Xenforo

[Ace]

Is Xenforo any good?

I am thinking of moving my forum: http://promotionstadium.com to Xenforo. I had lots of people saying yes and no for various reasons. Do you think it is a good idea to move the forum to Xenforo?

 

[death180]

I don't see how it would benefit your forum at all, you shouldn't move just because people say you should.

 

[Yoda]

The thought behind moving is :

1)XenForo looks better and more professional
2)There is a much larger choice of professional themes.

 

[Poopy Head]

1)XenForo looks better and more professional
2)There is a much larger choice of professional themes.

That's only for one thing, switch to XenForo if you want it's okay to use, not like I'd know but I'm getting to like it more. Like death180 said, be sure to think about it before you make the choice to pay the like.. $100-200 for xenForo.

 

[NBK*Twitch]

The thought behind moving is :

1)XenForo looks better and more professional
2)There is a much larger choice of professional themes.

1. By default yeah I can agree.

2. MyBB not only has more themes in general,but has alot more good looking themes.

I would suggest instead of buying XF and switching to it, to use your money to by a well made professional custom MyBB theme.

 

[D]

The thought behind moving is :

1)XenForo looks better and more professional
2)There is a much larger choice of professional themes.

1. By default yeah I can agree.

2. Uhmmm wtf are you smoking? MyBB not only has more themes in general,but has alot more good looking themes.

I would suggest instead of buying XF and switching to it, to use your money to by a well made professional custom MyBB theme.

Mybb is not even close to being like XenForo when it comes to visual customization. The theme editor is lush, I love it. You can create awesome themes in a matter of hours without even editing templates or long lines of code. Whats Mybb like for spam management? In xenforo you can delete all of spammers posts, ban them and run an ip check with one click.

I have designed high quality themes for both XenForo and Mybb, well actually I have designed Mybb, XF, VB, IPB, PHPBB and vanilla themes all to a high quality and the easiest and most user freindly forum software IS XenForo. If you ever even tried XenForo you would know what I am talking about, there are endless possibilities even for a novice designer.

I don't know where you think you can buy a well made professional custom mybb theme from for $150 ($100 if you get a second hand XF license) because every designer I know who creates "well made professional custom mybb theme's" charges no less than $300 and that is Audentio on special offer.

If you want to know some of the reasons why I like xenforo read this thread: http://www.adminforums.org/threads/why- ... est.27363/

 

[Deleted member 1609]

Guys, let's not get personal. You can debate all you want, but let's not resort to flaming.

 

[NBK*Twitch]

The thought behind moving is :

1)XenForo looks better and more professional
2)There is a much larger choice of professional themes.

1. By default yeah I can agree.

2. Uhmmm wtf are you smoking? MyBB not only has more themes in general,but has alot more good looking themes.

I would suggest instead of buying XF and switching to it, to use your money to by a well made professional custom MyBB theme.

Mybb is not even close to being like XenForo when it comes to visual customization. The theme editor is lush, I love it. You can create awesome themes in a matter of hours without even editing templates or long lines of code. Whats Mybb like for spam management? In xenforo you can delete all of spammers posts, ban them and run an ip check with one click.

I have designed high quality themes for both XenForo and Mybb, well actually I have designed Mybb, XF, VB, IPB, PHPBB and vanilla themes all to a high quality and the easiest and most user freindly forum software IS XenForo. If you ever even tried XenForo you would know what I am talking about, there are endless possibilities even for a novice designer.

I don't know where you think you can buy a well made professional custom mybb theme from for $150 ($100 if you get a second hand XF license) because every designer I know who creates "well made professional custom mybb theme's" charges no less than $300 and that is Audentio on special offer.

If you want to know some of the reasons why I like xenforo read this thread: http://www.adminforums.org/threads/why- ... est.27363/

Mybb is not even close to being like XenForo when it comes to visual customization. The theme editor is lush, I love it. You can create awesome themes in a matter of hours without even editing templates or long lines of code. Whats Mybb like for spam management? In xenforo you can delete all of spammers posts, ban them and run an ip check with one click.

Oh really? With MyBB you can customize every part of the forum with ease thanks to MyBB's built in theme editor. Unlike XF,where some things like the menu is hard coded....

