We're pleased to say that Invision Community 5.0.0 is now available to all customers.

It's been a long journey, but we are now ready to support v5 as our primary release and offer our thanks to all of those who been involved in our beta testing program.

What does this mean?

We are currently in the soft release phase to help us manage the influx of feedback from those choosing to upgrade. We also have some new documentation to finish, and some website changes to make. If you're unsure what new features v5 brings, you can check out our "What's new in v5" page.

Can I still use v4?

Absolutely! And we would encourage you to plan your upgrade carefully. Version 5 is not a normal upgrade, it's a brand new platform with many significant changes including how themes are created, how widgets and blocks are managed and it comes with a brand new editor.

We still be supporting v4 for quite some time with important bug fixes and security updates.

What does the upgrade from v4 look like?

It's important to know that any custom themes, applications and plug-ins will not work on version 5. These items are not deleted, but they are disabled. You will need to recreate any custom themes, and contact the authors of any third-party applications to see if they have updated versions ready to use.

Upgrading for Invision Community Cloud Customers

You will see a new section in your client area. Clicking "Request Upgrade" will show you some very important information which you should ready carefully and review before continuing with the upgrade. Please note that you need to be on the latest version of Invision Community 4 before you can upgrade to v5.

Upgrading for Invision Community Classic Customers

Those who host their Invision Community remotely will see a new button when managing your purchase.

What's next?

Invision Community 5 is the very beginning of our brand new platform and we can't wait to start evolving the new features set to better serve your community needs. Please post your feedback in the feedback forum.

Let us know what you think!

Thank you for all of your kind words. The team did a great job with v5 and I'm excited for this next chapter!

On 2/5/2025 at 9:10 AM, Lindy said:

I'm sorry for any confusion, however, we haven't performed upgrades on Classic/self-hosted in years... perhaps a decade. It's fairly straightforward -- simply download, upload and run /admin/upgrade. Or, we would be happy to help migrate you to cloud. 😉

@Lindy I am ready to move to the cloud and was told with only a "Beginner" plan (that's all I need) there would be a $250 charge to migrate. Since I've self-hosted and looked after all my needs since the dinosaurs were roaming, I'm happy to give you $588 per year for the beginner plan which is considerably more than the $80 I was paying per year; however, paying a one-time $250 charge to migrate, which is something I could do myself, is bit of a deal breaker.

Thoughts?

Again, I totally respect your experience with IPS. I actually was a UNIX / Linux / Open Source IT guy for 25 years and managed many dev and operations teams for large media and software development orgs. The forum is my side gig. So, I agree that IPS could do everything. I still don't understand the 4-5 hours since I could do this myself.

Free migration is advertised in my Client Area, on the IPS website, etc.. The catch is you have to spend more annually to get that. That's the issue here gentlemen. It's not to minimize the work IPS does or the effort it took to release v5 and continue to be a viable business.

You've helped make up my mind. I will stay self hosted and deal with it myself. Not what I hoped for, but so be it.

Cheers!

Edited March 23, 20251 yr by Jeffrey Roberts

The biggest change is if you let your license expire for more than X time it can’t be renewed anymore and needs to be bought again.

This is to stop those that might say wait 3 years to renew and expect to keep the same price. The software is meant to be a subscription renewed regularly not at random intervals whenever someone decides they want to.

I'm about to upgrade from v4.7.23 on a hosted server. What "gotcha's" do I need to know about? Manually updating makes me nervous. I don't want anything to go sideways.

9 hours ago, bassangler said:

I'm about to upgrade from v4.7.23 on a hosted server. What "gotcha's" do I need to know about? Manually updating makes me nervous. I don't want anything to go sideways.

The biggest ones are

• Not backing up to have something to revert to if needed

• Having applications that are incompatible which you mentioned you already covered

• Not backing up to have something to revert to if needed

• People going for a PHP version over what we support, like switching to 8.5 for example (which was released only 15 days go). I would stick to whatever you are using now, since you are on 4.7.23

• In case I didnt mention this one, not backing up to have something to revert to if needed

On 3/22/2025 at 5:02 PM, Jeffrey Roberts said:

Perhaps I wasn't clear. We all paid $250 years ago for an IPS software license which we are all throwing in the garbage because they can't be sold

I got 5 IPS licenses. For single users, it doesn't matter but in a grand scheme, I 100% agree with you. This are free hobby sites and that was the beauty about the IPS back in the days i.e. hobby, pro, commercial, etc. folks can use it. Now it's all geared towards commercial users. I would like to sell my other 2 licenses and use sale proceedings towards IPS renewals. Sadly, we just can't.

The renewal terms are what's stopping me i.e. miss one renewal and you loose 500$. Even the M$ doesn't do that with their subscription based model for Office 365, Github, etc.

10 hours ago, Marc said:

Not sure what loss you are referring to there? Assuming its classic, this is not the case. You would have to miss 2 renewals there.

For IPS 5, I was told, you can't use Classic and you have to use new one. I had good balance on my minimal (less then 5 user) forum. My other sites, I upgrade on regular basis and have active IPS renewals.

I would like everything on IPS 5 but in some case, it's renewals and for some it's awaiting updated on addons.

It's god send news, if you tell me, IPS 5 can be used with Classic terms. Thanks and Happy New Year.

Edited January 5Jan 5 by AlexJ

6 hours ago, AlexJ said:

So, if I understand correctly, missing one renewal means losing the license and having to repurchase it for $500? I just want to confirm my understanding. Thanks.

No, its non-renewal for 2 years. So that would be if you miss the second