Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?
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@djensen47 Thanks for the kind words, always love hearing about converts from all sorts of forum software
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I hope I don't get accused of super bumping multiple threads tonight (really not so old threads or well not so old last post!)
On first impression, nodeBB was the ticket - without any of the technicals. It's all that matters.
It truly is all that matters. Since the majority of fourm users are not going to be technical and forum have there work cut out to drag people away from the twitters and face books of the world.
A forum can be deployed to any user base so it's application and audience is potentially as wide as you like and varied as you like, that you have to think about simple but not dumb Ui/UX and rely on the beauty of tradition, i.e. established and solid universal conventions that are universal but not afraid to push the envelope to enhance convention to the point it's at least feels innovate if not actually is.
Speed.
It's silky response. The fade out fade in transition was a genius choice, let me type that again GENIUS!
The Composer.
- It looks and is weighed better i.e. it's styled better, simple.
- It's not perfect, but it's one of the best out there.
The composer is the window to all content creation, the crucible of an entire forums everyday lifeforce. It's got to be good, it's got to always be trying to be better, by trying to be great. This is the interface that makes or breaks the user experience and thus a forum.
My UI/UX 2c:
Please consider making the composers upper top line a drag focus draggable area so it is not restricted to the black circle aligned to the left, that should really be centered (it took me too long to figure out) - it breaks a basic UI/UX expectation burned into our retinas at this point!
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Thanks for the kind words, we strive to keep NodeBB minimal and fast, and I feel we're keeping up with trends. Of course, what's in style always seems to pass too quickly
With regards to the composer resize, there's no particular reason it has to be limited to the resizer button, I'll look into it
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One thing to add to the list is the lack of reliability of sending the digest email to a moderate or larger user base. I have 12,000 users and have successfully sent 7/20 digest emails.
To the teams credit, one issue related to this has been resolved. Thank you for that.
Today, however, NodeBB ran out of memory. It appears this while it was getting ready to send the digest. The server crashed and the digest was not sent. The smallest error happens related or unrelated to the digest and it just doesn't start nor finish. And there is no way to resume or resend to those who did not receive it. The solution? Wait a week or wait until the "underlying issue" is resolved.
Update, possibly irrelevant:
The team does not believe this to be an resolvable (nor important enough) issue so it will not be resolved. (That's an opinion and their decision and that's fine). If you're looking for reliable weekly digest, you need to seriously consider something else besides NodeBB. I don't want this to be true but it just isn't a priority for them.
(Development teams have a lot of issues pulling them in different directions; so you have to set some sort of priorities and some things get left out, this just happens to be one of them.)I don't know if Discourse is better on this point but I am on a few Discourse forums that definitely have 10s of thousands of members and I get the email every week.
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For the first time reader of all of this, it is important to note that despite the digest email issue, the team is super responsive and receptive to every other issue. Especially when it is a well defined problem, the team turns around very quickly. I've logged a ton of bugs and nearly all of them get fixed and nearly all within a week of reporting. Priorities are priorities and this might be occurrence problem.
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@djensen47 said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
Node + MongoDB (or Redis) just makes life so much easier than Rails.
Heck yeah. And so much easier to have it be screaming fast!
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@djensen47 said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
Today, however, NodeBB ran out of memory. It appears this while it was getting ready to send the digest.
What sending mechanism are you using? Local SMTP? A service? We use MailGun and haven't seen an issue yet.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
What sending mechanism are you using? Local SMTP? A service? We use MailGun and haven't seen an issue yet.
The out of memory may have been an independent issue. We use Sparkpost (as mentioned in the other thread).
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@djensen47 said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
@scottalanmiller said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
What sending mechanism are you using? Local SMTP? A service? We use MailGun and haven't seen an issue yet.
The out of memory may have been an independent issue. We use Sparkpost (as mentioned in the other thread).
Gotcha. Haven't used Sparkpost, don't know how they are. That would make sense if the memory was a different issue.
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@julian said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
Thanks for the kind words, we strive to keep NodeBB minimal and fast, and I feel we're keeping up with trends. Of course, what's in style always seems to pass too quickly
With regards to the composer resize, there's no particular reason it has to be limited to the resizer button, I'll look into it
This looks to be implemented. Thank you very much @julian !
I will suggest that the icon/resizer button needs to re-considered along following lines:
- be gone or redesigned.
- and/or move position to centre.
I"m going to provide you with a mock-up or my own version of the icon ok!