As for MyBB's spam management(not that it has anything to do with theming) it has everything you mentioned so... yeah.

I have designed high quality themes for both XenForo and Mybb, well actually I have designed Mybb, XF, VB, IPB, PHPBB and vanilla themes all to a high quality and the easiest and most user freindly forum software IS XenForo. If you ever even tried XenForo you would know what I am talking about, there are endless possibilities even for a novice designer.

You have designed for MyBB huh, I guess thats why you asked that spam question then huh lol?

As for it being really good for novice users,MyBB is just as good. Infact that is one thing every MyBB admin likes about it.

I don't know where you think you can buy a well made professional custom mybb theme from for $150 ($100 if you get a second hand XF license) because every designer I know who creates "well made professional custom mybb theme's" charges no less than $300 and that is Audentio on special offer.

You must not know alot of MyBB theme designers then. Audentio is not the only place. There are others like yuvapix,dynaxel, and more which make great themes for a great price. Then there are freelance designers such as myself,kavin,Bob jansen, etc... who also make great themes for a great price.

Infact I think Audentio is the only place that charges that much for a theme.

 

[karoshio]

Oh really? With MyBB you can customize every part of the forum with ease thanks to MyBB's built in theme editor. Unlike XF,where some things like the menu is hard coded....

I'm sorry but I laughed. The menu is not hard coded. Me and Shady were editing that just last night on a new theme.

I don't know where you think you can buy a well made professional custom mybb theme from for $150 ($100 if you get a second hand XF license) because every designer I know who creates "well made professional custom mybb theme's" charges no less than $300 and that is Audentio on special offer.

I can definitely agree with this.

You must not know alot of MyBB theme designers then. Audentio is not the only place. There are others like yuvapix,dynaxel, and more which make great themes for a great price. Then there are freelance designers such as myself,kavin,Bob jansen, etc... who also make great themes for a great price.

Infact I think Audentio is the only place that charges that much for a theme.

There's a difference between a simple custom design and something that has been professionally designed.

I'm not saying Kavin does bad themes, I always liked his and he knows that but regardless they aren't at the level of a professional one you would pay $300 for. (No offense Kavin, I am sure youd understand. 🙂)

I'd like to see some of your work you've that that you would say could be as a $300 standard or even $100. Not trying to sound rude but just don't see it.

 

[kavin]

Mybb is not even close to being like XenForo when it comes to visual customization. The theme editor is lush, I love it. You can create awesome themes in a matter of hours without even editing templates or long lines of code.

If someone wants to create themes without even wanting to edit templates, then he is not a proper designer. 😛

Whats Mybb like for spam management? In xenforo you can delete all of spammers posts, ban them and run an ip check with one click.

MyBB has hidden captcha and re-captcha for spam management, and if you enable them, then you would rarely get any spam. And let's not forget Spam ninja is on the way, which the most extensive anti-spam solution ever. And the things you mentioned can be easily achieved through "Goodbye spammer" plugin.

I have designed high quality themes for both XenForo and Mybb, well actually I have designed Mybb, XF, VB, IPB, PHPBB and vanilla themes all to a high quality and the easiest and most user freindly forum software IS XenForo. If you ever even tried XenForo you would know what I am talking about, there are endless possibilities even for a novice designer.

Most of the Xenforo theme have the same default structure. In other words, they are color/image changes of default theme. 😛

I don't know where you think you can buy a well made professional custom mybb theme from for $150 ($100 if you get a second hand XF license) because every designer I know who creates "well made professional custom mybb theme's" charges no less than $300 and that is Audentio on special offer.

Jason, Nanoskinners, Dynaxel... ??

 

[D]

Oh really? With MyBB you can customize every part of the forum with ease thanks to MyBB's built in theme editor. Unlike XF,where some things like the menu is hard coded....

Really? What theme editor? You mean their CSS and HTML editor?

In XF hardly anything is "hardcoded", It uses phrases and style properties. The menu is surely not hardcoded:

You have designed for MyBB huh, I guess thats why you asked that spam question then huh lol?

As for it being really good for novice users,MyBB is just as good. Infact that is one thing every MyBB admin likes about it.

