I have used the Agora 3.0 forum system since it just came out in early alpha. After over a year of following it closely and working with numerous installs I think I can provide a fairly accurate assessment of the system and the team that is creating it, among other products.
Overall Agora is a fantastic feature rich forum solution. That is 100% native to Joomla. It works and it works well.
The best aspects of it are the wide range of features, from easy image and video embedding to the robust group and permission settings.
The bb code editor that is in Agora provides a vast array of features that accommodates the needs of any community. I have used it on a wide range of niche websites, from game developers to artists. All in all it has been satisfactory.
The group system allows for a complex forum setup that could truly be used for anything. Need beta testers to have their own hidden forum that can only be seen by them and the game developers? Well you can establish that without having to promote them to moderators and so forth. You can create multi-level hierarchies within the permissions of the forums and that allows for full control over who sees what. The Agora forum system also ads a great deal of extra features, for example the ability to make certain forums ‘one post’ forums. Which is useful when you want each user to be able to post there only once, aka introduction threads/contests. The ability to allow guests to post in certain forums with captcha validation. Powerful custom smiley editor and even community Google maps. Agora forum has its own robust profile system, but allows for integration with Jomsocial and community builder. It also provides integration for UDDIEM pm system. The developers have also created numerous plugins and modules that accent the forum. And a few components that extend it even further. The support is fantastic, as are the developers. The update schedule can be rather erratic but for the most part that is not a huge problem. To date I dare say that this is the best native Joomla forum solution and recommend it for any website that needs a community. Just make sure that you actually need a forum in the first place!
The group system allows for a complex forum setup that could truly be used for anything. Need beta testers to have their own hidden forum that can only be seen by them and the game developers? Well you can establish that without having to promote them to moderators and so forth. You can create multi-level hierarchies within the permissions of the forums and that allows for full control over who sees what. The Agora forum system also ads a great deal of extra features, for example the ability to make certain forums ‘one post’ forums. Which is useful when you want each user to be able to post there only once, aka introduction threads/contests. The ability to allow guests to post in certain forums with captcha validation. Powerful custom smiley editor and even community Google maps. Agora forum has its own robust profile system, but allows for integration with Jomsocial and community builder. It also provides integration for UDDIEM pm system. The developers have also created numerous plugins and modules that accent the forum. And a few components that extend it even further. The support is fantastic, as are the developers. The update schedule can be rather erratic but for the most part that is not a huge problem. To date I dare say that this is the best native Joomla forum solution and recommend it for any website that needs a community. Just make sure that you actually need a forum in the first place!
Advertisement
