G2

Verified User in Online Media

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

9/12/2015

"Looks fresh but has some issues under the hood"

3/5

What do you like best about Higher Logic Vanilla?

It is one of the few fresh but already stable products on the market for online communities / forums and small, but seemingly stable company and developer community behind it. Offers many customization options and is easily extended by plugins.

The best part of Vanilla is its versatility. Extending Vanilla and catering to your specific needs can easily be done in a few hours of development work. This is equally beneficial to the open source as well as the SaaS solution. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Higher Logic Vanilla?

Vanilla has a rather mediocre performance. This is not a problem when going with the hosted SaaS product though.

It has a rather unsightly security history. Vanilla is not written with security in mind which is a problem for an open source product where vulnerabilities can be easily spotted browsing the codebase.

Also, I am a bit unsure about Vanilla's capability to adapt to future demands and rejuvenate itself in the long-term future. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Higher Logic Vanilla:

Either go with the SaaS solution (which was not flexible enough for us) or choose the self-hosted Vanilla and be prepared to have a developer at hand to adapt Vanilla to your needs.

If you choose Vanilla not as an appendage to an existing online presence but the main framework on which your online presence relies on, be cautious of the aforementioned issues. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Higher Logic Vanilla solving and how is that benefiting you?

Vanilla was chosen as the foundation for building a community and publishing platform promoting news, articles and services of interest for German and Chinese users.

Competing products such as Drupal or Wordpress are not meant to cater to the specific needs of an online community with user contributions in the style of a forum.

Alternative forum solutions were either not flexible enough for us or outdated with a stale codebase or just in the first stages of development. Vanilla was the primary choice as the only flexible & stable modern and near-term future proof forum software with an active company and developer community behind it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.