💬 Platform Discussion What are some pros and cons of Invision?

[Ravenfreak]

But why would you buy such an inferior product?

I suppose someone out there still likes vBulletin the most lol. I personally wouldn't get it even if it was on sale myself, and I think the majority of users here think the same. They really have gone downhill.

 

[Uncrowned]

Invision's largest advantage is the suite. It is very much a product that mostly stands alone in its offerings with only a few heavily modified options really up against it. Each individual app (like the forums or pages) do very well when directly compared to individual options, but having that suite of above average apps all paired together and integrated is something hard to find.

When it comes to forums, I feel like Invision brings a more modern forum, but XF offers better classic forum experience. What one is truly better? Well that would be a lot of preference.

So if I was building a forum, it would honestly be a tough choice, but in my personal case Invision easily won as XF simply doesn't offer the tools I needed. Wotlabs was actually the other choice for me, but the German support and less apps have Invision a win.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

in my personal case Invision easily won as XF simply doesn't offer the tools I needed. Wotlabs was actually the other choice for me

These are my sentiments too. If I was starting anew, Woltlab would be on my list to consider due to active development. Same with Invision. Xenforo for being "ole trusty" at a decent price point, and I think VBulletin gets dogged on a little too much due to it's history, but it will do the job also.

Invision's team/staff is sizeable, and they are constantly developing and releasing updates. There's a lot of committment there, and that helps maintain faith in the product. Xenforo seems to be one guy who had been slumbering for several years and recently woke up. Maybe if they had mandatory renewals they could have a nice active development team too.

 

[Cedric]

Honestly, I've been playing around with the idea to start something new. But there isn't anything that pulled the trigger for me yet so it's probably one of "those projects" that will get neglected. While I was playing with the thought, I was checking out which software suits me best.

I checked vBulletin, Woltlab, XF and Invision Community.

vBulletin is too outdated, boring. Woltlab is kinda cool but lacks some features when compared to XF. Invision Community is nice but lacks in 3rd party add ons. It's more expensive than any of the competitors but it's packed with more features. I own a license, but IC wouldn't be my first choice to start something on because of the 3rd party add ons it lacks and due it being more generic than any other IC board. Great for their audience, not so much for ours.

So IF I'd go with a new project, my choice would still be XF. Despite their lack of development. It's still better than any other platform due the 3rd party add offering.

TLDR: 3rd party add ons are superior for any modern webmaster looking to make a great community. XF is the only one with a gigantic database of add ons. The rest not so much and will end up looking more generic. While 3rd party add ons, don't break or make a community, they still play a crucial role in enhancing your community.

 

[Empire]

I haven't had any success pushing Blogs. Nobody uses it. Clubs started off great but then they all died and after a year we closed Clubs and converted them all to subforums.

CLubs are still running on my end but you are right it's dead and not get used.. I used addons to improve and open the clubs more to the users however that doesn't make it active.

 

[cdub]

Yeah. My clubs are private. I guess out of sight out of mind.

 

[Matt M]

3rd party add ons are superior for any modern webmaster looking to make a great community

I push back on that a little bit. You can run a community from a Facebook Group or even a Slack chat room. Great community comes from content and leadership, not plugins and features. You could remove all the custom stuff from this forum and it would be just fine and people who not leave because you removed them and you would not see fewer sign ups because you removed them.

Some of the custom things here just get in the way like the random "daily credits" notification and PMs/notifications that aren't real PMs or notifications. People see through all that stuff now. Forums are becoming more transactional and less fluffy which is fine, most will visit once or twice a day for 5-10 minutes and just want to see what's new and what's interesting.

 

[Cedric]

I push back on that a little bit. You can run a community from a Facebook Group or even a Slack chat room. Great community comes from content and leadership, not plugins and features. You could remove all the custom stuff from this forum and it would be just fine and people who not leave because you removed them and you would not see fewer sign ups because you removed them.

