XenForo Avis 

We use the "fully managed" Xenforo cloud service, which comes complete with some of the worst support I've ever experienced for any product or service.

When reporting issues with a couple of features that have worked fine (and been untouched by me) for almost two years, I received the classic "Nothing has changed on our end" reply.

When I see that lazy response, I know what I'm in for, and spoiler alert: it's not good. Starting with "Nothing has changed on our end" never leads to a satisfactory resolution—only frustration.

Oh, and I waited six days for a response in the middle of the support ticket that inspired this review. Six days.

The rep said, "I was somewhat ill last week. Are you still having this issue?"

First of all, if your system can't hand off a ticket when someone is away from the job for several days, you need a new system.

Secondly, it is beyond annoying to be asked, "Are you still having this issue?" after no one has taken any steps to investigate or fix anything.

Unless your software fixes itself, yes, I am still having the issue.

Someone should let the Xenforo owners know that bad customer support can drag down an otherwise good product. They don't seem to realize that at the moment.

I mean, I *hope* that's the problem because the alternative is that they just don't care.

Xenforo is the most feature-rich and stable forum platform I've used. It's been my go-to for years.

I've been managing enterprise-sized forums for over thirty years. We used to use a company called vBulletin and were very happy with the service. Most importantly, it has the cleanest code I have ever seen in this type of software—there is no clutter, and it is extremely easy to navigate.

A few years ago, we did a final upgrade, and the code was changed entirely. It was messy and precarious, and it simply didn't work. Not only that, but the price increased %200. I believe it was vBulletin v5. We managed to get a refund for that upgrade, and in the meantime, we found out that the core development team had left vBulletin, or they had sold it, and we were dealing with a ground-up new source. It wasn't perfect.

We also found that the group that had split off had started a new board called xenForo. We immediately purchased it and have used it ever since.

If you're looking for clean, efficient, easy-to-manage forum/community software, you won't find anything better. Believe me-

I've been using it for a year. So far, so good. The panel looks very simple and friendly but can be a little bit challenging for a newcomer, but you will learn from it eventually.

It is arguably one of the most ineffective forum software ever developed. I am a member of two forums: one dedicated to construction (Beobuild) and the other to Hi-Fi discussions (Tapeheads.net), and both utilize this software. On the Hi-Fi forum, users experienced significant difficulties with their profiles due to additional security measures implemented by the administrator, which resulted in many members being blocked and unable to access the forum. Users were frequently met with the error message "403 Forbidden."

Consequently, the administrator was compelled to intervene after receiving numerous complaints because the situation had escalated beyond control. The protection system tended to malfunctions and errors, indiscriminately blocking every dynamic IP address.

Ultimately, the administrator managed to resolve the issue, albeit with an acknowledgment of the software's poor quality. On the construction forum, I encountered a problem when I attempted to update my email address. The forum informed me that it had dispatched an activation email for account confirmation, yet it failed to arrive. I tried changing my email several times, but to no avail; I received no confirmation notification. I meticulously checked both my trash and spam folders and found nothing.

To complicate matters further, there is no means of communication with the moderator on that construction forum, leaving me entirely isolated and powerless to rectify the situation. It appears that a malfunction within the Xenforo software prevented notifications from being sent to users, forcing them to contemplate creating new accounts and reporting the issue at that time. I have never encountered such substandard software in my experience, and as the administrator of the Hi-Fi forum remarked, one must purchase an add-on to enable a dark theme, which comes at a hefty price.

It is unreasonable to charge such a premium for a product of such inferior quality. Avoid it and do not use it. It is unfortunate that an administrator chose such a harvesting product. If I ever get my account back, I will suggest that he ditch this thing for good and look up an alternative.

Very willing to work with me after slandering my name and dragging me through the mud so I give it five stars for understanding that social media is not a joke to some people and I actually like this site come and see my content on here

It's been eight years since my move to Xenforo from VBulletin. It has been a completely positive experience. My subsequent upgrade to Xenforo cloud hosting two years ago was an also an excellent choice. The initial move from my dysfunctional web host presented difficulties which the professionals at Xenforo overcame while keeping me well informed. Support has been rarely required however it has been prompt and helpful when I needed it.

I am really disappointed with the software from XenForo. Right from the start, we had numerous issues with installing XenForo. I had to get a server administrator to help with the installation because the documentation didn't mention many of the problems we encountered.

XenForo seems like a product that has been patched repeatedly. Everything in the admin panel is extremely difficult. Every time I want to change something simple, like the color of some text or a button, I have to use Google to find out how to do it.

Due to these issues, I decided to ask for a refund. Their refund policy states, “We will maintain a reasonable policy regarding requests for refunds.” I thought my request for a refund after less than seven days was reasonable since they could simply deactivate the license. However, they said that since I had already downloaded it, there are no refunds. I am confused why they even state they provide a “reasonable refund policy” when it isn't reasonable at all.

