Hello,
I want to build a membership site and I already decied that I will use a forum software for that. Later I will probably invest in a paid forum software, probably xenforo.
But tbh, free alternatives s*ck mostly. The only free alternative I would consider is Elkarte. This is the only free forum software that is actually seem almost perfect. So probably people have told you a thousand times, great job!
My question is that if I want to convert to xenforo after some time, is it possible? xF has a converter for SMF. Will it work with Elkarte?
I know I should ask the xF team but they probably don't know the answer. So is Elkarte similar to SMF in structure? If so, it can be probably converted to xf later.
Btw, I am not sure at all whether I want to convert to xf or not. The membership site I am about to launch is planned to be a long project. So I don't want to get stuck if I want to move to xf at some point.
Welcome to Elkarte!
I use both elkarte & XF, and both are nice software. Like you said you need to ask on XF forums, I know for sure that someone was able to migrate to XF, there is a discussion on XF forums and IIRC there are also posted some edits to make to xf convertor.
To me it seems that itt will be expensive for me in the long run. There is no public importer.
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/elkarte-to-xenforo.128359/
I hate to invest in things before I really know I need it. But since I don't know my audience's wants and needs in advance yet, I probably have to invest in xf. :(
If these is a SMF 2.1 importer then porting it across wouldn't be to difficult. Elkarte and SMF 2.1 database wise are fairly similar.
Also this suggests it's ok.
https://theadminzone.com/threads/anyone-converted-elkarte-to-ipb-xenforo-wbb.148313/
@tino
Thanks! So it looks like it is possible, just a bit complicated (first converting to MyBB then xF).
It seems that I can go with Elkarte.
One day I'll have OpenImporter work as expected. xD