Personally, I find applications, plugins, add on's (whatever you wanna call them) an improvement to a community. I know some people don't care much for these extras, but I love tinkering with them. So the right tools can make all the difference. Over the years, I’ve come across a few add on's that have completely transformed how I manage and grow my community. Whether it’s streamlining moderation, boosting engagement, or just making the forum look and function better, these additions have been absolute assets.
A few that come to mind:
Moderator Panel
Link Directory
Shop
Credits
But I’m sure there are plenty of hidden gems out there that I haven’t discovered yet. So what plugins or tools have been game-changers for your forum? Are there any you can’t imagine running your community without?
Probably just the Resources addon and the Link Directory. However, for my cycling forum, the Calendar addon is what everyone likes the most to add local cycling events to. It's used a lot, as well.
Other than that, I try to use less add-ons and focus more on the core forum feature.
I have installed a shoutbox on my general forum, though. I was always against them but I thought it would be okay for that particular niche.
Bob’s showcase add is a must if you want to implement a directory system to your forum. I prefer to use it over the link directory add on.
The s9e/MediaSites add on is another must have as you can share links from multiple social media platforms that aren’t built in with XF’s core. Such as, Bluesky, soundcloud and a few others.
Oz badges add on is also nice if you want to implement gamification onto your forum with user badges.
The biggest game-changer for any forum I've ever run was a sportsbook/betting plugin I had custom-made for the football forum I used to run.
It was an absolutely fantastic investment for us, and as I've mentioned elsewhere previously, I believe it was effectively what led to our massive growth spurt and led to us taking a huge leap from becoming a moderate-sized forum to a huge, bustling community. It also increased our forum's income more than ten-fold over the course of a few months, as the gamification aspect of the feature was a huge pull with our memberbase.
I've never had quite the same reaction to a plugin - although a forum I used to be staff on, and then moved into owning, had a "post template" plugin for staff use which was extremely convenient. So essentially in the "quick reply" section of threads, there was a small drop-down menu that could be clicked from which you could select various templates of posts (for official things, or service orders, etc). It was really useful and saved a lot of time during busy periods.
