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The Pros of SMF

Started by samhtb, February 23, 2017, 04:44:57 AM

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samhtb

Hi, everyone!

I would like to hear from your experience of using SMF. I am considering using SMF for the forum directory to my site. If you have ever used other forum platforms other than SMF, how do you compare SMF to other forum platforms? What are the Pros of SMF? 

Xarkurai

I've been from SMF to vBulletin and Xenforo a few times and always ended up back here.

To be honest, the best thing I like about SMF is that it's clean and it feels easier and better to customize. vBulletin & Xenforo had literally craploads of places to dig in to customize your needs (person experience). SMF is very simply in it. Another reason that came up for me is: "why am I actually paying for forum software"?
SMF is free and saves you a lot of money. Beside that, there is a friendly community around here, always up for lending a hand when needed.

You can always compare by checking the websites of other forum softwares and read reviews. But know that everyone will just tell you why their forum software is the best.
From my part, this was my personal experience.

You can basically achieve anything you want with this forum software, as long as you believe in it ;).
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Rust

Beyond cost, there is nothing SMF can do that Xenforo cannot do better in almost every respect.  If the licensing fee is a concern, and your user base doesn't care, SMF might be right for your project.  If not, go with XF and don't look back.  That said, SMF is well support and there are plenty of plug-ins to customize your community.

What type of forum are you starting?

Kindred

Really?   I happen to disagree....  I think that smf does many things better than xenforo.  Just because something is paid does not make it better.
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Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

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Arantor

Quote from: Kindred on March 02, 2017, 11:08:38 PM
Really?   I happen to disagree....  I think that smf does many things better than xenforo.  Just because something is paid does not make it better.

Such as?

Mr. Jinx

I am using SMF from the beginning for a couple of forums and am 100% happy with it.
Recently I started using XF for some other forums and was blown away with all the useful features it has out of the box.
You can do anything with SMF, but you will need some modding. If something doesn't work you will need support from the community and pray that someone helps you. With XF you will get official support, they respond quickly. Yes, that is what you pay for.

The template modification system in XF is one of those things I really like. It's a well designed system which tracks your changes. Easy to revert and easy to upgrade. Same goes for the plugin system.
If you start a new forum, and don't mind paying a fee, I would definitely recommend XF over SMF right now.

Westwegoman

I can't really speak for other platforms. Other than some short testing, I've only used two. I started out using YaBB for several years and ended up changing over to SMF. I haven't looked back.

I've been able to do pretty much what I have wanted to do with SMF. When I became stuck on figuring something out, I was able to get a solution from searching the support forum most of the time. If I was unable to find a solution, a simple question in the support forum went a long way.

The only thing I would suggest is, set up a few different forums on a test site and see which works best for you. What works great for someone may not for others.

ARG01

One of the pros, from a design standpoint, is the flexibility of SMF. I have found that many forum owners are more interested in making custom alterations, as opposed to actually administrating their forum. I am sure many that design for profit can agree. Over the years I have worked on many designs, and some paying customers can keep you busy for a very long time.
I never thought that a simple forum software would make such a huge impact on my life, but at one point I was making monthly mortgage payments, solely from the profits made with custom SMF work.  8)   
No, I will not offer free downloads to Premium DzinerStuido themes. Please stop asking.

[eLg]elite

SMF does everything you need it to, and more. Also, it's not a sloppy mess which most vBulletin, phpBB and other forums with massive amounts of customization options end up being. The simplicity of SMF itself is enough reason to use it, as well as all the plugins and templates you can change in order to implement whatever feature you're looking for. Why pay more for something that's just going to do the same thing, but be more annoying/confusing(for newer members especially)? Atleast using SMF, you know people aren't going to be driven away because they can't figure out how to do some basic functions because the way it was added by the web-designer is not compatible with what the user is used to using.

radu81

Quote from: Rust on March 02, 2017, 11:01:32 PM
Beyond cost, there is nothing SMF can do that Xenforo cannot do better in almost every respect. 
They are both nice forums, but I still miss some SMF core features into xf:
- the one I missed more: mark topic as unread
- SMF stats visible to all users
- ACP member view is more friendly and has more options into smf
- let users search for other users based on custom fields
sorry for my bad english

landyvlad

I haven't used other forum software, as a forum owner, but have experience of pretty much all platforms as a user and often as a moderator.

I think vBulletin is over-rated.  I mean it works, but it costs $ and I can't see the value personally.

XenForo looks good, I've no direct experience of it, but again costs $ and since all my forum costs come out of my own very shallow pockets, isn't any good to me.

As for SMF - I have always found it to be very easy to use - from a user point of view (long before I got into this as an owner/admin). 

I did a LOT of research before deciding on a platform for my own forum but my choice of SMF came down to:

  • SMF is Free
  • SMF is easy for most users to get their heads around
  • This SMF Support forum is active and full of very helpful people.

and since establishing my forum I've encountered another very good argument in favour of SMF.  I have brought a couple of additional admins on board and one had no moderator/admin experience previously. He has got up to speed with doing the admin stuff pretty well - which is very important.

Cheers
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Gluz

Too much time since I used another system from an owners perspective, and specially from the customizer point of view, but once you get how SMF works (is not that straight forward as others but it's completely well structured) it's easy to modify code from sources and templates easy to modify it at your own needs, things that take me more time in phpBB3 and was not that intuitive once I learned how to do it.

As a user, SMF without MODs lacks a variety of things that you can be accustomed to use in some other systems, but nothing that some MODs and edits didn't bring to SMF.

The bridge from Joomla to SMF was not that good as the one to phpBB3 at the time I was using Joomla as a frontpage and have the 2 systems installed to test how to work with them easily, an at the end we use phpBB3 until we get hacked, then we started fresh in SMF as it's hard get hacked.

SMF since then is the way to go wherever someone ask me to advice them to make a community forum, as now I know it from the inside somewhat better and can fix it when someone breaks something (sadly some MODs break things because the vast number of MODs there are in the site, and that could be some CON about SMF, some MODs don't work well together).

Also, most of the time the sites I setup for other people are free sites, that struggle to even get a $25/year host, so, not much alternative in the free forum systems.

SMiFFER

Quote from: Gluz on April 17, 2017, 01:54:41 AMAs a user, SMF without MODs lacks a variety of things that you can be accustomed to use in some other systems, but nothing that some MODs and edits didn't bring to SMF.
Oh, how true!
That sounds as if I had written it. I had been using as user for long time, but when I first set it up myself, I was irritated by how much is missing in an unmodded SMF.
Quote of the day: A troll is an obstinate bloke who only hungers for your attention. If you feed him, he will puke all over you!

Kindred

but, if it had everything and the kitchen sink, it would not be SIMPLE... would it?

That's the glory of mods and the SMF Package manager - they let you easily customize your system with the features that YOU want, without cluttering up the system with stuff that OTHERS want.
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Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Westwegoman

Quote from: Kindred on May 17, 2017, 02:33:13 PM
but, if it had everything and the kitchen sink, it would not be SIMPLE... would it?

That's the glory of mods and the SMF Package manager - they let you easily customize your system with the features that YOU want, without cluttering up the system with stuff that OTHERS want.
Exactly. Hit the nail on the head!

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