Here it is
or
- weight the top line if the composer differently to suggest it's draggable.
For example:
OFF state
ON state
note: I think my colours are mis-match to the persona colour scheme, need to check that out!
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The reason the resizer is at the left is because it is out of the way. If it were at the center, then it draws too much visual interest, for something that most people don't touch. That's the only UX rationale against it being center...
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@julian said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
The reason the resizer is at the left is because it is out of the way. If it were at the center, then it draws too much visual interest, for something that most people don't touch. That's the only UX rationale against it being center...
Now that the entire top perimeter line is actively draggable (thanks once again!) it copperplates such reasoning and positional choices, for now...
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If I was to be honest, Id say I prefer nodeBB over Discourse. Why? Many many things. Just to name a few::
- well-thought UI/UX, much more intuitive than D,
- simpler to install/manage,
- without stupid requirements (like mail-service),
- nice & supportive community
And many more.
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@macfan said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
If I was to be honest, Id say I prefer nodeBB over Discourse. Why? Many many things. Just to name a few::
- well-thought UI/UX, much more intuitive than D,
- simpler to install/manage,
- without stupid requirements (like mail-service),
- nice & supportive community
And many more.
Yeah, so easy to manage, scales so well, support is so good.
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I started working with Discourse and nodebb about the same time and I have seen a clear difference in how both platforms have matured, and as well as missing out.
Discourse went from Jeff's Forum Software to a real product for others. In making this change, they have built IMO far better setup, worked with cloud providers to have one-click options, forked and brought in-house popular plugins to be maintained, broke out of the 'how i want it' to 'you want it, we will build it'. Speed is acceptable. Styling feels limited. Mobile is positive.
NodeBB still has all the great things that caught my attention in 2014, but it STILL suffers from the same problems I had then. Out of date documentation. Documentation migration. Limited integration with cloud providers. High profile Plugins Abandoned. I love the speed. The mobile implementation is incredible. But I find myself having the same frustrations I had nearly FIVE YEARS ago.
While Discourse isn't perfect, they have built and matured as a platform, in both polish and reliability. When I get the 'New Version' for Discourse, I am never scared to click that button. I can't say the same about NodeBB. Nodebb still feels like most other open source software, exciting and interesting, but not reliable enough to make me jump in.
Another good comparison in maturity would be Ghost. I started using Ghost and NodeBB at the same time. Polish, feature additions and ease of deployment have all been things you can easily see that Ghost has improved over time. I don't see that same platform maturity with Nodebb.
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There is lot of issue in @Nodebb-org is also not working well on Chrome own like nodebb itself.
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@shinyidol said in Which is better NodeBB or Discourse?:
While Discourse isn't perfect, they have built and matured as a platform, in both polish and reliability. When I get the 'New Version' for Discourse, I am never scared to click that button. I can't say the same about NodeBB. Nodebb still feels like most other open source software, exciting and interesting, but not reliable enough to make me jump in.
Another good comparison in maturity would be Ghost. I started using Ghost and NodeBB at the same time. Polish, feature additions and ease of deployment have all been things you can easily see that Ghost has improved over time. I don't see that same platform maturity with Nodebb.Not using Ghost so will say nothing, but - for Discourse part - its all way round. Discourse matured over time? Must be kidding! If they wanted to be treated like mature product they wouldn't have implemented three mail providers only, but also all the other mail providers like gmail.....
And per support: Discourse had just banned me because, lo and behold, I voiced my concerns. Oh yea, just for doing so.
So no, Discourse is by no means mature. Whereas NodeBB is.
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for Discourse part - its all way round. Discourse matured over time? Must be kidding! If they wanted to be treated like mature product they wouldn't have implemented three mail providers only, but also all the other mail providers like gmail.....
In terms of features added, taking control of plugins to build a stable environment AND listening to what people want, yes Discourse has matured. Jeff is very opinionated and can be difficult to work with. I got in an argument with him in 2014 over features we would want if we were to deploy Discourse and he said those features aren't important and would never be part of the platform. Two years later, all of those requests are part of mainline because there was a demand from customers to make that part of the software.
Sounds like you feel into the trap of Jeff and got burned. Don't be mad, you aren't alone.
I still stand 100% behind that Discourse has matured. Their setup process is cleaner and more efficient. Their dependency on featured plugins is very low. NodeBB falls far behind on both of those and really hasn't gotten any better in five years.
