Website Toolbox

Avantages

I have a group of dedicated users who love forums. I searched for an attractive forum that could be embedded directly into my existing site. Even before the free trial was over, I knew that I would be purchasing from Website Toolbox. The options to make attractive forums really appealed to me, and setting up the forum was a snap.

One of my users requested a feature (to embed Spotify playlists). I passed that along to the Dev team. I was told it might take 2-3 months, but they would work on it. Surprisingly, they got the feature built that same day! I was stunned!

Inconvénients

My moderators can't seem to delete posts.

Avantages

The customer service is amazing. They're always quick to respond and handle your issues.

Inconvénients

Functionality can, at times, be unstable if you embed into a Wordpress site. You cannot use your theme builder to change the page or the code will be damaged. All design of the page must be handled through Website Toolbox.
This may not be an issue for other site builders.

Avantages

It has the basic features you would want in a bbs system, easy to set up and get up and running.

Inconvénients

Some limited options with customizing the look and feel. Newer software has more features.

Avantages

Website Toolbox is easy to setup, easy for users to interact with and is a very reliable tool for hosting our online forum.

Inconvénients

Some of our users struggle with more advanced features like adding in photos but this is typical of all forums that I use.

Avantages

All the features and the control of them, all the integrations available, social/one log in for users, overall usability for users (like how it brings you back to where you left off in a thread), monetization opportunities.

Inconvénients

Not much - I guess admin panel is a bit clunky, could be a bit more aesthetically pleasing.

Avantages

I love how quick and easy it was to setup my private member site using Website Toolbox. I simply could not believe it after I wasted a lot of time trying various plugins for my WordPress site.

Inconvénients

I would love to see Website Toolbox integrate additional payment gateways and options for paid memberships.

Avantages

Ease of use and customer service - always get good responses to questions.

Inconvénients

Functionality limitations - would like to see more features.

Avantages

Has all of the features we need in a forum and the necessary controls to customize it as needed.

Inconvénients

Admin menu system is not easy to navigate. Not always intuitive. Features are typically there but difficult to find

Avantages

I like the ease of use But I have found the cuztomer service to be the best part of websits toolbox.

Inconvénients

The template (theme) I chose is limited. And I do t want to change it but it will not allow me to add links.

Avantages

Easy to start and no big deal to navigate

Inconvénients

No really big issues worth mentioning thx

Avantages

It was relatively easy to set up and works (mostly) seamlessly. Does very nice job of setting up PayPal subscription accounts for paid forum features. Also tracks when users respond to a post and e-mails me.

Inconvénients

Occasional glitches. Was throwing users out of paid access for a while but customer service fixed that promptly. Sometimes a customer cannot sign in and the issue resolves itself in a day but i can never tell if it was a user error or temporary software glitch. It has a lot of action logging features that I don't have time to play with.

Many features are over my head (and available time) to install or implement. You can blame that on my head and lack of time, or on the software not being as user-friendly as it could be. I don't have anything else to compare it to.

Access issues for a visually disabled user. Maybe this is beyond anyone's capacity to fix but I have a visually disabled user who is unable to consistently access the forum. Has to do with her text reading software not able to pick up click boxes and the like. I think that a tech would need to sit down with her at her computer to adequately understand the access issue. I suspect this is commonplace.

Avantages

Ease of use and set up. Setting it up and customizing it was easy.

Inconvénients

A large number of people i forum do not reveive emails, and no fix is offered. Fixes are offered only on individual basis when tech support is contacted reg a certain user.

Avantages

Most of the customizations like theme etc. can be done by the user him/herself. No special skill is required. Permission is at a granular level.

Inconvénients

The paid forum functionality is for the "whole forum". It cannot be activated for a selective category.

Avantages

No coding knowledge is needed to be able to get set up and running.
The ability for users to access the forum via Facebook login has been well received from our test users and we believe it has reduced the amount of users who abandon us during the signup process.

Inconvénients

Some features were tricky to set up. I found the difference between embedding or using an app wasn't very clear. Couldn't see the advantages from one over the other nor which one had actually been executed in the first instance.
Also some features no longer work, such as embedding the forum into a Facebook page state tab as Facebook have changed some of their features. The tutorials need to be updated to reflect this.

Avantages

Website Toolbox's forum platform is robust and feature rich, and their support is outstanding! They have addressed our questions quickly and accurately, and gone above and beyond to set up SSO with our main site and to import six years of forum archives from our previous platform.

Inconvénients

I wish the daily emailed digest could be resorted, but Website Toolbox says they're working on it.

Avantages

I like that it helps me to create a forum for my teams to share ideas and communicate what they are learning in trainings.

Inconvénients

Can be wonky log in and stuff and the price jump from the first year I used it to now is a lot..
we only use it for a forum - for intercommunication - so the price we pay is high for what we are using. I understand that it can do much more than we use it for - but I wish there was tiered pricing that was more in line - or that we could have been grandfathered. The issue is that because I use with one team for 6 months and then close it out and then have to open another to use with the next training - it's frustrating for pricing and set up.

Avantages

Not much at all, other than the fact it’s a forum platform ... we inherited the forum and without the abiliry to migrate it - it’s totally useless

Inconvénients

The software is very limited in scope for firther advancement of your forum... it’s like the shopify of forum software.. limited advancement, no ability to integrate skins/theams etc etc compared to great platforms like machine forums... and there simply isn’t any way to migrate the forum to a different platform

Avantages

Ease of use makes the site an attractive option.

Inconvénients

Would like to see more social media interface.

Avantages

Is tool enables my students to connect with me and with each other in one location, cutting down the number of emails associated with online classes and making the classes a more enjoyable and rich experience.

Inconvénients

It is difficult to customize the look and feel of the forum, the way the topics are organized and presented on the page. It is not possible to generate a share a link to just one reply or one topic, as far as I can tell.

Avantages

It is fairly easy to setup and get going. The process to approve users and organize the forum are easy.

Inconvénients

The customer support is slow sometimes. The SOE didn't work very well for a long time.

Avantages

Website Toolbox provides a long list of features for their forum software at a great price. Customer support is always quick to assist if we have any questions.

Inconvénients

Would like more options for color/theme of forum.

Avantages

The software does everything needed and is a 10 out of 10. But where it really shines is when you have an issue or question and you need to contact support. They are always extremely courteous, helpful and do their best to assist you. That makes it an 11 out of 10! Highly recommended.

Inconvénients

I am hoping that they change the format of the emails so that they have a summary/index at the top which makes it easier to use like competitors do.

Avantages

Support, variety of features, very well documented API's

Inconvénients

1/ Help system is located in a window that cannot be detached from the current working area

2/ Would recommend clearer inteface for uninitiated (I expect issues here for moderators).

Avantages

Easy to use and understand.
Easy to set up
Good customization options

Inconvénients

Once you have played around the menus become clearer to understand but can be confusing when first looking at them.
Reporting could be improved

Avantages

Relatively easy to set up - with a few bits of technical language that I wasn't familiar with, but the? icons next to each field are immensely helpful.
The Customer Service was very responsive and helpful - a superb online Chat agent was very patient with my questions and effectively did the set up for me.

Inconvénients

Nothing bad - I found it to be quite straightforward except when it came to the option to embed vs link to our website - I needed some help with that & the Chat Team were brilliant and solved the issue very quickly for me.