Let's start by first stating that I don't normally leave sparkling reviews.... In fact, I don't think I've ever done it. Why am I doing this now ?
Well, that's easy to answer. The reason for leaving this here is multi-faceted in terms of responses, so I'll try and highlight them here.
- Flarum, quite simply, is the best forum software out there. Am I biased ? After trying so many others, and failing miserably in the process owing to their lack of extensible structure and rigid framework, no - I don't think I am. Flarum has a minute footprint out of the box, and admittedly, it did take me some time to get used to the idea in terms of mithril etc, but the journey has been worth it
- Support..... What you typically see in open source projects is one developer attempting to support hundreds of users who all want additional features etc. It's taken a while for Flarum to extend it's development reach, but the recent changes have made this project even more appealing with the addition of trainees who then become part of the core. The support here, and on discord, is the best I have seen yet. And, I've been around for a long time !
- I mentioned extensible earlier - this is critical. Some of the much older projects out there use a "plugin architecture" that involves modifying core files - that are always overwritten after an update. Using something as simple as extend.php means you can add the functionality on the fly without too much effort
- The API - not quite solid yet, but that's in process. I personally use this all of the time for scripts I have custom written to perform automated postings on my own forum, and it's never failed yet. The only thing I needed to do was to extend the number of characters in the new post title, which was easy enough
- Ecosystem - Flarum is quite unique in this aspect in the sense that it is dynamic and not rigid. Yes, there's a roadmap (but not public to my knowledge), and new features are being added all the time via a large community of enthusiastic extension developers.
My last point, and I promise to put the bullhorn back in it's box.
Appreciation. This is key to Flarum's success. I think all of the developers know my personal thoughts around this based on the premium extensions I own already and we're not out of beta yet. However, I want to place on record my personal appreciation for the entire development team - all of which have either engaged directly with me, or brushed past me at some stage 🙂
I think, given the recent worldwide impacting events, we should show our appreciation even more to those same devs whom work tirelessly on this project, making it better with each line of code added, deleted, modified, etc...
What better way to do that than to become a patron - support the project on a monthly basis (as I do), and see if the premium offerings from the same devs can further enhance your forum ? Basically, I'm encouraging everyone to at least consider these points as a way of giving something back.
Ok - that's me done with my "call to arms" - I just wanted to put this out there so that my personal thanks doesn't go unnoticed for all of the support, effort, and work that is put in by the devs on a daily basis.
I won't name them here, as I know that's not allowed 🙂 However, you all know who you are, so take a bow.
