xenforo.

I am seriously considering a switch to that platform when it becomes available. Opinions on how that would work for BJInfo?
 
2

21forme

Well-Known Member
moo321 said:
I don't think there's anything wrong with this software.
Click to expand...
I agree. OTOH, you wouldn't believe the complaints on Green Chip from some of the guys when SW talked about switching to vBulletin.
 
KenSmith

KenSmith

Administrator
Staff member
I like the version of vBulletin we are currently running, but I'm not thrilled with the look of the new version 4, which you can see over at ZenZoneForum.com. I was working on moving to v4, when I found out that the style system is going to completely change (again) between 4.0 and 4.1 which is supposed to be released soon.

I could just stay on v3.8, but eventually that will mean no more support and security fixes, so I don't think that is a good long-term plan. When I do make the move, whether to vb4 or something else, it is going to take a lot of effort to migrate. When confronted with that effort, I thought I would look around to see what options are available.

vBulletin's new corporate owners so far have not seemed to handle the product well. After the original developers left, at least one of the releases shipped with a significant security problem. While that doesn't necessarily reflect what to expect in the future, it is troubling.

Regardless, nothing is going to happen soon, and nothing without lots of input from the community. If I become serious about a XenForo option, I would probably launch a temporary test independent of the real board.
 
A

assume_R

Well-Known Member
Differences?

Is appearance the main difference between vbulletin 4 and xenforo? Or are there functionality changes?
 
QFIT

QFIT

Well-Known Member
It looks like a more attarctive UI. OTOH, it looks like they stole most of their own previous company's work. If true, that's disgusting.
 
KenSmith

KenSmith

Administrator
Staff member
I think it is likely that this product was reimplemented from the ground up. Time will tell.
 
QFIT

QFIT

Well-Known Member
KenSmith said:
I think it is likely that this product was reimplemented from the ground up. Time will tell.
Click to expand...
Most probably. But, look and feel matter too. As you say -- time will tell.
 
zengrifter

zengrifter

Banned
I read through some of the XenForo discussion and the platform is a reflection of the original developers taking the fundamental tech to re-design/engineer in ways that would not be seen before v5 even.

I'm thinking that the style itself is an easy CSS mod, though. I wouldn't get too hung-up on the out of the box style options.

The current BJINFO v3.8 is NOT a great style anyway, but the platform blows the others away and I'm surprised only TwoPlusTwo went with it.

BTW Ken - I saw this in the 2+2 footer > BJINFO should use it >>

Content Relevant URLs by vBSEO 3.5.2 ©2010, Crawlability, Inc.
The Leading SEO Plugin for vBulletin
(Dead link: http://www.vbseo.com/f2/content-relevant-urls-25504/)​
 
KenSmith

KenSmith

Administrator
Staff member
zengrifter said:
BTW Ken - I saw this in the 2+2 footer > BJINFO should use it >>

Content Relevant URLs by vBSEO 3.5.2 ©2010, Crawlability, Inc.
The Leading SEO Plugin for vBulletin
(Dead link: http://www.vbseo.com/f2/content-relevant-urls-25504/)​
Click to expand...
Yes I should have purchased vbseo a long time ago. I'm on hold now waiting to see which direction I go. Much of this functionality is built in to XenForo for example.
 
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