Internet Forum Software

[Gimpymoo]

Looking in a bit more detail, although I can see the benefits of Enjin for some, it reminds me of My Space for some reason....

 

[Gimpymoo]

I dislike enjin with a passion. From OP I would choose IP then Xenforo. vB lost it's way after 3.0. The lead developers of vB created Xenforo.

For free BBs I like myBB the most.

Has stated in my update a few posts up, the plan now is to stick with IP for the forum but just have something else to use as a front end. The question is, what? I am **** at coding of any description and although IP.content is awesome, it is way beyond me.

 

[UberTiger]

I went with Invision Power suite in the end.

You can get a "pay monthly" licence for $10 which I thought is great value.

http://www.invisionpower.com/butt-pricing

Is perfect for the interim as only a small group of us working on the site at the moment.

Once the site is up and running and with hopefully large amount of traffic, we will switch to a licensed copy.

Good customer service from IP so far too.

Will post the site when I have something decent to show

lol, that link is great with the cloud to butt chrome extention installed

Update, just incase someone else is in the same position.

Have been tinkering with IPB suite for a while now and here my thoughts and future plans.

Overall, I like IPB as a forum, it is functional with good admin/management tools. At times though, some of the feature seem overly complex.

HOWEVER, to use IPB as a total suite and the get the most out of it, does require the ability to make your own scripts which while I am sure many can, I cannot. Sure, you could "hire" someone to do that for you but the cost can spiral or try to use a mish mash of paid scripts which may/may not work.

So, the idea of using IPB as a complete package for the whole site, seems to be out the Window.

I am going to attempt to try using Wordpress as a front end with IPB for the forum. I may even try Xenforo in the future too.

Many knock Wordpress but as a basic front end, in my opinion, it is decent and has LOTS of community support.

One HUGE positive about IPB I have to say, is their official support are EXCELLENT. Quick to respond with accurate and helpful replies. User to user support on their forum is also good with some great community members but if you encounter any niche problem, you will find it more IPB seems to be more niche meaning user to user support can be difficult to find in anywhere other than their own forum.

I do agree that when looking at a forum, PHPBB while practical is showing its age.

I just need to see how much I can integrate IPB with Wordpress regarding user account etc.

I'm a big fan of XenForo, I've recently updated my clan's site http://www.fffsquad.com/

I've always found the XenForo staff incredibly helpful both in public threads and private support tickets.

There's also a great resource manager where you can download hundreds of free and paid add ons.

I've not really looked into IPB recently, but I hear there's supposed to be some pretty cool new features coming out in V4? Are there any cool features that you particularly like that you've noticed aren't in the other software packages?

VB is dying though. You can see here, look at the 5 pie charts at the bottom of the page.

XF now has 25% market share between the big 3 commercial platforms, although the most interesting figure is the detected software migrations, a staggering 72% are vB to XF conversions.