I know that mybb has no spam management system, yeah you can delete posts and report them but that hardly counts lol Mybb is not just as good, people without any html/css knowledge can create a custom theme for their forum using XF as with mybb you do need to know HTML & CSS to make anything.

You must not know alot of MyBB theme designers then. Audentio is not the only place. There are others like yuvapix,dynaxel, and more which make great themes for a great price. Then there are freelance designers such as myself,kavin,Bob jansen, etc... who also make great themes for a great price.

Infact I think Audentio is the only place that charges that much for a theme.

I second Karoshio's post, No offense to any of the names you mentioned but do you really see high profile clients requesting custom work from them? You and me must have a different understanding about the meaning of "high quality custom themes" because a $5 (basic) or $15 (advanced) theme like I have seen in your thread hardly seem quality to me. Infact I have seen designers charging up to $2000 for forum themes, I mean the REAL quality ones.

If someone wants to create themes without even wanting to edit templates, then he is not a proper designer. 😛

I was speaking about people who do not know CSS or HTML, I never said anything about designers needing to use it though it makes life easier.

And themes that upgrade through every version of the forum software are actually a lot smarter compared to ones with millions of template edits, You can accomplish many things that you could only usually do via template edits by writing CSS code to extra.css which is a leap forward IMO.

MyBB has hidden captcha and re-captcha for spam management, and if you enable them, then you would rarely get any spam. And let's not forget Spam ninja is on the way, which the most extensive anti-spam solution ever. And the things you mentioned can be easily achieved through "Goodbye spammer" plugin.

These are all plugins, XF does all this by default and better than captcha and crap. These are available for every forum software that is out there, you don't even need any extra spam plugins on XF. Their anti-spam system is the best on the market.

Most of the Xenforo theme have the same default structure. In other words, they are color/image changes of default theme. 😛

Really? Try looking around some more. There are plenty of non-defualt XF themes out there, I for one have one running on my forum that I created. And pretty much all mybb themes I see are flat, ugly, using tables and the same mybb structure over and over again just the same as you are accusing XF of.

Jason, Nanoskinners, Dynaxel... ??

Nanoskinners: $110+ USD (IMO Medicore skins, not quality & you could get a XF license cheaper than that) The rest I cannot find prices for.

In the end what would you rather do, buy a medicore theme for a free platform or invest your money in a forum software that is miles ahead of the others, create your own theme easily and let it glide through upgrades while your users are enjoying the forum more than your competitors? Well I know what I would rather do. I am in no way hating on mybb as I think it is the best free forum software available and I do enjoy their community forums, but if you have a choice to grab something better and more advanced than mybb then do it! Why settle for free ancient forum software when you can have the latest forum tech at your fingertips?

 

[kavin]

If someone wants to create themes without even wanting to edit templates, then he is not a proper designer.

I was speaking about people who do not know CSS or HTML, I never said anything about designers needing to use it though it makes life easier.

And themes that upgrade through every version of the forum software are actually a lot smarter compared to ones with millions of template edits, You can accomplish many things that you could only usually do via template edits by writing CSS code to extra.css which is a leap forward IMO.

That's what i'm talking about. People who don't know CSS or HTML can just re-color and slightly modify the default theme, and say "Oh! i did a custom theme". Its not what we call designing do we? Things like xenforo doesn't make people to learn. People just tweak/re-color default theme, ie) re-inventing the wheel. 😛

MyBB has hidden captcha and re-captcha for spam management, and if you enable them, then you would rarely get any spam. And let's not forget Spam ninja is on the way, which the most extensive anti-spam solution ever. And the things you mentioned can be easily achieved through "Goodbye spammer" plugin.

These are all plugins, XF does all this by default and better than captcha and crap. These are available for every forum software that is out there, you don't even need any extra spam plugins on XF. Their anti-spam system is the best on the market.

Only 1 of them is plugin. 😛
Captcha is inbuilt, hidden captcha is inbuilt, and Spam ninja (which is under development) is going to be inbuilt. You probably left MyBB with 1.4.x and still think MyBB has the same old features and nothing new.

Most of the Xenforo theme have the same default structure. In other words, they are color/image changes of default theme.

Really? Try looking around some more. There are plenty of non-defualt XF themes out there, I for one have one running on my forum that I created. And pretty much all mybb themes I see are flat, ugly, using tables and the same mybb structure over and over again just the same as you are accusing XF of.

