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If we were to move away from vBulletin, what would you recommend we use?

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Lutiana

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Due to the plethora of issues that we have been trying to solve with vBulletin, we have decided to start investigating the possibility of switching forum software, and would like to start looking into the options available out there.


To that end, we would like to ask all of you out there for some suggestions on what other forum software we should consider. It would be particularly helpful if you could comment on the admin experience for your suggested software, but we are also interested in your experiences as a user.


Just to be as transparent as possible, this does not mean that we will switch, it just means that we are investigating our options, and if we do decide to switch we plan to involve the community in the entire process as much as we can, as well as soliciting feedback before any major decisions are made. After all, this is your community as much as it is ours.
 
Thanks, but can you elaborate as to why? And if you have experience with the back end, how was that experience? Is it easy to set permissions, manage accounts etc.

Unfortunately I know absolutely nothing about the administration of it. I just prefer the UX
 
  • VerticalScope Inc., 111 Peter, Suite 901, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 2H1, Canada
  • The Fora platform includes forum software by XenForo
This one is on Overclocker.net
 
I assume that whatever you choose, it will be the latest version, for security purposes, supposedly less bugs etc. Therefore, it will very likely have lots of javascript and other things that the oldies won't like.

So, before you just jump in and say "I want blah", make sure you're you've had a good experience with recent versions of it, and have tried out being a user and/or an admin at various sites. Also, since this is a volunteer project, the costs (both initial and ongoing) need to be reasonable, and value for money.

Like most ppl, I'm an admin at a forum, a mod at some forums, and a user at various other forums. But I'm just not much more than a noob here, so it would be better for others to choose.
 
I have another forum that is migrating from vB to XenForo. They're still working on it, but at a minimum it looks like we might be able to keep all of the old links alive from the old forum to the new forum -- which is nice. We have some VERY large threads on that forum which we had lots of issues with in the current form, and those cleaned up nicely. Biggest nit so far is the emojis things are different.

Out in left field, I've had good experiences with Discourse. I don't quite know how appropriate it is for here. https://retrocomputingforum.com uses Discourse. It seems like decent software, but as a cross grade from vB, it may be a bad match.

But I will say one specific thing about Discourse. It looks all fancy and such and uses a lot of Javascript, but it's works really well without it. You can use Discourse in Lynx and be "happy" (for assorted values of "happy" and green screen web pages). Which I think is a nice feature, especially for a site like this.
 
Almost every other forum I belong to is either sticking with old versions of vBulletin (3.x, 4.x) or has already switched to XenForo.
 
Almost every other forum I belong to is either sticking with old versions of vBulletin (3.x, 4.x) or has already switched to XenForo.

Do the older major versions of vbulletin still receive security updates? I know security was a major concern of the admins here. (I'll refrain from injecting my own opinion of the merits of that again)
 
Probably the forum software that gets hacked the most. Also, quite lacking in features. I don't recommend it at all.

I'd go with Simple Machines Forum.

Again I have no information on the security, because I don't care, but the lack of "features" is something I consider a positive
 
Id like something simple. AS the old forum was simple. "New features" are always problematic and do little for the forum in general. Something industrial and simple in appearance is best. Don't fix what already works.

I dont care about mobile views or apps. When I view the forum on my phone I set it to "desktop mode" so it looks like it does on my desktop....
 
I have no experience with the administration end of things, but I do want to join the chorus of "keep it simple!" here. A forum that requires Javascript just for core browsing functionality (i.e. clicking the link to the next page of the dang thread) to work, and breaks with long-established web-forum conventions (like PM views) for no compelling reason is just plain unreasonable, and likely more fragile anyway.
 
I help run a website running vbulletin5 and ran into much of the same problems you guys have had. We've been on VB5 since 2015.

In addition to gathering ideas of products, it will be necessary to gather the features that the good vcfed folks currently know and love. For example: are sigs important? Avatars? PMs? [SUB]:)[/SUB] Is responsive web design preferred to support mobile browsers, or less frontend code so folks can view the boards on their Commodore or IIe?

To port over the data, you will want a product that has a VBulletin5 importer. That limits the pool to a small few. Many forum products offer VB3/VB4 importers, but VB5 has a significantly different database.

The most interesting to me have been Invision Community and Xenforo. Both have a significant market share, though are priced accordingly with annual maintenance fees.
 
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