XenForo Is xenForo Cloud hosting worth it?

[Al]

I’ve been looking at XenForo Cloud and wondering if it’s actually worth the monthly cost or if it’s just convenience dressed up with a price tag. On the surface, it looks like a good deal: no server setup, no maintenance, automatic updates, backups, and security all handled for you. That’s a big selling point for anyone who doesn’t want to spend their time in cPanel or fiddling with file permissions.

But here’s where I start questioning it.

You lose control. No access to your server. No FTP. No way to install third-party add-ons outside of what xenForo officially supports in their cloud ecosystem. So if your setup relies on a specific plugin or something custom-built, forget it. Same goes for tweaking server-level performance, custom caching layers, or anything fancy.

And then there’s the pricing. Last I checked, it starts at around $60/month. That adds up fast. Especially when you compare it to a one-time $195 license for self-hosted XenForo, where you can grab decent VPS hosting for under €10/month. Long-term, you’re paying a premium just to avoid admin work.

So here's what I'm trying to work out:

• Has anyone here used XenForo Cloud long-term?
• Did it actually make your life easier—or did you hit a wall with limitations?
• How’s the performance? Is it fast, stable, reliable?
• Are the backups and support actually worth the extra monthly spend?
• And if you moved from self-hosted to Cloud (or vice versa), would you recommend it?

If you’ve got experience with it, good or bad, drop your thoughts. I’m trying to figure out if it’s a smart move for new forums, or just a more expensive way to run something I could host myself.

 

[CTS]

I use xf cloud.

With that and having self hosted many times, I am in love with the xf cloud.

Your points:
1 - almost a year
2 - the only limitations is a custom server setup for some reason. Yes it loads most all xf sponsored addons. I have even been able to create and install addons as if properly created will just upload off your hard drive anyway, just like xf hosted addons.
3 - My latest small site with addons is very fast as I have made comparables.
4 - I just go with the basic package
5 - unless your site consists of sidecar programs like wordpress etc and you are only just using the xf suite, it is perfect.

My best response is, I have my site on a server that is specifically tuned and maintained by xf for their software. I have absolutely no server maintenance issues or concerns. Uptime is consistent. I doubt I will ever go back to self hosting. It just saves me a ton of time not dealing with the server side.

Yeah, you do lose control. But you have to ask yourself exactly why you need that control. It is likely already setup. You wont need ftp, especially for system files. And they get updated by xf when needed. You have full ownership of your database, but you dont get phpmyadmin or anything like that.

Quite honestly I wish I had discovered it a lot sooner.

I have not had a negative for me yet. (aside from the required copyright notice in the footer.)

Feel free to visit as a guest on my site to experience its operation. (see siggy)
Or even on Administrata.

edit to add @Al : you are an admin here

 

[Al]

Or even on Administrata.

edit to add @Al : you are an admin here

Administrata isn't cloud hosted.

 

[CTS]

Administrata isn't cloud hosted.

Oh geez, I was only going by the xf copyright in the footer lol. My bad assumption and apology.

 

[CTS]

Forgot to add, the cloud is also scaleable to your increasing bandwidth needs.