XenForo

XenForo is a community platform developed by XenForo Ltd. It is designed to assist businesses and organizations in establishing and expanding their online communities. According to the vendor, XenForo offers a comprehensive forum system that enables users to engage in threaded discussions. The platform allows for the organization of forums into categories and sub-forums, facilitating structured conversations. Additionally, XenForo supports various types of discussions, including question and answer threads, suggestion threads and forums, as well as an article authoring and display system.

The vendor claims that XenForo provides a user-friendly and powerful set of authoring tools. Users can create posts using a text editor that offers a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) experience. They can easily add file attachments, images, links, and media to their posts. The platform also includes custom reaction options, allowing users to express a wide range of sentiments. Users have the ability to receive notifications for new responses by watching specific discussions or entire forums. Additionally, they can utilize bookmarks to mark and easily access content of interest.

XenForo offers a Conversations feature that enables direct messaging among users. This functionality allows for one-on-one or group conversations, fostering collaboration and teamwork. Participants can invite others to join the conversation, and recipients have the option to leave conversations or mute notifications as needed.

The platform includes a Media Gallery feature that serves as a centralized hub for users to manage and share media content, including videos. According to the vendor, media content can be tagged, organized into albums and showcases, and shared within discussions. The Media Gallery also provides a comprehensive media manager with features such as a masonry-style layout and a commenting system.

XenForo offers a Resource Manager that allows communities to organize and share various types of resources, including downloads, tutorials, and guides. Users can provide feedback, ask questions, and interact with resource authors. This feature serves as a centralized location for managing and organizing community resources effectively.

According to the vendor, XenForo incorporates a robust search engine that enables users to quickly and accurately access all content within the platform. The "What's new" section and news feed keep users informed about the latest updates and activities. Additionally, the platform suggests similar threads to users, helping them discover related discussions. Inactive users can receive activity summary emails to stay informed about important or popular topics.

XenForo offers content moderation tools, including in-place editing that allows staff to edit content directly without leaving the page. Inline moderation enables staff to select and apply actions to multiple content items simultaneously. The platform also provides an approval queueing system for reviewing and approving content before it is published. Users can report offensive or questionable content, and the vendor claims that the Spam Cleaner tool efficiently removes spam content and bans users.

User management in XenForo is streamlined with an easy registration process that includes options for social media authentication. The platform features a fine-grained permissions system that allows administrators to control user access and actions with precision. Users can personalize their profiles with custom avatars and background images. XenForo also includes a trophy system to recognize and reward user achievements. Additionally, the platform offers custom user lists and precision messaging for targeted communication.

The vendor states that XenForo implements measures to discourage spam and prevent spammers from registering. The platform includes a flood check feature that sets a rate limit for posting to prevent excessive spam. It also provides automatic validation against the Akismet anti-spam service. Users can report spam content through a crowd-sourced reporting system. The Spam Cleaner tool is available to efficiently remove spam content and ban users.

In terms of search engine optimization (SEO), XenForo incorporates techniques to enhance search engine visibility. The platform utilizes clean and user-friendly URLs without query strings. According to the vendor, XenForo incorporates RDFa and Microdata markup to improve search engine understanding. The platform also employs a semantic HTML structure that aids in improved indexing. Additionally, XenForo offers sitemap generation to facilitate search engine indexing.

XenForo provides extensive customization options for branding and theming. The platform offers a styles system that allows users to create unique themes that align with their branding. Style inheritance enables the use of multiple display styles or themes. Users can customize colors, properties, and templates to achieve a personalized look and feel. Additionally, XenForo includes import/export functionality to simplify the distribution and installation of custom styles.

The platform offers a mobile app experience through progressive web application (PWA) technology. Users can easily install the app from their browser with a single click. The app icon appears on the device's home screen, providing quick access to the platform. Push notifications keep users informed about updates and activities, enhancing the mobile user experience. Native gestures and offline mode further contribute to the app's functionality.

XenForo has a comprehensive add-on and modification framework that allows developers to extend and customize the platform. Add-ons have access to core facilities and can modify the XenForo UI or create entirely new applications. The add-on framework provides flexibility, enabling developers to build a wide range of tools to enhance and tailor the platform for their specific communities.

For seamless integration with external applications, XenForo offers a REST API. This allows applications to interact with XenForo's functionality and data, enabling smooth communication between XenForo and other systems.

The vendor emphasizes that XenForo has a secure and extensible architecture. The core is designed to protect against errors and vulnerabilities that may arise from third-party code. Specific code event listeners enable third-party code to interact with core data in a safe and intuitive manner.

XenForo's template system is described as powerful and flexible. It allows for the execution of code within templates, and the custom template syntax enables fetching information from the database when needed. Templates support loops, branches, macros, and inclusions, providing advanced functionality for customization.

The platform optimizes page rendering speed to ensure a smooth and efficient user experience. The software stack is built with modularity, scalability, and efficiency in mind. Caching systems, including full HTML page caching, are employed to minimize server workload and improve page load times.

XenForo boasts a vast library of pre-built add-ons and extensions. Developers have created thousands of add-ons, ranging from simple tweaks to complete applications and integrations. This extensive library offers a wide range of options for customization and enhancement, allowing communities to tailor the platform to their specific needs.

The platform provides various monetization options for communities. Users can insert HTML snippets from advertising partners into specific points on XenForo pages, enabling revenue generation through advertisements. Paid user upgrades and paywalls can also be implemented to offer premium content and features for monetization purposes.