# What is your preferred forum software?



## qubit (Apr 9, 2021)

Which forum software do you prefer, either for using it like you do on TPU (XenForo) or hosting your own forum.

Before voting for vBulletin, check out this video about the tech support nightmare from them and see if you would still vote for it afterwards.










I'm currently setting up my own website and forum and have chosen XenForo from the big names of paid software, because it fits my needs best, although not perfectly. Unfortunately, none of the free forum software like phpBB or Simple Machines was right for my needs.


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## Toothless (Apr 9, 2021)

Anything that's not hideous and easy to use.


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## Regeneration (Apr 9, 2021)

XenForo is the most user friendly. But the latest version kind of sucky.


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## Selaya (Apr 9, 2021)

vB had been dead for almost half a decade or something now, their last version's something between a meme and a bad joke.
That being said XF does have a bunch of Bad Ideas About Forums (their inferior ban system compared to vB, for instance), but yeah.

I've never cared about support - always figured it as kinda useless; I'm my own as sysadmin thank you very much.


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## qubit (Apr 9, 2021)

Regeneration said:


> XenForo is the most user friendly. But the latest version kind of sucky.


I've never seen anything but the latest version, so I'm curious how you think it's inferior.

@Selaya In a few words, what bad ideas do you have in mind?

The vB admin CP is awesome for its featureset and I was sad to have to walk away from vB after trying out the demo. The software screwed up when I tried to set another tab as the default (just a simple setting) and so badly that I couldn't fix it. I actually needed tech support for software I didn't own! They sorta fixed it, but that really destroyed my confidence in it. What else could mess it up like that? Put that together and all the controversy I've heard about it, the lack of development of new versions and that tech support nightmare meant that I had to walk away from it. It also doesn't have some of the nifty features of XF, like question forums and the epic "discourager" for trolls.

I disagree about tech support. Some things cannot be fixed by yourself, because it's gone wrong at the backend system of the provider. What do you do if the computer running your VPS goes down and there's no failover? You'll need their support, right? Also, not everyone is an expert, so it's reasonable to have tech support to fall back on.


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## Selaya (Apr 9, 2021)

The inferior ban system as mentioned (in vB banned users would be able to have access to specific ban-appeal [sub-]forums, a feature that is not possible in XF [without modding it]). Besides that, I remember that vB has or at the very least used to have the feature where posts would have unique IDs assigned to them (and linkable by that) instead of XFs default per-thread sequential. Way more useful imo, but YMMV.
I'm sure there's other stuff that I have completely forgot about by now, as I've said vB had been dead for half a decade now and my memory's faded by now.

That being said, I have never (really) admin'd an vB (but used it as an ordinary user quite extensively until it's demise) - my by far most extensive experience is with XF, followed by the FOSS stuff like phpBB and SMF.

As for the (tech) support again YMMV; of course I am aware that people who have less of a tech background may need to fall back on it. It is just that from my personal experience, short of the example(s) you've given that are not fixable as well _user_ generally I have only ever met clueless, unhelpful supporters, and in general my own solutions I've figured in the end tend to be superior to theirs, if they had any at all.
In any case, should (one of) my VPSes (yes, I actually do own some) go down, I'd just patiently wait for them to fix it (or not); I can swap to a backup system in the meanwhile, and in the case of the worst case (it not coming back on), I'd just move on and order a new one from a different provider, and restore from backup.
But you probably shouldn't take me as a benchmark for all these things, I tend to be a loner whenever I can when it comes to that.


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## 80-watt Hamster (Apr 9, 2021)

From a user standpoint, XenForo is probably the best experience I've had.  It's a significant reason I favor this forum over others.


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## Regeneration (Apr 9, 2021)

qubit said:


> I've never seen anything but the latest version, so I'm curious how you think it's inferior.



The WYSIWYG editor used to be better and easier to handle.

Don't know if its just TPU, or the default layout, but the new font isn't that great.


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## W1zzard (Apr 9, 2021)

XF is also VERY cleanly coded and extremely moddable - in a proper way, without hax. We're running around 40 addons here that I've coded myself, only one or two of them require a code change.



Regeneration said:


> but the new font isn't that great.


we're using 'Segoe UI','Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Roboto,Oxygen,Ubuntu,Cantarell,'Fira Sans','Droid Sans',sans-serif

So nothing special


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## qubit (Apr 9, 2021)

W1zzard said:


> XF is also VERY cleanly coded and extremely moddable - in a proper way, without hax. *We're running around 40 addons here that I've coded myself*, only one or two of them require a code change.
> 
> 
> we're using 'Segoe UI','Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Roboto,Oxygen,Ubuntu,Cantarell,'Fira Sans','Droid Sans',sans-serif
> ...


And it works very cleanly and smoothly too, I must say, whether as a user like now, or in the admin CP on my copy.

Alas, I'm not a coder, so can't comment on that side of it. I have the raw skills to do it, I'm not new to programming, but it's a big learning curve now, more than I dedicate time to nowadays.

40 add-ons you made yourself... you mad bro  It's not obvious either, as just all works nicely and integrated together. That's some mad skillz there. Respect.


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## Night (Apr 9, 2021)

Templateshares, not the best software ever, but... It wasn't all that bad. Voted for it because it brings back good memories from years ago.


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## qubit (Apr 9, 2021)

People, I so want someone to vote for vBulletin just so that we can heckle the heck out of them.


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## Hardcore Games (Apr 23, 2021)

I have used phpBB which has been around forever and day. Its free to use and lots of skills available.

One feature I see on phpBB is the users and bots, so I figured how hard can it be, now my footer has that and it shows it over a 30 minute moving average. Look at the bottom of the page for the widget. WordPress is slightly more modern.