I tried looking around, but i can't find any theme for xenforo that doesn't have the default structure. 🙁
Can you please show me some? And please don't say, Admin forums's theme is non-default. As much as i like it, its still a fact that it still uses default forumbit structure, default sidebar structure and default login structure. 🙁
is there a custom theme for xenforo which don't have stats displayed in sidebar, and actually placed them somewhere different. You had spent lot of time with xenforo, so i'm sure you can show me some. 😛

Jason, Nanoskinners, Dynaxel... ??

Nanoskinners: $110+ USD (IMO Medicore skins, not quality & you could get a XF license cheaper than that) The rest I cannot find prices for.

Jason charges $100 to $140, Dynaxel charges less than $100 mostly. You might get things for cheaper price in xenforo. but why would i spend that money on re-colored default theme, and a pid license for xenforo which costs $140 itself.

In the end what would you rather do, buy a medicore theme for a free platform or invest your money in a forum software that is miles ahead of the others, create your own theme easily and let it glide through upgrades while your users are enjoying the forum more than your competitors? Well I know what I would rather do. I am in no way hating on mybb as I think it is the best free forum software available and I do enjoy their community forums, but if you have a choice to grab something better and more advanced than mybb then do it! Why settle for free ancient forum software when you can have the latest forum tech at your fingertips?

I would go with buying medicore theme for free platform. 😛
Why would i invest in a paid forum software when i can use a free software which is much better that the paid one? And even MyBB 1.4.x themes work for 1.6.x, so there is not way you can say, "xenforo themes work on upgrades while MyBB doesn't".
And just because a forum software uses tons of javascripts won't make it advanced/modern.

 

[karoshio]

@Kavin. Can't be bothered sorting quotes, lol.


That may be true about the stats 'n' such but that's the same with MyBB. Nearly all custom MyBB themes have have been made, paid or free keep the board statistics down the bottom and change the look a bit.

MyBB is easier to customize in the way of it's easier to rip out large chunks of it and just re do it.

A great example of XenForo themes is over at themesinc.com. They have a whole new framework behind their themes with over 200 ACP options built in for it.


Yes its true that noobs can just recolour but honestly that does not happen a lot, 95% of released themes have a lot of work behind them past just recoloring.

 

[kavin]

@Kavin. Can't be bothered sorting quotes, lol.


That may be true about the stats 'n' such but that's the same with MyBB. Nearly all custom MyBB themes have have been made, paid or free keep the board statistics down the bottom and change the look a bit.

MyBB is easier to customize in the way of it's easier to rip out large chunks of it and just re do it.

A great example of XenForo themes is over at themesinc.com. They have a whole new framework behind their themes with over 200 ACP options built in for it.


Yes its true that noobs can just recolour but honestly that does not happen a lot, 95% of released themes have a lot of work behind them past just recoloring.

Well, maybe the themesinc.com's themes have a new framework behind the themes, but as i pointed out it still have the default structure. 🙁
That's a problem with xenforo, if you make things easier to change without even editing templates much, people won't bother to change existing structure much (though they have good designing skills).

 

[D]

That's what i'm talking about. People who don't know CSS or HTML can just re-color and slightly modify the default theme, and say "Oh! i did a custom theme". Its not what we call designing do we? Things like xenforo doesn't make people to learn. People just tweak/re-color default theme, ie) re-inventing the wheel.

No but they can create a theme for their forum with ease, which you cannot do on mybb. Either way XenForo is more user friendly than mybb and is easy to use and customize for novice forum owners which mybb isn't and never has been.

Only 1 of them is plugin.
Captcha is inbuilt, hidden captcha is inbuilt, and Spam ninja (which is under development) is going to be inbuilt. You probably left MyBB with 1.4.x and still think MyBB has the same old features and nothing new.

I have an active dev install of mybb 1.6, I guess I may have been wrong about the spam features but again they are just your bog standard things that are included in most forum software. I suggest you check out this thread on XenForo Spam Management to see what I mean.

