Ah yes, the obligatory ‘jump on the bandwagon and blog about it’ post about the new kid on the block. xenForo.
This new forum software is still in Alpha 1 stages, developed by former vBulletin developers, Mike Sullivan and Kier Darby, and currently, it’s been open around 12hrs and has 2000+ posts and 200+ members. I think it’s safe to assume that all of these members are from vBulletin or IPB forums, and have an interest in running the product. The product has currently received a very very positive reception from these formerly disgruntled customers of vBulletin/IPB, which is good in itself, however I feel that it is missing some core features, and I’m personally keeping a list of all the things I’m seeing, and thinking “ooh, that’d be nice if we can do something like this with x, and something which works with y and z”.
What also is making me cringe, is people are willing to jump into the product and fully support it without so much as a hint at the backend options, the plugin system, the templating system, etc. I see people on the official xenForo Community Forum with sigs like “xen
Here’s what I’ve been posting on the plethora of forums which are currently hosting topics filled with people drooling after the software, people are claiming that it will be the vB/IPB killer, I guess only time will tell.
Don’t count on every vB owner dropping their licenses and moving to xenForo. What most likely will happen is they will keep their exisiting boards on vB, and any new startups will be powered by xenForo.
I know that this blog post is seeming very negative, but I wanted it to seem that way, because I think it is important for others to see it from a different perspective, and not through the rose tinted glasses they’re all wearing. In truth, I like xenForo, I’ve known about it since I found the Facebook group on June 20th, I saw it, informed a few select friends and then we all kept schtum and waited. Upon seeing this build, even at Alpha stages, I think that it will shape up to be a very fine product, but it’ll take a while to beat vB or IPB, (no matter what the hyped up masses are saying on the company forums), though I think that in its current form it is beating free alternatives such as PHPBB and SMF hands down. I recognise that it’s a huge achievement that Mike and Kier have done, but it still needs more work, and I believe that even they would agree with that.
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I am one of those newly-registered members and have no intention of switching. So don’t feel badly about people thinking you’re being somewhat negative about XenForo, I posted pretty negatively about it on my own blog.
I thought it had a vB 4 type ‘feel’, although it seemed to be a bit more polished.
I was pretty disappointed with vB long before the devs departed, so there’s not much chance I’ll ever be interested in a forum script written by those same devs.
I am quite happy with what I am currently using and won’t be moving away from it. Particularly not to XenForo.
See, you weren’t so negative after all, were you?
I don’t think you’re were especially negative. I’m very interested in xenForo – not for any of my existing sites, but I could be tempted with anything new I build if it fits the concept and I will buy a copy when it’s released so I can have a muck around with the backend to see what can be done with it (and how often I can break it
)
I’m interested in seeing how easy/difficult it is to style more than anything else so until I get to see that I’m going to mainly lurk and read.
What I do find annoying is the running before walking – let the forum get finished before making them worry about CMS or any other kind of add-on.
I see people are expecting a fully fledged product, rather than what it is, which is an Alpha, albeit an impressive one at that, it still has a long way to go, and I hope that Kier and Mike aren’t so buoyed up by the extremely positive reaction that have received that they make the same mistake that IB did with vBulletin 4 – a rush release would kill any momentum that the product currently has.
I think Lisa is right. Kier and Mike have admitted they still have work to do, so expectations of any add-ons is more than premature.
I anticipated their return to be big news and I was right about that. Hey, go figure – I was right for once!
Does the world really need a.n.other forum software? Especially one that will *feel* like vBulletin due to the history of the developers. In a climate where people are moving away from traditional forums, see your prev. post for details, it seems like a step in the wrong direction to be working on another — paid — forum software. With the market dominance of vB and IPB, this will struggle to make any impression on the paid part of the market. With the plethora of GOOD FREE forum packages out there, I question what success this may have.
I think that it’s because it’s more flashy than say, boring plain old PHPBB or even MyBB – which has been likened to vBulletin before. It uses jQuery and AJAX to make a modernised experience, which is really user-friendly.
Lets see what the product can actually do first before anointing it king of the jungle. After the flash mob dies, lets see how they continue to generate buzz and hype about the product, while creating a stable platform
I’m interested in xenForo personally, but I’m going to agree with some of the more cynical commentators. I mean, it’s not like I have anything against Kier and co, but their work with 3.6 and onwards before vBulletin had quite a lot of issues, in that it pretty much didn’t offer what people were requesting in favour of quickly added, nigh useless things.
Really, there’s a bit much of a rose tinted view towards pre IB vBulletin and it’s staff, but it’s worth considering they’re human like everyone else. And that the era had a good deal of shortcomings. I mean, trying to make a CMS was the one good thing IB did. It’s just I can’t shake the feeling Kier’s team are really pro developers first, businessmen second. And this often leads to their work getting quite a bit behind the competition.
But hey, competition is good. Any new features will probably get integrated into the other paid software, which is good for everyone, and hey, it’s an alternative for the 3.8 branch which vBulletin users can probably switch to. Just try to avoid overhyping it, because people seem to be jumping on a bandwagon here.
Either that, or the vBulletin.org modders will take features they like, and make them mods for vB. So yeah, good for everyone
I think some are being quick to judge here. Not even giving it a chance because of the people behind it.
I’m not jumping on the bandwagon, I agree some of the posts are cringeworhty, however I think it has great potential.
Would I create a new forum using it from what I’ve seen so far? Possibly.
Awesome work! Keep posting good material.
Specifically, to the point and factual. I like it!