Are admins/forum owners moving on from Xenforo?
- Thread starter Baw$e
- Start date
I prefer Woltlab Suite and even Invision to Xenforo but I don't mind Xenforo. I still think it's the most popular paid software currently. I've only seen one forum recently move from Xenforo to Invision.
For a paid forum offering (with emphasis on the forum part), Xenforo is decent. They are falling behind the curve on what they are offering their license holders (and ultimately the end users) when compared to some of the other paid offerings (Woltlab and Invision).
And remember, there are a few open source offerings out there that, in a forum only format, easily go toe to toe with Xenforo from an end user POV and are actually more "modern" in appearance (Discourse for one).
If the stagnation factor remains as is with Xenforo then I have a feeling that those admins that are more "technical" and want better features to offer their users will start looking elsewhere. You will always have those that think that their current software is the only software and all else is inferior and the developers are doing perfect.
Some of that attitude is due to the XF attitude of "a forum is all it takes". And in 2010-2020 that might have worked. But it seems that users (those critters that keep our sites alive) look for more than just a place to post comments in a forum format. In fact many don't want to post them on a forum due to having to actually think about what they want to post.
Some are more interested in creating articles in a more true article format, some will be more interested in doing reviews on products and some will be more interested in generating media for the site.
I currently use Xenforo... not because the forum portion is great (it isn't, it is only OK compared to others) but because of several of the 3rd party add-ons that are of benefit to my users. And honestly, those add-ons could be coded for any of the other paid scripts if the developer chose to leave Xenforo, which is doubtful since there is a bigger pool of users available with XF for the add-ons.
And remember, there are a few open source offerings out there that, in a forum only format, easily go toe to toe with Xenforo from an end user POV and are actually more "modern" in appearance (Discourse for one).
If the stagnation factor remains as is with Xenforo then I have a feeling that those admins that are more "technical" and want better features to offer their users will start looking elsewhere. You will always have those that think that their current software is the only software and all else is inferior and the developers are doing perfect.
Some of that attitude is due to the XF attitude of "a forum is all it takes". And in 2010-2020 that might have worked. But it seems that users (those critters that keep our sites alive) look for more than just a place to post comments in a forum format. In fact many don't want to post them on a forum due to having to actually think about what they want to post.
Some are more interested in creating articles in a more true article format, some will be more interested in doing reviews on products and some will be more interested in generating media for the site.
I currently use Xenforo... not because the forum portion is great (it isn't, it is only OK compared to others) but because of several of the 3rd party add-ons that are of benefit to my users. And honestly, those add-ons could be coded for any of the other paid scripts if the developer chose to leave Xenforo, which is doubtful since there is a bigger pool of users available with XF for the add-ons.
Nothing lasts forever. Like vB was the big dog a few years ago, XF could be on its way out. Invision is certainly painting a prettier picture about the future at the moment. Still, I have trouble swallowing the licensing structure of Invision, where your license can just be gone if you don't keep up with updates. I'm also all about self hosting, and it feels like Invision is moving away from that. XF still feels like the logical option in terms of cost.
I moved all my forums and the forums I run away from Xenforo a while ago because I found other products better suited to the needs of the communities they serve.
I've always thought I might migrate some of those forums back to Xenforo one day but I doubt that will happen now. I can only predict the future based on the past and in that respect I don't think Xenforo is particularly viable going forward.
The company behind the product is too small, appears financially insecure and has no coherent structure. Infighting, loss of key members and dubious financial practices within Xenforo coincided with a dramatic fall off in development. That can't be a coincidence.
The problem they have now is unless they can find outside funding the company will always remain small with a product that will always be outdated. They were even unable to integrate the new editor because the editor got an upgrade while they were coding for the previous version. Things like that really shouldn't happen.
I've always thought I might migrate some of those forums back to Xenforo one day but I doubt that will happen now. I can only predict the future based on the past and in that respect I don't think Xenforo is particularly viable going forward.
The company behind the product is too small, appears financially insecure and has no coherent structure. Infighting, loss of key members and dubious financial practices within Xenforo coincided with a dramatic fall off in development. That can't be a coincidence.
The problem they have now is unless they can find outside funding the company will always remain small with a product that will always be outdated. They were even unable to integrate the new editor because the editor got an upgrade while they were coding for the previous version. Things like that really shouldn't happen.
My XF site cost me more (initial purchase and add-on purchases) than the Invision package would. And it also costs me more yearly to renew than Invision would. And I could get similar (but not as good) use of Pages to get about 1/2-3/4 of what I have as to what my current add-ons offer. Most users would not really notice the difference as a lot of the add-on features they do not use but the core offering (some by my choice).
The issue with Invision for me is the questionability of the long term viability of their self hosted option.
This is something that many seem to want to ignore. I have noticed others mentioning this also, and many of those are ones that have been in the forum admin world for a "few" years.
I have often compared Xenforo to QuickBBS from back in the BBS years. When QuickBBS came onto the market it was cutting edge and one of the better BBS scripts and was swarmed to by many new SysOps and even existing ones. But then it slowly started falliing behind because Adam (Hudson) quit putting advancements into it about the time he got interested in girls (he was 14 when he wrote it) and RemoteAccess (a QuickBBS clone) took over due to being more advanced, being able to be ran multi-node (something only a select few scripts could safely do) and having new features regularly added to it.
Xenforo could get themselves turned around, but it would require a major philosophy shift that I question whether they are capable of performing. It's even harder when a company only listens to those that sing it praises and ignores those that point out weaknesses in an offering.
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