Question JomSocial vs Community Builder CB

Hello,

I love Kunena, but as with any new or developing component it seems there is not heaps of extentions available. But... for now... my issue relates to user accounts.

JoomSocial VS Community Builder

How easy is it to intergrate either?
Who enjoys more solutions and support?
Operational and user friendly? Who wins!

For looks, I know JoomSocial is very moderm in design, sleek, rich with features... but I do love CB as I have been using it for years and support great...

What to do... What to do...

I preffer Community Builder, you can check some of my other post as I am "HEAVILY" developing for Community Builder and the thought of bringing some of JomSocial's features over for instance my CB Plugin Selection: joomservices.com/extensions/50-community...gin-plugin-selection

If you like the look and feel of JomSocial "Before Long" I will be able to help the community with that. I have been hard at work on a new CB Template which sports some slick JomSocial features but am still working on it. You can see it in action here: www.kunena.com/forum?func=view&catid=12&id=11436

For those who have already seen it "Earlier Today" you should take a look now and see what you think... many changes, upgrades and hopefully a cleaner approach. Still a lot of work to go.

Anyhow, my vote is on CB.. sorry to get off on other things but CB is established has been for years and I don't see it going anywhere.

Also, Kunena is not necessarily NEW as you said. It is a predicessor of a 2 year project known as Fireboard and Fireboard was the predicessor of Joomlaboard so all together Kunena is approximately 4 years old?? Someone correct me if I am wrong.

Anyhow, you will find all the help, questions answered here.

As a heads up the biggest differences with the two is cost? Are you willing to fork over $100 - $150 for JomSocial or spend a little more time tweaking CB for FREE!

Most people get pulled in the direction of FREE! I don't blame them.

Anyhow, I hope this helps.

Thanks,
James

hjames wrote:

As a heads up the biggest differences with the two is cost? Are you willing to fork over $100 - $150 for JomSocial or spend a little more time tweaking CB for FREE!

In my opinion it's not just 'little more' time to tweak CB and also not all end users are developers so they'll eventually buy extra CB addons or hire a developer.

An example would be the 'Activity stream'. To have it in CB you need to spend 102$ (both module and CB profile tab for super activity www.axxis.gr/index.php/cb-super-downloads )
Then the CB Plugin Selection costs 16,95$.
Total is 119$. And this just covers activity and plugins' management in CB. Then you'll have to install a component for photo, one for videos, one to invite friends...JomSocial comes already with all these plugins.
I'd prefer going to just ONE developer (Azrul) to have support for ONE component (jomsocial) rather than go to different websites to have support for single addons/components I'd buy to have social network extensions in CB.

Hi! I choose CB for one reason:

It's free.

Soon will appear a free plugin like 'activity stream'; one day a developer or a user who knows php will publish a release.

CB have a great forum and hundred of users who develop the component.

The direction of FREE, as says HJames, is for me the real direction. Joomla is Free, CB is Free, why pay for a component who makes the SAME as JoomSocial. The only difference: JS is goodlooking, have a real cool template.

But something says to me that real near we will have a great template for our users (look hjames work)

So, yes, CB needs Tweaking, maybe was built for Joomla 1.x and now, even with the built for 1.5, is far to be perfect. But it works. And great. And it's only v1.2!

So, it's a cuestion of likes -someone likes JS, someone likes CB-. Think in money, in resources, in developres, in wich communiy supports both componentes, and then choose.

But, for me, no doubt: CB.

When I checked, joomsocial was not far off £100. That's okay if you're making money from your website, but if it's only a hobbyist sites, I don't think it's worth it. Not when community builder is free.

Oscarfishlover wrote:

... not when community builder is free.

... for the present ... :whistle:

I don't mind paying for something if it does the job and improves your website. However, what is a reasonable price to pay for these type of extensions?

Hey guys, you get what you pay for.

For a free type of hobby site, CB is fine to play with IMHO. But TODAY, if I were going to PAY for a product that just works for the most part out of the box then its azrul's solution.

Most people will see "FREE" and say "IT'S THE BEST!" simply because they did not shell out any money.


Free doesn't make it the best, it just makes is accessible for more to play with.

Its a good product, I use CB too. I think its RAW in its free form.

Everybody like something for nothing, and for a change you get that when using Joomla. However, I would say the more things become popular, the more people will look towards making their products commercial.

I really like community builder, however I think joomsocial is more aesthetically pleasing compared to CB.

At the end of the day, I run a small website with a modest amount of members so forking out large amounts of money is just not worth my while. If it were a huge website with many thousands of members, and I would spend the extra money, because I would probably be earning a nice bit of money from advertising to be able to afford it.

I'm extremely happy with community builder, it's a first-class extension I would recommend to anyone who doesn't want to fork out any money to improve their website.

I have actually stopped using community builder for the moment. Before you install it, be aware that it will disable your profile system on the forum. In other words, nobody will be able to add signatures, websites, MSN, Skype etc. From my experience, my members all like to have a signature, like to put in their personal information like when they were born, where they live,. The installation of community builder stops people from being able to do this.

Don't get me wrong, I do like community builder.However, I have found that the majority of my members who are dedicated fish keepers and use the forum to help people are just not really interested in the facilities within the community builder.if they want to post a photograph, a video, they do it on the forum.

I would describe these sort of extensions as gimmicks that maybe a few people use.In hindsight, probably a waste of time if you've got a dedicated forum to a certain subject where your members are mostly adults