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IPB too Expensive?
- Thread starter Naiwen
- Start date
If you have zero technical knowledge and you own a huge community, it's not that weird really. Believe it or not but IPS has been evolving to a more cloud solution company for a while now. And if you're already paying a monthly fee and you need to upgrade space, then why not. As your community evolves, so should you as an admin. But yes, as an admin that is able to setup my own forum and website, that price is outrageous.
As someone who has run forums for over 10 years, that price is a little too excessive for someone like me with maybe only a tiny community at best now and probably not making anything from the site, at least for the moment. I can understand why they may charge that much though, IPB is a really powerful forum software and this kind of price would make sense for say someone who has a thriving community and is monetizing their site.
Who in their right mind? The actual target audience: businesses. Businesses who want it to just work, who don't want to host, who don't want to pay someone to manage it etc.
Consider that Discourse has a 'most popular' $300/month hosting plan. NodeBB plans start at $250/month. Circle has plans that are more affordable, in the $99/month arena for more individual users, but a $399/month enterprise plan.
That's really where these entities are going: for the enterprise customers who have other priorities than we do.
Consider that Discourse has a 'most popular' $300/month hosting plan. NodeBB plans start at $250/month. Circle has plans that are more affordable, in the $99/month arena for more individual users, but a $399/month enterprise plan.
That's really where these entities are going: for the enterprise customers who have other priorities than we do.
I do feel that IPB, XF, etc. are focusing primarily on cloud services. There's nothing wrong with that but I wonder when, and that's not an if, but when it will come in the way for selfhosted customers. Obviously companies are more demanding and meanwhile also more rewarding than regular selfhosted customers - However, they should not forget who really made them that big in the first place.
That's an argument that was levied directly at IPS's Matt M elsewhere and while it's a fair point to remember your beginnings, there is the very real reality that the world has changed.
IPS and XF, they're companies. They have to take in enough money to pay their staff and keep paying them. Which means as economic realities change, so too will they - because that's how businesses survive.
The reality, ultimately, is that the folks self-hosting forums are dwindling. In the face of all the factors we've all debated ad nauseum, hobbyist forums (the main province of the self hoster) are disappearing. The growth sector for forums is the business user, who wants a good community solution but it's not practical for them to spend the time or money on someone to install/manage it when for cheaper they can use a cloud solution. And in that light, even IPS is still cheaper than having to take on another techie to expand the corporate IT team when they're inevitably overstretched.
Matt for his part is only too aware of 'where they came from'. I suspect if asked, Kier at XF is as well. I also know a couple of the OG folks in some of the open source crowds who have a similar mindset of 'remembering where they came from' but being very mindful that, actually, the world is moving on and that while there is a great desire to restore forums to what some perceive as a rightful place, that world is no more and instead we should look to how to solve the challenges of now rather than trying to restore what was twenty years ago.
IPS and XF, they're companies. They have to take in enough money to pay their staff and keep paying them. Which means as economic realities change, so too will they - because that's how businesses survive.
The reality, ultimately, is that the folks self-hosting forums are dwindling. In the face of all the factors we've all debated ad nauseum, hobbyist forums (the main province of the self hoster) are disappearing. The growth sector for forums is the business user, who wants a good community solution but it's not practical for them to spend the time or money on someone to install/manage it when for cheaper they can use a cloud solution. And in that light, even IPS is still cheaper than having to take on another techie to expand the corporate IT team when they're inevitably overstretched.
Matt for his part is only too aware of 'where they came from'. I suspect if asked, Kier at XF is as well. I also know a couple of the OG folks in some of the open source crowds who have a similar mindset of 'remembering where they came from' but being very mindful that, actually, the world is moving on and that while there is a great desire to restore forums to what some perceive as a rightful place, that world is no more and instead we should look to how to solve the challenges of now rather than trying to restore what was twenty years ago.
Yeah agree. I'd not even do IPB and stick to XenForo. XenForo is honestly my favorite forum software by far as a user and moderator. I recall when Lithum was around and existed, but you had to have a large/huge community for them to allow you to use it iirc.
Well, Lithium's successor still exists but you need some serious bank for that particular pay to play. I seem to recall hearing $25k as an opening bid but that was a couple of years ago.
Yep, never did get to moderate a Lithium forum but always wanted to!
IPS would never be my first choice. The prices are insane.
The cheapest monthly rate is $54 per month. Consider the plugins' renewal options as well.
--
I partnered with somebody on a forum that already had it up and was already using IPS.
That person pays the IPS board fees to retain the board otherwise I would not be able to maintain the board fees.
@ Shortie agree with the tiny community. Our community is not thriving. After some months of neglect on our part, we are now in the process of revamping. (I'm also going to make a concerted effort to get it to gear.)
--
As someone who was a past admin on a couple of Xenforo boards. Xenforo works just as well. 160 dollars for a year, with an extension of 55 dollars after.
With a slight digression, I believe what bothers me the most about IPS is the limited theme options. Xenforo has a lot more options.
The cheapest monthly rate is $54 per month. Consider the plugins' renewal options as well.
--
I partnered with somebody on a forum that already had it up and was already using IPS.
That person pays the IPS board fees to retain the board otherwise I would not be able to maintain the board fees.
@ Shortie agree with the tiny community. Our community is not thriving. After some months of neglect on our part, we are now in the process of revamping. (I'm also going to make a concerted effort to get it to gear.)
--
As someone who was a past admin on a couple of Xenforo boards. Xenforo works just as well. 160 dollars for a year, with an extension of 55 dollars after.
With a slight digression, I believe what bothers me the most about IPS is the limited theme options. Xenforo has a lot more options.
I agree about the limited theme options, there were far more options years ago. And I stopped using IPB indefinitely for the past two years because of this reason.
Looked again and yeah, almost no themes anymore. I loved when IPB/IPB was free and way different years ago.
Hence why I prefer Xenforo.
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