Beta test software first

[Shawn]

Before choosing the software to power your forum, take advantage of free trials and demos beforehand.

You might blindly choose a software that you end up hating to use. Then, you have to go through the trouble of merging software. Sometimes, you have to use another software just to be able to merge one to another. It can become a nightmare.

Test it out first and go with what you love best.

What do you all think about this sort of thing?

[AWS]

I have never done this. Strange that I never did. I usually dive right in. It bit me once. I converted one of my sites to an ASP.Net product called community server. It is now Telligent I believe. It was an all in one package like IPB. It also offered an interconnection to Usenet which at the time was still very popular. 

I installed it and the conversion went well. The connection to Usenet was exactly as I had hoped. Seamless integration. That's where it all went wrong. Once I set the connection string and the groups I want to interact with it uploaded all 1 million + posts to usenet. Not good. Instant IP block. Took me over a year to get back in good graces with the Usenet provider I used. Moved back to vBulletin right away.

[Shawn]

I used to actually use demos in the past, back in the 90s and early 2000s.

Nowadays, I never do. I just join or even pay for a service without knowing how it works. LOL.

But I think new folks should try before they buy. We're more experienced and we have an idea of what we're going to get.