Question JomSocial vs Community Builder CB

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

I recently switched over from community builder and i have no regrets

At first i was kind of hesitant about swithing because of the price & the lack of plugins due to JomSocial being so new

Azrul sent me a promotion saying that i can try out Jomsocial for a $1 for 30 days...and afterwards pay the rest....and if i didnt like it...they would refund my $1

I installed Jomsocial & instantly fell in love with it.
the functionality is just amazing.....it comes with most features that you have to download for CB already integrated. They even have a migration script to make your transition from CB to Jomsocial very smooth. As for the plugins that i thought i was missing...i have found many very effective replacements to the CB ones, and as for the ones that i have not been able to get......the contrast between the 2 is so great...that i am willing to go ahead & wait.

I have been so pleased with Jomsocial that i went ahead and paid it off early...my trial wouldnt be over until May 7th

If you want a professional site....Go with Jom Social

If you want a hobby site get CB because its free

I agree, the social networking gimmicks seem to appeal to younger people. My "mature" users much prefer the structure of the forum. I'm trying to provide the best of both, and Joomla helps me do that.

I've been using VBulletin but it's extremely difficult to customize and it's in a rigid forum style. With Joomla, I can "Add-on" other things to the Forum. It helps me step outside the boxy forum and provide some other things to the site users. While still offering a forum that they love. I've switched to Kunena for the forum app.