						HARDCORE GAMES™ – Legendary is the Only Way to Play™
					

Hardcore Games is the most comprehensive news and information site for gaming enthusiasts in the world.




					www.hardcoregames.ca


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## Nordic (Apr 23, 2021)

qubit said:


> People, I so want someone to vote for vBulletin just so that we can heckle the heck out of them.


Done.


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## qubit (Apr 23, 2021)

Nordic said:


> Done.


Actually, since you're the only one to have the guts to do it, I can't heckle you, but must praise you instead. Well done that man!  

I see that XF has won by a country mile, unsurprisingly.


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## Splinterdog (Jul 27, 2021)

I use WoltLab for my expats forum and have been since I moved from SMF in 2017. It's robust, has excellent plugins and themes, and is regularly updated.
At the time of switching from SMF, WoltLab had the best price for the forum software and I added Gallery too.


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## Solaris17 (Jul 27, 2021)

Xenforo by a mile.

VB has been dead since like 2008.

the only other popular software I see on really big sites (that aren’t out dated) is discourse.

which is hot garbage both from an admin and usability standpoint.

cannot STAND discourse.


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## Splinterdog (Jul 27, 2021)

Actually, I'm quite literally in the midst of migrating all my websites/forums from GoDaddy to ProStack in the UK. (at least, the engineers are anyway)
I simply got tired of banging my head against a brick wall with GoDaddy's out of date servers and software, not to mention their call-centre support which leaves a lot to be desired..


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## drmnkch (Dec 7, 2021)

XenForo


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## lexluthermiester (Dec 7, 2021)

From a user perspective, I like the usability and the general clean appearance of Xenforo.(Edit: I'm aware that the UI is customizable and themeable, I'm just saying as a general rule)
From a site staff perspective, Xenforo as well. I love the tools and internal mechanisms. They're easy to use, generally easy to configure and rarely crash.

Been trying to get the owner at one of my sites to switch over for years as Xenforo would be a MUCH better fit for what we do there. He just doesn't want to pay for it...



qubit said:


> Before voting for vBulletin, check out this video about the tech support nightmare from them and see if you would still vote for it afterwards.


vBulletin is a waste. Don't use it.


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## qubit (Dec 7, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> vBulletin is a waste. Don't use it.


Don't worry, I'm using XF as per my OP.   It's glorious!

Now that we're talking about forum software, I also have an Invision Community license that I bought cheaply years ago off a friend who gave up on forums at the time.

This product looks really good too and has a clear edge when it comes to articles, but it's really expensive as the renewal twice a year costs more than XF cost to buy! This, the support eco system, add-ins especially and general popularity of XF are what caused me to go for it.

However, now that I've got much more experience with managing forum software since my site has been up and running for some time now, I might give IC another go. But, before I spend any money on it, I've already tried the two week demo which gives one a generous two weeks to play with it which I could try again, I'll try installing my really old version from 2014 on my home PC to have a play with it without time limits and really get familiar with it. It's got a clear edge on articles which are important to me. In the end though, each product has got features and niceties that the other hasn't, so it's not a slam-dunk for either one.


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## Selaya (Dec 7, 2021)

Oh. I just remembered what I. Fucking. Hate. About. XF. (Since this got necro'd)
The. Fucking. Focus. On. (Mandatory.) Avatards.

Like, seriously how hard is it to have an option to turn it off and assign [none] as default? If the user so chooses they may upload one, but otherwise they just have ... none. Instead of the totally ugly and asinine default ones. I understand that this'd require a rework of parts of the UI, but that's the fundamental problem to begin with, tbh


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## dragontamer5788 (Dec 7, 2021)

Seems like people are talking about https://www.discourse.org/ these days.


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## Selaya (Dec 10, 2021)

> Managed forum hosting from $100/month



.


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## dragontamer5788 (Dec 10, 2021)

Discourse has a "host your own" option, much like phpBB or other older forums.









						discourse/INSTALL-cloud.md at main · discourse/discourse
					

A platform for community discussion. Free, open, simple. - discourse/INSTALL-cloud.md at main · discourse/discourse




					github.com


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## Selaya (Dec 10, 2021)

oh, ive seen it but i still find it amusing that they have the chutzpah to charge scam you for $100/mo for _managed hosting_


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## Splinterdog (Dec 10, 2021)

$100/month is a huge amount and I simply couldn't justify that kind of outlay. Besides, I prefer to have total control, so I have my forum hosted with Prostack and and only pay Wolt Labs for major software upgrades every couple of years and even that isn't expensive. Their managed plans start at 35 euros/month, I believe.


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## dragontamer5788 (Dec 10, 2021)

Selaya said:


> oh, ive seen it but i still find it amusing that they have the chutzpah to charge scam you for $100/mo for _managed hosting_



It's Jeff Atwood.

He does have that chutzpah. Cofounder of StackOverflow ya know?


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## Regeneration (Dec 10, 2021)

ProBoards








						ProBoards
					

ProBoards is the largest host of free forums on the Internet. We provide the best forums and customer service to help your online community thrive.




					www.proboards.com


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## xrobwx71 (Dec 10, 2021)

XF!
I'm an Administrator over at Sysnative.com and from a user's perspective, it's great. From an Admin's perspective, I love it, it's intuitive and easy to manage.


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## Kissamies (Dec 10, 2021)

XenForo and imageboards in general.


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## ShiBDiB (Dec 20, 2021)

XenForo is clean and well built

As an admin tho I don't think I'd touch any of them. The days of forums like this have passed, only the ones with any name power last. Even high end games typically see more traffic on other platforms like reddit.


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