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Recommended
Ramindu D.
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Computer Software, 10,001+ employees
Used other for less than 6 months
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NodeBB proved to be a cut above other outdated forum building tools in its speed and modern integrations.
NodeBB is a modern, fast forum building tool that brings a lot of current social features and integrations to the old-school bulletin board. IT provides lightening fast response times and is full open source so a breeze to clone from Github and set up. It provides multiple database integration options and quick integration with 3rd party services as well. Further integrations can be carried out through its comprehensive suite of RESTful web services.
While the provisioned services for NodeBB are quite useful and provide effective customer support, using a provisioned instance of NodeBB can be quite costly.
Anonymous Reviewer
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E-Learning, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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Overall, I would recommend NodeBB as a forum software to companies who would like to test the very idea of having a forum, or who are not ready to commit to large budgets and extended functionality. If you don't have any resources to write custom CSS, you could rely on one of their pre-made themes, and select from among 10+ skins. If you have design and coding resources, your opportunities will be...
We've been using NodeBB to run our forum for more than a year. Overall, it's a great *value for money* tool. The interface is relatively easy to use: after a bit of work of understanding where different settings are controlled, two people, one of whom was a trainee, could work it out alright. We like the look and feel it provides, which gives an impression of a website, rather than your average forum...
Since it's a new platform and a small team, there isn't a lot of learning materials about the software. Because plugins are open to the community to create, they would sometimes interfere with one another and break things. There is no curation to the list of recommended or updated plugins. And there is no quick way to understand if a task could be solved with a plugin or not (could be solved through documentation?). One needs to spend time with the community to work this out.
Danny E.
Computer Software, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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• Infinitely extendable with plugins and widgets • Open source, making it possible to find the source of any issue • The data sent to every page is easily accessible in JSON via API • Great support for forums hosted by NodeBB
• Plugins and widgets break on every upgrade. It's impossible to keep the system up to date without a lot of effort and developer resources • While the system is extendable, many things that should be built in are either second class add-ons or non existent. We had to build our own search widget, for example. • We have discovered numerous security issues and bugs that NodeBB should have been aware of themselves
Mukesh V.
Computer & Network Security, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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For my business providing an intuitive, flexible and adaptable UI to the users is key. I have found this software meets all my needs and the NodeBB team are experts in what they do, "They know their stuff" I found that they will make your idea become reality, providing you with feedback on a possible alternative ways of meeting your needs, I have found the NodeBB team participate with what you are trying to achieve, you don't feel like your on your own, they help you get there.
The forum software is easy on the eyes, some forum software looks too busy, with too many options and not intuitive but, NodeBB is clean and easy to use. The software is flexible and adaptable for your needs. The software has many options, I have adapted it to what I need, switching off features I do not need for my business.
The software team at NodeBB are keen to help with every issue you may encounter, so I have not really found any cons as such which would deter me from using the software. The software team are constantly updating the software, with additions and new features. I have had suggestions for what I have considered improvements and the NodeBB have listened, the features could take some time to be released, but the team have to consider feedback from many users and the best for improvements is released. I have used the NodeBB's customisation route many times, to get the features I need.
Vamsi K.
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Financial Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 1-2 years
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When we first started building our community, it was so great to be able to setup nodebb quickly without much developer help. Things are very well thought through regarding user onboarding. But as the community grew, many features started to make little sense for a 2k+ community. Things where I would like to see NodeBB put more focus on: - Emails - Design elements (Ex: upvote and downvote buttons are too small & hard to locate. Social share buttons , almost impossible to figure out where they are) - More support in terms of how to build good communities. You have a good software, but most people are unaware what are user communities, how to build & grow them, their advantages etc.
Plugins are the best feature. There is a plugin for almost every need & its easy to install & use it quickly
Design can be better, need to do more research on how communities evolve & design patterns to make the product inherently sticky. Email freqency settings are quite poor. Its either spammy or no email at all.
Anonymous Reviewer
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Computer Software, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 6-12 months
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It's been a great experience! I will certainly use NodeBB again for other projects.
There are several pros with NodeBB, it as a sleek design, not like old forums from the 90's. It's fast, I mean really fast. Functionalities as onsite chat makes the difference. The way it's built... to scale, that's a big plus.
The installation process is not that friendly, but, that's on the installer. Another con would be the lack of features as more mature alternatives do have, but, it's understandable, NodeBB is rather young with a 1.10 version.
Arie S.
Computer Software, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for 1-2 years
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I want my users to share knowledge about our software products and video post-production techniques amongst themselves. To that end, it works well.
That it is both open sourced and that it can be hosted by the developer. The forum is both supportable and portable because of that. It's got a very nice user interface and I think it's just easy to get around, and it's responsive. Every part of the UI is clean and modern, and they've built it to accept many third-party integrations.
I wish there were more themes for the forums. There are alot of switches to see which fonts / colors work. I do like how it's very open, but it's not immediately obvious that in some cases those third party integrations cost additional fees.
Anonymous Reviewer
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Computer Software, 1-10 employees
Used daily for 6-12 months
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Using it as a community for hyperPad. Deployed using a docker container. Lots of different themes and examples of how to use things. Built in package manager (though might be tricky when using docker)
Easy to install, good extensions. Writing extensions is easy.
The API has no documentation. Wanted to make some integrations, but couldn't figure out how to authenticate from a third party.
Anonymous Reviewer
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Telecommunications, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 6-12 months
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NodeBB is easy to setup, easy to personalize, and easy to administrate. There are several useful plugins that can be installed from the rich community.
Not all plugins have the same quality, meaning that compatibility of some of them can break when upgrading the forum.
Anonymous Reviewer
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Financial Services, 1-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
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It helps build a community.
It's modern. It has modern features. Competitor platforms don't come close to being able to offer as slick of a solution. I like how easy the plugins are to use.
I don't have many complaints. It's pretty awesome.
Anonymous Reviewer
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Financial Services, 51-200 employees
Used weekly for 6-12 months
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A very active development team that is looking to improve their software. The forum software itself is pretty straightforward to use. We have it hosted by them so I couldn't say what it's like on the back end, but everything works for us on the front end.
It's open source, very customizable. Their hosting plans are very competitive compared to similar competitors. The user interface is very modern. Their customer service is very quick to respond.
The UI isn't consistent in some areas, it's a bit of a tinkerer's software. I wouldn't put it as enterprise ready.
Russell S.
Consumer Goods, 1-10 employees
Used monthly for 1-2 years
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Modern and easy to use interface for customers. Leaves the old "forum" look behind and brings new age tech to discussion boards.
Backend could be easier to use. Make it look more the the frontend
Danny G.
Retail, 11-50 employees
Used monthly for 1-2 years
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Clean and easy to use front facing software that has modern aesthetics
Backend could use visual work. Would like it to resemble more of the front end.
Mikey G.
Music, 1-10 employees
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The backend was simple and super user friendly.
The peer to peer engagement could be stronger