NodeBB vs Flarum for a non developer

[marusaky]

hello guys… so as the title says, which one would be better for someone who doesn’t know a coding language? currently I am in the middle of these two, I need one of them to run a community for my FiveM server, so nothing to much, 300 to 500 members in the first 2-3 months, but it will expand later, I tried flarum on a shared hosting using ssh acces and terminal, but I run on so many problems on the security side of it, and it doesn’t seem a good choice for a big community, it lacks many things and it needs a lot of extensions to not be feel so “lite” and the support on the main community it’s not helpful at all, every instructions on everything it’s to vague for a non knower, myself I am not good at all at PHP or coding in general, on the other side I like NodeBB a lot, but it lacks themes, I know I can run it on a linux or ubuntu vps? what do you guys recommend? and If you guys think that nodebb it’s the better choice can you recommend a cheap and starter vps for me? thank you!

[marusaky]

@phenomlab said in NodeBB vs Flarum for a non developer:

@phenomlab said in NodeBB vs Flarum for a non developer:

@marusaky Add this to your custom CSS

.topic [component="post/parent"] {
    background-color: #464545;
}

Am curious - did this work as needed ?

yes, but after that I was seeing that my nodebb installation was full of error, and then I have seen it, I had an older version “facepalm”, I reinstalled it again with the last version and now everything it’s working much better, thank you for your help!

[phenomlab]

@marusaky hi, and welcome to Sudonix

If you’re looking for a complete experience out of the box, then NodeBB is the obvious choice. Not only is it more complete without any plugins, it’s robust, extremely fast, and doesn’t rely on PHP or mySQL. Instead, it uses nodeJS and MongoDB. As mongoDB uses collections, it is way faster. nodeJS is also very lean and doesn’t need to be compiled and executed like PHP does when accessing a page.

This means that NodeBB is so much faster than Flarum and can also easily scale with native support for Redis. You can run NodeBB on an entry level VPS (see my donate page for referral links to Hetzner which will give you credit to spend) meaning that you won’t be forking out for an expensive setup (just ask @JAC) for an extremely fast experience.

NodeBB offers built in HSTS and full security headers support out of the box, and no matter how many plugins you add, the speed is never affected.

Lastly, I see a lot of complaints about a lack of themes for NodeBB. If you search this site, you’ll find the theme switcher which I wrote for @DownPW which will also feature in the next update for Sudonix. The great thing about this switcher is that r with a little imagination, you can switch colour themes and that setting is saved in the user’s browser session so reach time you visit the site, it’ll display the colour theme of your choice.

NodeBB uses a set of easily customisable templates for it’s themes, so with a little imagination, it’s easy to make your own.

Hope this helps.

[marusaky]

@phenomlab hey, thanks for the reply… yeah I was thinking too that nodebb it’s the better choice, can you please give me the link to your donate page? I will be interested in purchasing a vps, and it’s better to install nodebb on ubuntu or linux? thanks!

[phenomlab]

@marusaky hi. Donate page is here
https://sudonix.com/donate

It’s always best to use a Linux backed VPS. Windows sucks.

[marusaky]

@phenomlab thank you again, I went by your words and purchased a vps, what can I say NodeBB it’s beyond Flarum on all aspects, and for anyone who would like to have a simple forum with not so many functions I recommend Flarum, but if you want a lot of things I will surely recommend NodeBB and @phenomlab advices

[phenomlab]

@marusaky Good to hear. Glad it went well.

What VPS did you purchase, and where from ?

[marusaky]

@phenomlab I tried going with hetzner but I didn’t work well enough for me (no offence), and then I switched to ultahost.com, for the price and the support, they are online 24/7 which is good because I want to expand my project on a company that has great support any time and not just M - F from 9 am to 5 pm

[phenomlab]

@marusaky None taken ! Glad you’ve found a host that works for you.

[phenomlab]

Just as a side note here @marusaky - you should consider some form of backup strategy for your site - particularly whilst you are developing it - and the MongoDB ability to recover is critical.

[marusaky]

@phenomlab said in NodeBB vs Flarum for a non developer:

Just as a side note here @marusaky - you should consider some form of backup strategy for your site - particularly whilst you are developing it - and the MongoDB ability to recover is critical.

thank you very much for the advice, at the moment the only thing I do is testing, but everything runs well, the only problem I found is that when I try to quote someone, or a reply the quote button it’s white and it’s not visible, do you know how can I change it’s color on every theme? thanks!

[phenomlab]

@marusaky Can you send me a URL so I can have a look ?

[marusaky]

@phenomlab

forum.warfare-rp.com thanks again.

[phenomlab]

@marusaky Registered. Can you send me a screenshot of the issue ?

[phenomlab]

@marusaky Add this to your custom CSS

.topic [component="post/parent"] {
    background-color: #464545;
}

[phenomlab]

@phenomlab said in NodeBB vs Flarum for a non developer:

@marusaky Add this to your custom CSS

.topic [component="post/parent"] {
    background-color: #464545;
}

Am curious - did this work as needed ?

[marusaky]

@phenomlab said in NodeBB vs Flarum for a non developer:

@phenomlab said in NodeBB vs Flarum for a non developer:

@marusaky Add this to your custom CSS

.topic [component="post/parent"] {
    background-color: #464545;
}

Am curious - did this work as needed ?

yes, but after that I was seeing that my nodebb installation was full of error, and then I have seen it, I had an older version “facepalm”, I reinstalled it again with the last version and now everything it’s working much better, thank you for your help!

[phenomlab]

@marusaky That’s really easily done. I think the docs need updating for the latest release. Did you land up on the 18.x train ?