I won’t be purchasing anything from this company after this poor experience. It's a shame that companies like this try to make money from technicalities instead of offering a good product that people don’t want to refund. Nowadays, companies offer 30-day money-back guarantees if you are not happy with the product. Clearly, XenForo realizes this wouldn’t be a good idea for their product.

I would like to express my dissatisfaction with the customer service I received from Paul during my attempt to transfer my license.

On Wednesday morning, I contacted support to transfer my license to another person. Right from the start, Paul was extremely rigid and uncooperative. Despite my detailed explanations of my situation and my desire to transfer the license without renewing it, Paul continuously insisted that renewal was mandatory, offering no alternatives or showing any understanding of my particular case.

In each message, Paul repeated the same information without attempting to find a solution that suited my request. I clarified multiple times that I simply wanted to transfer the ownership of my domain and XF files to my forum administrator, but Paul remained inflexible and unwilling to help.

In conclusion, Paul's lack of flexibility and understanding made this experience extremely frustrating. I am very disappointed with the customer service and the rigidity of the procedures imposed without any room for maneuver. This experience has significantly affected my opinion of the company and its customer support practices.

I migrated two forums from vBulletin and one from IPS about 10 years ago and never looked back, it was like a breath of fresh air no longer grappling with clunky admin interface and user, it's lot more intuitive and incredibly versatile. Recent additions such as the Article system have been a real game changer. Easy to customise and very decent support from the team (although I have not needed it much).

My forum is using Xenforo since 2017 or so and its amazing.

I like the performance, variety of addons and friendly community.

The best forum software on the market, period. Using it for years. Support is also excellent.
Only drawback: development is very slow, the software could be even better including the missing CMS.

Very fast forum software, nice team, affordable price.

Responsive tech support. Rock solid software. Fairly easy to setup and maintain. Lots of third party applications.

Ok Xenforo are a small business that need us customers to help them out.
What i love about the forum software is that it is easy to use.
What i hate about it are the multitude of impatient people wanting them to hurry up with their 2.3 release.
I'm feeling their temper at the moment.
I am at least trying to help them all out.
Software is great. But the personell can be grumpy at times. Grumpy because of the impatient customers giving them bakes

I've used many forum software solutions, but XenForo is one of my favourites to date, and used since the very beginning.

3/27/24 ANOTHER update:

XenForo wrote:

"We hadn't previously insinuated that Christine was a liar like she claims, but something doesn't add up here."

TrustPilot: Can I post screenshots here or a link to my site with the screenshots?

I've had it with these liars. Potential customers should be able to read what really happened.

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Updated a few hours after XenForo DELETED its entire original response:

"We got a lot of spam in the forum and sometimes mistakes are made.

The message does say to simply contact an administrator if it was done in error.

The account and messages have been restored."

So there. Does anyone see an apology? I sure don't. Not to mention that there was no link ANYWHERE to "simply contact the administrator."

And I don't understand why TrustPilot allows editing and deleting of reviews and responses.

As you can see here, XenForo falsely accused me of lying. They offered a very lame and insulting apology after I tried to educate them and wrote a SAMPLE response for them -- what they SHOULD have written.

Not to mention that they call it a "frankly very small issue." Seriously? HOURS wasted, the stress, being banned for asking pre-sale questions.

Which, BTW, were NOT answered by the member. Not their job! XenForo is nothing but a bunch of meanspirited liars. I'd give NEGATIVE 10 stars if I could.

And I wouldn't use the product if it was free after experiencing their "support" and extraordinary arrogance.

Updated 3/26/24: XenForo's response to this review is EXACTLY what Paul wrote to me. Please note the ABSENCE of an apology!

Next, Chris wrote to me:

"If you would like any further assistance, we would appreciate it if the unfair review could be deleted in the first instance."

Unfortunately, this is how most (all?) corporations operate in 2024. To date, XenForo support entirely ignored my pre-sales questions and it is apparently up to other users to answer.

I have no interest in XenForo unless ownership changes or management makes some MAJOR changes and starts treating (potential) customers with the respect they deserve.

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I was incredibly excited when I found XenForo yesterday.

Posted several questions in the presales forum, but my post was NOT approved.

Next, I spent HOUR after HOUR reading in the support forum, even setting up a test site, and as I found answers to my questions and new concerns, I posted updates to my NOT-approved pre-sales questions.

Last night I had emailed about my XenForo research and today we discussed and decided to purchase XenForo.

A few minutes ago I went to PURCHASE the $195 license for self-hosting.

SURPRISE!

I'm BANNED!

WOW WOW WOW - I'm 65 years old and got my first computer around 1984.

What on earth is happening?

the script is good but it has lots of programming problems even if you didn't do any changes and the support of the script doesn't help

I have been using XenForo since 2012 and never turned back since I started using it. The absolute best forum software available!