Is there any difference in features/functionality between cloud and open source?

markus9987 · October 2017

We are interested in Vanilla, however I am not quite sure if all features listed on the web page are for the cloud version only or the open source version (on premise) as well. Anyone knows about that?

R_J · October 2017

There are differences, but it is easier to answer specific questions.

For most of the differences there are plugins from the community available.
The "reactions" Promote, Insightful, Awesome, LOL are not part of the open source Vanilla and neither are the badges or the ranks. But there is an addon available called YAGA which offers those features.

The "Who's online" module from the discussion overview also isn't part of the OS version, but there is a replacement (which doesn't counts the guests, though).

All in all the OS forum isn't crippled or anything like that. But it doesn't look like this support forum.

If you are interested and evaluate possible forum scripts, you might have already defined must haves and nice to haves. If you have such a list and are willing to share it, we could answer what you could expect to get and what not.

markus9987 · October 2017

Is there a list somewhere to see the exact features included in cloud/open source version?

Indeed we have a list, but we do not have it confirmed yet and fully prioritized.
We looked into some solutions and now compare Vanilla Forum with Discourse.

We basically want a forum for our partners (not public). However, we want to be ready to use the same solution for our customers as well later-on (depending on the product the customer has acquired protected or public).
Besides a public and protected forum it is also essential that the user sign-up can be different for individual stakeholders (from us signing up and permitting users to self-signup through the user).

Simple requirements list: (! = important)

! Open source
! Preferred on-premise
! Mobile support
! Theming (CSS)
Analytics
Multiple languages (for customers)
! Single Sign On (SSO with SAML or oAuth)
! User groups or permissions if we run our "forums" (customer product A, customer product B, partner) on a single instance) -> this is not clear yet at all how we want to set it up
! Allow private community
! Allow self-signup
! Allow confirmation / activation by us after self-signup (manual or semi-automatic by email-domain)
! Roles (reader, contributor, moderator, admin)
! Categorization or tags, flags, channels, sub-forums to structure content
! Formatting of text (HTML Editor)
! Attachments in forum posts (simple drag & drop and inline images)
Allow editing after forum post was sent
Spam control (only relevant for public forum, not important at the beginning but essential to be ready for the future)
Ready to use Elasticsearch for future improvement
Ready to integrate Salesforce for future improvement
! Access to API
! Notification emails + notification menu + notification settings for user
! Watch or subscribe discussions
! Mention other users
! Quote other users
Vote up/down of answer posts
Gamification elements

K17 · October 2017

@markus9987 a dit :

Simple requirements list: (! = important)

! Open source Only with Vanilla OS

! Preferred on-premise Vanilla OS too

! Mobile support Included in Cloud and OpenSource. You can use responsive themes or seperate themes.

! Theming (CSS) Not only CSS, you can use smarty to edit template

Analytics Included inVanilla Cloud and Open Source (Vanilla Statistics addon)

Multiple languages (for customers) Plugin available: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/multilingual-plugin

! Single Sign On (SSO with SAML or oAuth) Included in Cloud. Plugin available for open source: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/jsconnect-plugin

! User groups or permissions if we run our "forums" (customer product A, customer product B, partner) on a single instance) -> this is not clear yet at all how we want to set it up Included with Vanilla, extendable via YAGA

! Allow private community Plugin available: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/privatecommunity-plugin and can be done with roles

! Allow self-signup Included in both OS and cloud

! Allow confirmation / activation by us after self-signup (manual or semi-automatic by email-domain) Included in both OS and Cloud

! Roles (reader, contributor, moderator, admin) Can de done with roles permissions.

! Categorization or tags, flags, channels, sub-forums to structure content Included in both OS and Cloud

! Formatting of text (HTML Editor) Included in both OS and Cloud

! Attachments in forum posts (simple drag & drop and inline images) Included in both OS and CLoud

Allow editing after forum post was sent Setting available in both versions

Spam control (only relevant for public forum, not important at the beginning but essential to be ready for the future) Many addons are here to help.

Ready to use Elasticsearch for future improvement

Ready to integrate Salesforce for future improvement

! Access to API Vanilla OS and Cloud have API (Plugin for Open Source)

! Notification emails + notification menu + notification settings for user Included in both, fully customizable for user

! Watch or subscribe discussions Included in both

! Mention other users Included in both

! Quote other users Included in both

Vote up/down of answer posts Can be done with a plugin: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/rating-plugin

Gamification elements Included in Cloud. Application available for Open Source: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/yaga-application

Hope it will help you ^^
Some features are included in addons already packed with Vanilla, like statistics and html editor.
For the editor, the one you see here (known as Advanced Editor) can "speak" those languages:

Markdown
WYSIWYG
HTML
BBCode
TextEx
Text only

And the second editor provided, simpler, known as ButtonBar, can speak those languages:

Markdown
HTML
BBCode

To edit the default used language, you must enable the Advanced Editor addon and go to the settings page. If you are using ButtonBar, you have to use Advanced Editor or manually edit the default input formatter in config files to choose (don't forget to disable advanced editor after saving settings)

R_J · October 2017

That's a great answer by K17. See, answering detailed questions get answers much quicker

Let me add some things:

SSO
Read the SSO section of the docs: https://docs.vanillaforums.com/help/sso/
The docs aren't always clear about what is cloud-only and what is not, but here they are. SAML is cloud-only, the rest is also available for self-hosted forums

Groups
User groups like facebook groups are cloud-only
https://docs.vanillaforums.com/help/addons/groups/
But as K17 already mentioned, you are able to give custom permissions to categories so that you can make categories read-only or hidden for some roles.

Elasticsearch.
Nope. But there is a nice plugin available for SphinxSearch.

Salesforce integration
Well, not sure how deep the integration should be. If we are talking about SSO, there is jsConnect which should allow you to connect the users.

If your company a) has developers and they are available resources for enhancing your forum and b) you have individual requirement (like a deeper integration of Salesforce), I would say there is no better system than Vanilla OS. Extendig it is a breeze.

If you need a solid forum and you prefer investing money in professional service than in in-house developers, go with hosted Vanilla.

If Discourse provide more features you need out f the box and/suits your needs in any other way better, go with them.

API
There is an addon which provides an API for Vanilla 2.3. Vanilla 2.5 will have a new API also in the OS version. Cloud already has an API.

R_J · October 2017