[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by John

Core forum functionality with all of them is basically the same as they all have forums, subforums, threads, posts, private messages, etc.

Some differences are related to how the systems are programmed, so that would not be readily apparent.

More obvious is related to site design, how the site's flow.

Xenforo & Invision are both paid software. The others are free, but some (maybe all of those) still have commercial backing. They give away free in order to promote their software and make money by offering hosting services. Basically hosting companies giving away software in order to gain clients. I prefer hosting myself, though, as it gives more flexibility and options.

Xenforo is unique in that one of the primary developers was also a primary developer of the software we've been using. That likely means Xenforo may be more familiar in how it's designed, how it functions. Also I would expect migrating from our current software to Xenforo to possibly go a little better. Although, it's also possible some other forum software does all of that better despite the Xenforo dev's previous connection to our current software.

Invision, last I checked, has a significnatly larger development team. Also quite a bit more costly compared to Xenforo.

I'll be looking into all of those forum systems much more after I start this project. Definitely want to make sure to use the one that will be best for GC.

Do you think the more expensive one is better than the others? I mean, I’m not sure if that’s how it works with what you’re doing for us, but it just seems like the more expensive one would be better?

Originally Posted by John

Sidenote: Before GC I had started a real-time chat network that got quite big. Early on I received an email from a guy who said he met his wife on my chat network. Said that he had my chat network to thank for him having his family, wife & kids. That was a big realization for me how impactful the Internet was going to become. I was already convinced how important the Internet would be in the future (this was back when people were still asking daily what the Internet/web/www was), but to hear from someone and having them thanking me so much because they met their wife in my chat and they now have kids seemed to take it to the next level. That probably impacted me quite a bit way back in the day... maybe that's partly why I do what I do, I don't know.

I guess this is more common than I thought.