Some of the custom things here just get in the way like the random "daily credits" notification and PMs/notifications that aren't real PMs or notifications. People see through all that stuff now. Forums are becoming more transactional and less fluffy which is fine, most will visit once or twice a day for 5-10 minutes and just want to see what's new and what's interesting.

It really depends on the audience. You’re right that you can have a community on facebook, Slack, Discord, etc. But if we would prefer a community over there, don’t you think we would be there instead of choosing for the traditional/classic forum community?

There’s a reason why we are on forums, and not Slack, Discord, etc. It’s our preferred method of communication. While we prefer that we like to customize our experience by 3rd party add ons.

Some don’t care about that and they’re better off on facebook, and similar platforms. But for me, and many among us, we grew up with forums and customization. Thus any platform giving us the best option for this will thrive the most.

But yes, content is still king and will always be king.

 

[joelr]

Honestly, I've been playing around with the idea to start something new. But there isn't anything that pulled the trigger for me yet so it's probably one of "those projects" that will get neglected. While I was playing with the thought, I was checking out which software suits me best.

I checked vBulletin, Woltlab, XF and Invision Community.

vBulletin is too outdated, boring. Woltlab is kinda cool but lacks some features when compared to XF. Invision Community is nice but lacks in 3rd party add ons. It's more expensive than any of the competitors but it's packed with more features. I own a license, but IC wouldn't be my first choice to start something on because of the 3rd party add ons it lacks and due it being more generic than any other IC board. Great for their audience, not so much for ours.

So IF I'd go with a new project, my choice would still be XF. Despite their lack of development. It's still better than any other platform due the 3rd party add offering.

TLDR: 3rd party add ons are superior for any modern webmaster looking to make a great community. XF is the only one with a gigantic database of add ons. The rest not so much and will end up looking more generic. While 3rd party add ons, don't break or make a community, they still play a crucial role in enhancing your community.

There is (or rather, there was) a very large database of addons for IPS as well. However, IPS required Marketplace authors to keep versioning in line with its base software, so as the base software was updated, clients could only access compatible mods. If an author never updated the file versioning, those files would be hidden.

One of the interesting benefits of Xenforo's relatively slow development cycle - and this is not a critique, just an observation - is more stability for its 3rd party ecosystem. You develop something, and you can bank it for 4 to 5 years. Over at IPS, within 6 months you likely had to be testing it for compatibility for several new releases.

Ultimately, I think IPS sees a different future for its particular client base, who are more and more focused on the core software.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

However, IPS required Marketplace authors to

And we still have the possibility of a wider array of third party apps moving forward, since devs are no longer hindered by Invision and it's Marketplace moving forward.

 

[Cedric]

There is (or rather, there was) a very large database of addons for IPS as well. However, IPS required Marketplace authors to keep versioning in line with its base software, so as the base software was updated, clients could only access compatible mods. If an author never updated the file versioning, those files would be hidden.

One of the interesting benefits of Xenforo's relatively slow development cycle - and this is not a critique, just an observation - is more stability for its 3rd party ecosystem. You develop something, and you can bank it for 4 to 5 years. Over at IPS, within 6 months you likely had to be testing it for compatibility for several new releases.

Ultimately, I think IPS sees a different future for its particular client base, who are more and more focused on the core software.

IPS seeing a different future for a different client base other than us hobbyists has been clear for a while now. I'm not saying that's a bad thing either. But if I among others here were to start a new community, XF would likely still be most in favorite despite the slow development.

There's some awesome features coming for v5, but I suspect hobbyists don't really see the benefit of those features. Their corporate client base, yes.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

I suspect hobbyists don't really see the benefit of those features.

I think hobbyists love the features, and don't love the price. However, forums have taken a hit in popularity and most forum software has stagnated. Communities are on the rise though, such as Mighty Networks, Kajabi, Podio, and Hivebrite. I see Invision competing with their market now, because it's the evolving market currently.