I tried looking around, but i can't find any theme for xenforo that doesn't have the default structure. 🙁
Can you please show me some? And please don't say, Admin forums's theme is non-default. As much as i like it, its still a fact that it still uses default forumbit structure, default sidebar structure and default login structure. :
is there a custom theme for xenforo which don't have stats displayed in sidebar, and actually placed them somewhere different. You had spent lot of time with xenforo, so i'm sure you can show me some.

Actually Admin Forums does not have a default forum bit structure, The sidebar has many custom elements and the login is the same because it is inuative in the way it saves space and is presented to users by defualt. I have written over 1000 lines of CSS code to the EXTRA.CSS template alone to create our V3 theme, created over 20 new templates to be included in pages so what is left with a default structure is not like that because I am lazy it is because it looks good the way it is so why change that?

There are various guides on xenforo.com that will show you how to move everything from the sidebar to the end of the forum list like in vbulletin or mybb, I won't ever need them because I prefer them being in the sidebar where they can be easily accessed by myself and users. Why make it look like any other software when XenForo is unique compared to Mybb, Vb, Phpbb & Smf that all use the same forum structure, stats, static login and user online?

This is an example of a xenforo forum with the stats at the end of the page: http://www.brainlag.eu/forum/

Jason charges $100 to $140, Dynaxel charges less than $100 mostly. You might get things for cheaper price in xenforo. but why would i spend that money on re-colored default theme, and a pid license for xenforo which costs $140 itself.

Again you can get second hand licenses for $100 or less, mybb is nice but XenForo is NICER. Kavin why wouldn't you make your own amazing non-default theme seeing as your a designer? For the price of a XenForo license you could get a Medicore quality mybb theme but you will still be haunted by the fact that mybb is old and outdated compared to paid alternatives.

I would go with buying medicore theme for free platform. 😛
Why would i invest in a paid forum software when i can use a free software which is much better that the paid one? And even MyBB 1.4.x themes work for 1.6.x, so there is not way you can say, "xenforo themes work on upgrades while MyBB doesn't".
And just because a forum software uses tons of javascripts won't make it advanced/modern.

Well thats you then. I'm sure many others would prefer a modern forum software over wasting their money on a medicore theme for an outdated forum software.

Again that is your own opinion, you think MyBB is better than XenForo well I have used both from an administrator perspective whilst you have only really ever used MyBB. I am talking from my own expiriance with both forum software. A while ago I tried converting a 700k post forum over to mybb and 14 hours later in the conversion process mybb broke and would not re-cache/index all the data, I tried support and my topic went unanswered for weeks, I repetedly bumped it and still no answer so I gave up on it, I sucsessfully converted it to xenforo in half that time and nearly no data was left behind even though at that time the xenforo convertors were in beta.

No not that alone makes it modern, the way it uses javascript and jQuery is specifically designed to enhance a users expirianceis modern. The way it is programmed is modern using the Zend Framework, It's style editor is modern, Its acp stats are modern, Its convertors are modern.. pretty much everything about it is modern.

I am not going to argue with you any more Kavin 😛

You are obviously a die hard MyBB fan and there is nothing I can do or say to convince you that XF is better because you are in love with MyBB and have your own opinions and views on other software, You are a great guy and I wish you the best of luck with your Mybb powered forums 🙂

I think we all went majorly off topic and poor ace is proberly scratching his head now in confusion :lol:

 

[karoshio]

Although it seems we have gone off topic I think the back and forwards can give some honest opinions about what both MyBB and xF can offer and their key differences. 🙂

 

[kavin]

No but they can create a theme for their forum with ease, which you cannot do on mybb. Either way XenForo is more user friendly than mybb and is easy to use and customize for novice forum owners which mybb isn't and never has been.

And it still supports my point. Xenforo makes life for a novice webmaster so sophisticated that he won't want to learn. 😛

I have an active dev install of mybb 1.6, I guess I may have been wrong about the spam features but again they are just your bog standard things that are included in most forum software. I suggest you check out this thread on XenForo Spam Management to see what I mean.

Huh. Why should i feel XF's spam management is better, if MyBB's so little(as you say) spam management features can stop almost all spam. Ofcourse 1 or two spams may miss, but that's why moderation options are for, isn't it?
Also, let's not forget, Spam Ninja is on the way, so even those one or two spams won't exist.

