Tiny portal or ezportal

[DenDen60]

I am presently testing both portals. 

Many years ago I started with Tiny Portal, then I move  to Ez-portal, because it seemed that tiny portal was going to a phase where development was iffy. 

Now as I am starting a new forum, I am evaluating which one is better. 

Any comments on performance and usability is welcome. 

[@rjen]

TinyPortal is kept up to date, with support for SMF2.1. There are no plans to stop support. Cannot comment on Ezportal.

I assume you will just have to compare functionality and look and fell and then make your decision.

It all depends on what you are looking for in a portal

[DenDen60]

TinyPortal is kept up to date, with support for SMF2.1. There are no plans to stop support. Cannot comment on Ezportal.

I assume you will just have to compare functionality and look and fell and then make your decision.

It all depends on what you are looking for in a portal

Ok and what is the difference between tiny portal and eh portal?

[Arantor]

In the time taken to ask about these things and wait for a response, you could have installed them and tried them out to see that they basically do the same job in slightly different ways...

[@rjen]

I repeat...

I assume you will just have to compare functionality and look and fell and then make your decision.

[DenDen60]

I repeat...

I assume you will just have to compare functionality and look and fell and then make your decision.

I will for ezportal and Simple Portal. I doubt I will do it for EH portal. Hence my question. ;-)

[Diego Andrés]

Well there's no Simple Portal for SMF 2.1, that'd be EhPortal.
I know that Tiny Portal, Light Portal and EzPortal work on SMF 2.1, and I suppose EhPortal might work too.

[gevv]

Hi,

@DenDen60 Try the Light Portal,  it is constantly improving

[marcosbr]

In TP you have the option of chats (more than one). The other one doesn't.
But both are very good!

[Doug Heffernan]

Well there's no Simple Portal for SMF 2.1, that'd be EhPortal.
I know that Tiny Portal, Light Portal and EzPortal work on SMF 2.1, and I suppose EhPortal might work too.

Light Portal by @Bugo is a very good portal imo.

[vbgamer45]

For me light portal has some great ideas. Myself have sponsored that project.
TinyPortal if you want built in articles/downloads. Was the first portal I used for a long time.
ezPortal - simple portal with blocks or if using my addons has some of those built as blocks. I built originally for my forum hosting system since wanted to control performance/updates better.

[Raffoz]

I use SMF since 2005.
I have been using Simple Portal (it was amazing for years!).

I just tested all 4 available Portals yesterday.
I'm referring to SMF 2.1.

Hoping to do something useful for others (it's my way to say tks for all the help I received and receive here), I summarize my opinions about all 4 Portals.


1) Eh Portal (not downloadable from this site)
- it'd be choice n. 1 for people who used Simple Portal (it's a ported version)
- graphic is super nice
- you maintain all blocks and pages
- there are some visual bugs and support is not given on this forum, but on the forum od developers
- I don't know if support is fast and/or continued

2) Ez Portal (link to Mod)
- complete system of @vbgamer45
- you have direct support by him
- good performance
- continue development

3) Light Portal (link to Mod)
- amazing Portal by @Bugo (please look at his other Mods, they are wonderful)
- it has super nice options and features
- I think it'll be the future of SMF
- at the moment, it's a little bit young, but it's awesome for its beauty!
- I have encountered some bugs in installing and uninstalling

4) Tiny Portal (link to Mod)
- super mature Portal
- full of features and stable
- the safest option for a production website

Hugs! 🤗

[landyvlad]

I have used SimplePortal, EZPortal and TinyPortal.

SimplePortal - didn't gel with me just never had the confidence in it I felt I needed. Of course YMMV. For 2.1 it'd need to be ehportal and I've not used that.


EZPortal - very good. More basic in function than TinyPortal but does include everything that 99% of users would use a portal for. Yes I'd recommend it. I also use a number of other SMFHacks products and they are all good. (I use their pro gallery for example) so I certainly have confidence on that front. I give it 4 out of 5.


TinyPortal - the most feature rich of the portals on offer as far as I have experienced. I certainly don't use it to it's full capabilities but I'm pretty sure you won't find anything missing from it as compared with any other portals I've used).  TinyPortal is the one I currently use and I'm very happy with it. I give it 4.5 out of 5.

[Steve]

I give it 4.5 out of 5.

What's missing that would make you give it that other half star?

[landyvlad]

I never give anything 5/5 because nothing is perfect.

My wife gets a 4/5

[Steve]

 

[Speed King]

I'm using Tinyportal since 2018, but now I switched to ezPortal...

April 2020 case:

1. Uninstalled Tinyportal 1.6 - Successful
2. Installed Tinyportal 2.0 beta - Successful
But after few days I noticed that all download files were not accessible

Solution:

1. Restored forum and database from cPanel backup
2. Purchased Download System Pro
3. Trying to import Tinyportal downloads - Failed (because there were UTF characters in file titles and descriptions - old Bulgarian letters Ѣ and Ѫ)
4. Uploaded all files (~~1500) one-by-one to Download System Pro section

November 2022 case:

1. Updated forum to SMF 2.1.3 - Successful
2. Uninstalled Tinyportal 2.2.3 beta (Jul 2022) - Successful
3. Trying to install Tinyportal 2.2.3 beta (Nov 2022) - Failed (Database error)
4. Trying to install Tinyportal 2.2.2 stable version - Failed (Database error)

Solution:

1. Installed ezPortal 5.5.2 - Successful
2. Installed SMF Articles 1.3.1a - Successful
3. Imported Tinyportal articles to SMF Articles section - Successful (1937 articles)
4. Removed Tinyportal files from forum directory - Successful
5. Removed Tinyportal tables from database - Successful

[@rjen]

4. Trying to install Tinyportal 2.2.2 stable version - Failed (Database error)

Curious what errors you are getting?

[Speed King]

I did not copy the error   
I cannot reproduce this on my test forum, installation of Tinyportal 2.2.2 and 2.2.3 beta there proceeds normally, without any errors.

Remember only "Unknown /or Undefined/ item_type ... in .../tmp/install.php ..."

Maybe problem is caused by article comments, I had only one comment to an article, but after import to SMF Articles this comment is missing.

I will try to post an article and comment it on my test forum to see if that error occurs.

P.S. Uninstalling and reinstalling of Tinyportal proceeds fine, without errors.
Found error in the admin panel, but it's not critical:

2: Undefined array key "time_offset"

/home/***/public_html/test/Themes/default/TPsubs.template.php (Line 2602)

[tinoest]

That's only in the beta. I've put a fix in my latest PR to rectify that issue.

Found error in the admin panel, but it's not critical:

2: Undefined array key "time_offset"

/home/***/public_html/test/Themes/default/TPsubs.template.php (Line 2602)