Xenforo vs NodeBB vs Invision in 2025 (and Beyond)

ANONYMOUSKOREAN

I posted this same thread on another forum and wanted a different audience for the same questions.

I'm starting a new site to merge existing communities into with some friends, this was originally going to be built from the ground up but now we're looking at existing forum solutions. One of the main reasons we're considering a pre-built solution is the ease of dealing with bugs, maintenance, and scalability. With a tried-and-tested framework, we can focus more on building features and expanding functionality rather than reinventing the wheel and troubleshooting core issues.

What we're looking for:

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Modern, responsive framework
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Easy moderation tools to help manage content and enforce community standards without hassle. Preferably user-owned groups as well.

Plugin and extension support (e.g., for a custom film database) to expand functionality without heavy backend development.

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Open-source or self-hosted options
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Highly customizable UI, as we plan to allow users to customize profiles in a similar fashion to myspace as opposed to the current offerings.

We're leaning toward NodeBB right now due to its framework and plugin ecosystem, but we're open to hearing feedback about why XF or IPS might be worth considering instead or something entirely different that we haven't heard of. When it comes to choosing a solution money really isn't the problem we just really want something that's not going to force us in one specific direction.

Sylwester Cyba

A little chance anyone here to recommend anything else but NodeBB. I have used alternatives but sorry, we've got year 2025. A year of NodeBB!

ANONYMOUSKOREAN

@nhl.pl Ah that makes sense I just wanted to get a feeler out. I'm looking forward to working with Node

Jessica Brown

I'm not sure Sylvester speaks for everyone (or at least me), and I want to offer my perspective. Personally, I think NodeBB is an amazing product. I've probably installed it 20 times or more across various environments; Ubuntu, RHEL, OpenSUSE, and even created a Docker instance for testing. It’s a fantastic piece of software with a lot of potential.

That said, my needs eventually led me in a different direction. I was looking for something more enterprise-ready, more sysadmin-oriented, and a bit more aligned with my development style. The NodeBB team is incredible, and they were very supportive during my time using it. But ultimately, time was a critical factor for me, and I needed a platform that I could build on quickly without hitting too many roadblocks.

Since I had an extra $500, I decided to give Invision Board a shot. In just a few days, I was able to build a custom template in about 2 hours, create webhooks, make API calls, and develop a few applications. I even put together a IPS database viewer that interacts with a PHP script to pull database info, convert it to JSON, and display it in a way that allows me to track changes, drill down into data, and generate reports.

NodeBB is definitely going places, and I still think it’s a great platform. However, for my specific use case, building features like Clubs, Articles, Blogs, Galleries, Coding Snippets, Wikipedia API integrations, and more, I needed something that offered those tools out of the box or with customization that I can develop with. I spent a week trying to build a custom template in NodeBB and couldn’t get it right, whereas I built one for Invision in just two hours, and I had my additional features up and running within four days.

At the end of the day, it comes down to finding the right tool for the job. NodeBB is a fantastic project with a bright future, but Invision was a better fit for what I needed right now.

Please don't hate me NodeBB peeps... I will be using this system on my clients (with a subscription so I don't have to host it ) and still give the praise!