Actually Admin Forums does not have a default forum bit structure, The sidebar has many custom elements and the login is the same because it is inuative in the way it saves space and is presented to users by defualt. I have written over 1000 lines of CSS code to the EXTRA.CSS template alone to create our V3 theme, created over 20 new templates to be included in pages so what is left with a default structure is not like that because I am lazy it is because it looks good the way it is so why change that?

There are various guides on xenforo.com that will show you how to move everything from the sidebar to the end of the forum list like in vbulletin or mybb, I won't ever need them because I prefer them being in the sidebar where they can be easily accessed by myself and users. Why make it look like any other software when XenForo is unique compared to Mybb, Vb, Phpbb & Smf that all use the same forum structure, stats, static login and user online?

This is an example of a xenforo forum with the stats at the end of the page: http://www.brainlag.eu/forum/

If i have to customize MyBB, from its default design, as much as you customized xenforo from default, it wouldn't require 1000 lines of extra code. 😛

Again you can get second hand licenses for $100 or less, mybb is nice but XenForo is NICER. Kavin why wouldn't you make your own amazing non-default theme seeing as your a designer? For the price of a XenForo license you could get a Medicore quality mybb theme but you will still be haunted by the fact that mybb is old and outdated compared to paid alternatives.

Just because MyBB doesn't use tons of Jquery things won't make it outdated. lol
And trust me, even if you give a free copy of xenforo license, i won't use it (you probably know it). 😀

Well thats you then. I'm sure many others would prefer a modern forum software over wasting their money on a medicore theme for an outdated forum software.

Again that is your own opinion, you think MyBB is better than XenForo well I have used both from an administrator perspective whilst you have only really ever used MyBB. I am talking from my own expiriance with both forum software. A while ago I tried converting a 700k post forum over to mybb and 14 hours later in the conversion process mybb broke and would not re-cache/index all the data, I tried support and my topic went unanswered for weeks, I repetedly bumped it and still no answer so I gave up on it, I sucsessfully converted it to xenforo in half that time and nearly no data was left behind even though at that time the xenforo convertors were in beta.

Well, i did used Xenforo from administrative perspective in a friend's board. But the fact is, as much as i believe xenforo is much better than its paid alternatives, i don't believe its better than MyBB. 😛

There is no doubt you have more knowledge than me in xenforo, and probably same knowledge as me in MyBB. But its a matter of fact, we aren't the major part of a Forum. A forum software should attract people more on user point of view rather than admin point of view.

I am not going to argue with you any more Kavin 😛

You are obviously a die hard MyBB fan and there is nothing I can do or say to convince you that XF is better because you are in love with MyBB and have your own opinions and views on other software, You are a great guy and I wish you the best of luck with your Mybb powered forums 🙂

I think we all went majorly off topic and poor ace is proberly scratching his head now in confusion :lol:

lol. I have the same feeling. lets not spam Ace's topic anymore, as obviously phpBB doesn't have as much spam management features. 😛

 

[euantor]

@OP: Software choice should come down to your own needs and preferences. I'd suggest having a trial of software like xenForo and IPB (vB doesn't offer a trial - or at least, they didn't when I was a customer). If they offer what you need, then that's good. If, however, you fell things are lacking, there's no point in shelling out really.

 

[death180]

lol. I have the same feeling. lets not spam Ace's topic anymore, as obviously phpBB doesn't have as much spam management features. 😛

Oh now you just brought ME into this!

 

[NBK*Twitch]

Okay okay If you call any of those XF themes custom you do not know what custom is.... like kavin said, those are all using the same default structure.

If you would like an example of a custom theme look here -

http://www.audentio.com/images/portfoli ... arkice.jpg - Cheap Premium Theme

http://mods.mybb.com/view/dark-fusion-2 - Which is free !

http://mods.mybb.com/view/blaze-red - Again free

Not to mention the complete phpbb theme port to MyBB by guess who Kavin .


See how different it is compared to the default mybb theme. That is custom and I have yet to see one single XF with that kind of customization.

The most customized theme for XF I have seen is the wizkid style at fixitwizkid.com and even that has no structure differences.


As for the spam argument, Might I add MyBB comes with Askmite and Recaptcha by default now. Then there is the spam ninja which will be built in very soon.