Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 6 months ago
For building a community site, what system do you prefer, Community Builder, JomSocial or something else?
Cheers
The member formerly known as Roland Deschain After your question is solved, please Edit your original post and choose the Solved message icon, thank you!
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 6 months ago
I run a college alumni website and I looked at both.
For ease of use and out-of-the-box implementation, I choose JomSocial.
Community builder is a good product, but I felt I'd have to spend too much time (more than the cost of a Pro license from JomSocial) to get it to look and act the way JomSocial works.
Jomsocial has its share of issues like any extension, but it really does work well and they keep improving by adding functionality and reducing bugs,
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 6 months ago
Thanks for the reply jzuver. As it turns out I made the decision to abandon CB and go with JomSocial - just like you said, the money spent is more than offset by time saved. I had concerns about CB security as well to be frank. So far JomSocial is impressive and I am finding that it is quite easy to work with. I do think that JomSocial ought to come with at least one 3 column layout template, but I'm creating my own.
Cheers!
The member formerly known as Roland Deschain After your question is solved, please Edit your original post and choose the Solved message icon, thank you!
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 1 month ago
Hallo,
I have one question about the above.
For my fan website of Lisa Lois I want to build a community so the fans can interact. Put images and video online.
I do no't have a lot of time to figure out how to work with cb of Joomsocial.
My question is are you still impres by Joomsocial?
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 1 month ago
I tryed Community Builder and it was a solid extension. But, it felt and looked like it was an extension and not a part of my side. There are so many plugins you have to single handed and configurate. Some plugins look and feel like complete extensions on their own. What i miss at the community builder is one package with a good design and a easy to handle configuration.
I'll change to JomSocial next month 100%
JomSocial is a pretty nice looking and easy to handle community builder extension and it got some more and better looking stuff, like the Avatar-Wall and better group settings/icons and and and
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 1 month ago
I've been comparing these two extensions for an upcoming Karate teaching school web site. While we want the students to friends and socialize with each other were concerned about how time we'll need to moderate there activities. For example we want to enforce that student pictures are of them in uniform, no bad language, etc...
Also we want to have several customs fields for students that only administrators can change. For example the students belt level, how many classes they've attended, performance at tournaments etc...
From my research i'd say CB is more likely to do all this, but i also need ease of use as not all teachers are very computer literate.
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 3 weeks ago
I used both extensions and the best for me is of course CB for his very high flexibility and compatibility. I understand you can be impressed (like me before) by Jomsocial and his nice graphic like his nice quick setup but you will soon discover his limitation.
Rockettheme develop many template for Joomsocial but the forum is full of topic by users who complain their template are broken because last Jomsocial release broke their site.
Like me I'm sure in some month you will want add some features, improvement and other and you will see is just not possible except if you wait some improbable release or if you hire a developer for customize your site.
Like anything when you want start something is necessary to take the necessary time to learn and especially if your project is commercial and focused on long term. Quick solution advertised more less like "build you community in 2 minutes" are just illusion.
CB can be complex to setup and use because his possibility are almost endless and for me is the main point. A majority of very useful addon (Incubator project available for Professional CB member) are developed by CB team who give a perfect stability and value to your site. Jomsocial provide a limited number of addon and all other are most often paid stuff coming from many different developers.
The last point his CB team is absolutely focused on "open source" in mind and they will never release a instable version. Jomsocial release almost every 2 weeks a new version with few bug fix and nothing else. They don't care if your site is broken by instable release (this happen often) and their support is very poor in compare with CB. The only news I receive sometime by Jomsocial in their Newsletter is pure marketing for try to convince me to buy their developer version...nothing else. When I get news from CB is always for announce news features.
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 3 weeks ago
Hi:
I have used both. At first Cb was my favorite. However, devs were quite slow to improve CB interface and JS moved steadily until it became #1 Community solution. I even posted several messages at CB forum asking for improvement and focus (by that time) on Joomla 1.5 (vs 1.0) and to abandon Mambo. You know the saying "... if the horse don't want to drink water,.. bla bla bla..".
So, thanks God I decide to move to JS because versatility of extensions, UI, and development team. JS is headed quite well to evolve. In addition you can find extensions that expand some core functions (Axxis Super Groups, Super Activity etc) and Joomplace plugins. IMO, right now, the user interface difference between CB and JS is abismal.
I think CB is focusing in its subscription solution which seems to be rock-solid. Regarding Joomla community solution the one at front of the race is JomSocial there is no doubt about it.
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 2 weeks ago
I'm only using Jomsocial now, I had a way too many problems with CB in regards to spammers signing up and spamming via the site(s) email function, this was a major problem. Waaaay too many problems with CB and too many areas to learn to make CB function (don't get me wrong, I knew CB inside and out)..
Jomsocial is easier to use and much has much better extensions.
Sorry CB, you lost me to a much better product.
The member formerly known as Roland Deschain After your question is solved, please Edit your original post and choose the Solved message icon, thank you!
Re: Community Builder, JomSocial or...? What do you prefer?
Posted 13 years 2 weeks ago
jomsocial. definitely. it seems generally more secure to me and is a very good price for an annual subscription. works wonders at integrating the community as well. i've tried CB but it just doesn't have the same community feel to it; it has a rougher edge than jsocial.