Are you insane? We have witnessed a number of sites still running the old Etherpad and we’re really sad to think we haven’t promoted migrating enough.

Security and vulnerabilities

The old Etherpad is incredibly vulnerable not only to XSS but also some client spoofing functionality can allow users to write bad data to your database which will crash pads. We patched all of these issues in Etherpad Lite.

Performance

Etherpad Lite comes with load testing simulators that allow you to simulate an expected load on your site to ensure that your service will remain stable. Etherpad Lite can easily outperform Etherpad Legacy due to it’s flexible architecture.

Team Pads

Various sites now offer team pad service from Etherpad Lite (See PrimaryPad) etc and various plugins now exists for providing pad management functionality through the admin back-end. Classes exist for all major programming languages and the API is well documented and extensive enough to integrate with any environment so with this in mind we would strongly encourage you to integrate Etherpad Lite into your current CMS or web service instead of trying to provide Etherpad as a separate entity.

Plugins and extended functionality

Etherpad Lite provides an entire plugin framework with over 50 plugins that allow you to easily customize the functionality and style of your deployment. Over the last 2 years we have been working hard to extend core feature functionality too polishing the UI and UX to work great on mobile devices and reducing the system requirements for deployment.

Reliability

We introduced Continuous integration testing in 2012 and this has meant that we have been able to push out relatively bug free major versions. Our Frontend testing framework really makes it easy for developers to write tests and to ensure their contributions don’t break other functionality.

It’s free to upgrade

Obviously because Etherpad Lite is FREE and OPEN SOURCE so there is no cost in upgrading. ?Migration scripts also exist to make your job as pain free as possible.

But I’m scared and don’t want to invest the time..

Well you either invest your time or you ask one of our consultants to help with your deployment. We know we got the name wrong when it came to Etherpad Lite, a lot of people assumed it had less features or functionality but that’s not the case. The Lite part of Etherpad Lite actually means it’s lighter on your resources and more nimble for your users. Honestly we didn’t think we’d have such a hard time trying to get big sites to invest a little bit of time on improving their users experience.