XenForo & The War Of Forum Software

XenForo - the new kid on the block is taking the forum software world by storm. An initiative by three former Jelsoft/Internet Brands employees, XenForo has already amassed ~5.5k users who've contributed ~90,000 messages within just few weeks. The UK based company behind XenForo, XenForo Ltd. has released the beta version of the software and the community members have already lined up for the licenses. There are few members who ignored the pre-sale offer ($100) to buy the software at higher price ($140) just to show their support & love to the new software. There are many others who're buying multiple licenses to help XenForo Ltd. generate more revenues and continue the development of software and also fight the legal battle with Internet Brands - the company that sued the developers behind XenForo for copyright infringement.

Why'd anyone buy multiple licenses or knowingly buy the software at higher price? From my observation, a majority of this community comprises of vBulletin customers who were let down by the serious issues in vBulletin 4. In 3.8.x admins never faced any issues while upgrading the software or when the issues were reported, they were addressed very fast. But with the new management in place at vBulletin, things have changed. vB users aren't happy because vBulletin 4 version was released even when it was unstable and lot of forums faced lot of issues after upgrade; CE too was one of them!

Old vB customers have immense faith in the developers behind XenForo. However, with IB's lawsuit against XenForo, the future of XF isn't very clear. The chances are that XF will win in the court and continue to develop features and facilities that people expected in vBulletin 4 OR they close their business.

I admit I'm one of the administrators who bought the XF license, just to show support to XF and after toying with the software for a while, I know how powerful it is and the potential it has. I hope XF will give a tough competition to vBulletin and other board software like IPB, PHPBB, SMF. XF's competition will force the existing bullies to innovate and release newer features rapidly.

I look forward to the war of forum software; because the winner ultimately will be the end user, like you & I.