SimpleMachines Popularity?

[a_user]

There are lots of forums out there these days. I think and find that SimpleMachines has some neat features that help to set it apart, but I also notice that it dosent seem real popular in comparison to a number of the other php based boards that are available today, either pay or free boards. phpbb, vbulletin and invision come to mind (excluding jive due to its price point).

Why is that? Limited functionality? Limited exposure? Limited performance?

[Harro]

That's probably because phpBB, vB and others are a lot older then SMF.
SMF is gaining a lot of popularity though.
Give it a few more months/years and I'm sure it'll beat phpBB.

[babjusi]

That's probably because phpBB, vB and others are a lot older then SMF.
SMF is gaining a lot of popularity though.
Give it a few more months/years and I'm sure it'll beat phpBB.

I think it has already beaten phpbb. SMF is the forum of the day nowadays, more and more use it, many more switch over from phpbb and other boards to smf. 

[!Hachi!]

SMF is future no doubt in that.

[babjusi]

SMF is future no doubt in that.

1000% true

[a_user]

I guess that is true, I guess you have to be in the trenches and following along to see that. I can see your point though. I guess the one thing SMF needs more of is professional based theme's. I have only come across maybe 20? themes for SMF. I would be interested in deploying the smf to a professional audience of IT enthuisasts but I also find that a number of the themes are not as simplistic in terms of appearance as others like invision (as an example). Of course we all realize that these boards can be highly customized to fit ones needs but that also takes time and understanding, of which some people just dont have.

How do you feel SMF compares to the likes of some of the pay for forums like invision or vbulletin? I have always liked their boards for the sake of simplicity and they are somewhat generic. What I mean by that is users can visit those boards, even with different theme's and templates and feel right at home knowing where the most common options are. Of course in terms of cost its hard to beat free and of course it depends on your needs and expectations.

Personally I like SMF. What I am concerned about however is deploying it to a busy forum and worrying about upgrading to newer releases in the future. How well with they intergrate and how seemless the transistion will be? It would also be nice to see more of a following with more themes and skins available for the public audience. I think with stronger...or perhaps I should say, with more public support...it would help push smf further quicker.

Thoughts?

[Harro]

It's true that eg phpBB has more themes then SMF.
But there are way more then 20 themes though.
Take a look here: http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/
Or at this site for a gallery: http://themebot.com/gallery/?g2_itemId=21877

Actually, the "feeling right at home" part is a disadvantage in my opinion.
The theme system of SMF is very powerfull and you can change whatever you want.
Take a look at the doc site (in the top menu), that's actually just an SMF theme...

And upgrading is very easy. You won't loose a thing.
Only with larger updates you'll have to install your mods again.
But from version 1.1.1 to 1.1.2 was a 2-click installation with the package manager.

[青山 素子]

I guess that is true, I guess you have to be in the trenches and following along to see that. I can see your point though. I guess the one thing SMF needs more of is professional based theme's. I have only come across maybe 20? themes for SMF. I would be interested in deploying the smf to a professional audience of IT enthuisasts but I also find that a number of the themes are not as simplistic in terms of appearance as others like invision (as an example). Of course we all realize that these boards can be highly customized to fit ones needs but that also takes time and understanding, of which some people just dont have.

I think part of the reason for lack of mods and themes is that SMF is so new in comparison to the other systems out there. All those others have many years of buildup. I'm sure that as this project continues the same thing will happen. It might take a bit more though, as SMF's theme system is much more flexible in theme creation.

Of course, the more that people use SMF, the more attractive it becomes for theme and mod creators.

How do you feel SMF compares to the likes of some of the pay for forums like invision or vbulletin? I have always liked their boards for the sake of simplicity and they are somewhat generic. What I mean by that is users can visit those boards, even with different theme's and templates and feel right at home knowing where the most common options are. Of course in terms of cost its hard to beat free and of course it depends on your needs and expectations.

To some degree, that level of familiarity is a liability. Being able to truly customize a forum helps distinguish you and possibly gives an advantage in building a nice base of users. After all, if two competing sites use IPB and the forums look the same, where is the push that makes a user choose one over the other? Having the ability to customize your forum to meet your site's needs is a great thing.

Of course, the most common actions act the same as any user should expect, although there are a few subtle things you might notice if you are familiar with other systems. Of course, with power users, this applies on any system.

Having played with a few other systems (Burning Board, IPB, vB, phpBB), I feel that SMF has the cleanest user and admin area of any system for the feature set it has.

Personally I like SMF. What I am concerned about however is deploying it to a busy forum and worrying about upgrading to newer releases in the future. How well with they intergrate and how seemless the transistion will be? It would also be nice to see more of a following with more themes and skins available for the public audience. I think with stronger...or perhaps I should say, with more public support...it would help push smf further quicker.

Upgrades are easy within a series. They are released as packages you can install so mods will not be erased. The only thing to watch is when there is a failure because an upgrade happened to touch the same area of code a mod messed with, but that isn't very common. Usually it is a few clicks and you are done.

Upgrades between "series" aren't as nice, and they tend to break compatibility. For example, mods written for SMF 1.0 will not work on SMF 1.1 (but will on any 1.0.x version). Likewise mods written for SMF 1.1 won't work on the upcoming SMF 2.0. This isn't a major problem as bugfix and security upgrades for all SMF series will be done as long as it is practical for us to do so.

[a_user]

Thanks all for taking the time to respond. Its been a while since I touched this thread but its interesting to see the growing popularity of smf. I did in fact deploy it with success and have received positive comments stating the appreciation of a more unique forum community compared to other more mainstream boards like phpbb or invision.