Is XenForo actually a good platform/community webhosting advice in general? - Kiwifarms 2 WITH BEER AND HOOKERS (not)

[Sanshain]

So I've been on the internet for over 20 years now. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the early 00's, I ran a couple of small forums for niche interests that inevitably petered out once everyone moved to Skype/chat programs and later Discord. Recently I've been thinking of getting into community hosting again, but any knowledge I have of the technical processes is woefully outdated by now.

I'm curious if anyone has technical knowledge of XenForo and other hosting systems. What was your experience? Would you recommend it, and if not, why? If not, what substitute would you prefer? What're the essential skills for a webmaster in this day and age, aside from a tolerance for lunacy, idiots who overshare and petty interpersonal drama?

Keeping it vague for now as I'm honestly not even sure I want to go through with this, just been looking at XenForo's pricing options and free trials for now.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

You probably should not ask for opinions about XenForo on here, you'll generally get biased responses.

KF is run on XenForo but they revoked our license (and changed their TOS to justify it iirc). Null is developing an OSS alternative Ruforo.

 

[I am vomit]

If you want to subject yourself to a bunch of fucking piss babies who will revoke you on a whim, yeah, it's the best!

 

[kūhaku]

try phpBB, it'll appeal to older people and drive away zoomers

 

[thebigjoel]

try phpBB, it'll appeal to older people and drive away zoomers

That or Simplemachines

 

[Chocolate Wombat]

Wait for Null to finish the sneed forum software. It is the future...sometime in the future.

 

[Incorrect Password]

I think XF is a decent software, minus the fact that they're MATI at a certain forum hint hint
I'd say Invision is a good one as it's basically an XF clone, one plus side for both are that you can't export the site database in the admin panel, something that phpbb, SMF, and most versions of vbul do, and something that those said forum softwares need to seriously phase out, but i digress, if you practice proper opsec then any will do.

 

[Baraadmirer]

I'm okay with Xenforo; I don't know many other types of forum software that lets me preview my post quickly and doesn't require the page being refreshed.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

Whatever you do, don't forget your 3-2-1 backups. And test actually restoring them too!

 

[awoo]

I do not support XenForo simply because it is commercial proprietary software rather than esatblished FREE (as in cost and freedom) software alternatives which are (probably) just as good, especially for a small forum like myBB or phpBB. You may think it's autistic to care about such things, but you saw how XF revoked Null's license and shut him out of support and updates, which wouldn't be possible with free software (well, as much support as they offer.)

 

[Baguette Child]

I'm curious if anyone has technical knowledge of XenForo and other hosting systems. What was your experience? Would you recommend it, and if not, why?

A niche coding project community I was part of a little while ago switched away from XenForo. Staff said it was due to issues with support channels being unresponsive and frankly unconcerned with actually addressing support tickets. For whatever that's worth.

 

[awoo]

Also if you're interested in a free software alternative to Discord, check out Element / Matrix. The UI is very close to discord which is a plus for people coming from there, and Matrix actually does more as a protocol in theory than discord.

 

[Gamercat]

I think it's fine nothing special but I think it's kinda gay to revoke someone's licence over a flase complaint.

 

[awoo]

I think it's fine nothing special but I think it's kinda gay to revoke someone's licence over a flase complaint.

Allow me to channel my inner Stallman sperg for a moment: non-free software does not respect the user.

 

[Skitarii]

Whu would you bother with the paid version of sneedforo