Forum softwares

[Lord Saru]

We all know that forum softwares are pretty saturated and not much can be asked in the way of coding. I was wondering hat you all think are the changes that need to happen in forum softwares?

Here are my suggestions

1. Its time to move on to the less cheap versions. I suggest something like phpBB Lite or something similar.

2. Most of the forum softwares have almost the same type of profile view page. I have always wanted a style with a different profile view, but to no avail.

3. Automated content integration system. We are now required to buy seperate modules by paying extra. Thus should not be because a forum isnt a forum without community.

What are your views?

 

[Ash]

phpBB is already free though so what would be the point of phpBB Lite? Maybe an IPB or XenForo lite version would make more sense. I agree with your second point. It would be interesting for someone to go for something totally different and unique. A lot of these forum Softwares look exactly the same.

 

[catgirl]

So one, as someone whose already paid and invested a lot into the XenForo Ecosystem I won't be leaving anytime soon. That said here's my thoughts.

Forums who invest early on tend to have better outcomes. People who spend $160+ just to get started aren't going to give up 3 days later because they just spent a ton of money to make their website look pretty.

As for the profile thing, it's pretty standardized but tell your theme developer you want something new and pay them for it. Extra features don't come for free unfortunately.

With XenForo you are paying for support not the software. You get a huge community along with Staff who are paid to help you. There doesn't need to be a Xenforo or IPB lite because it would reduce the number of people paying for support. I don't mind paying extra if it means that there are people willing to help me with an issue occurs.

A CMS isn't free, I get you don't want to pay, but the people working on your forum software have to feed their families still. As a result they do charge money in exchange for their time spent writing the code and providing you with support for it.

I don't understand phpBB lite, maybe it's for shared hosting environments with very limited resources, but at that point you should switch to a better host.

 

[Jinder]

I have been using mybb and SMF for some time now