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Jom Social vs Community Builder (round 1)
Posted by: administrator on Thursday, 02 April 2009
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(15 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

cbvsjs.jpgFor those new to these extensions, Community Builder is one of the oldest (and possibly most used) Joomla extensions.  It has a plugin system and lets you quickly develop user profiles for logged in members; with custom fields and member lists.  Because its Open Source and how long its been around, there are a ton of plugins to give you google maps of your members, on-going/live (facebook wall-type) listings of member activity on their profiles and more.

Jom Social isn't Open Source.  Its a commercial release from the Malaysian web development firm Azrul Studio.  They're well known for simple blogging and commenting extensions and have recently released Jom Social - which pretty much gives you the same functionality as Community Builder for $100+ but doesn't require must setup/configuration once installed.

There's been discussion in the Joomla forums about this topic before and I think people are most concerned about the lock-in factor of using commercial software plus the question of how integrated JomSocial is to Joomla itself.

Before I jump into a comprehensive review next week, I wanted to ask for your thoughts on Community Builder vs Jom Social. (Post comments! :) )

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Still didn't try them
posted by Federico Capoano on 2009-04-02
Unluckly i have still to try the new version of CB and also JomSocial.

Of course would be better to support the development of CB.. would be a lot worther paying 10 € to CB and let the joomlapolis team work on it full time and having as result a robust and stable open source component than paying 100 € for Jom Social, what happen if the next year the developers stop supporting it?
I Switched to JomSocial
posted by Jerry on 2009-04-02
I switched to JomSocial due to its functionality out of the box and that Community Builder seemed to move at a snails pace for updates.
Precisation
posted by Federico Capoano on 2009-04-02
Of course if Jom Social would be released as open source it would be a lot better for the Joomla community.
posted by Federico Capoano on 2009-04-02
[...]E' stato pubblicato un post inresessante su WhyJoomla.org intitolato "Jom Social vs Community Builder (round 1)" in cui viene fatto un veloce confronto sulle due estensioni e che invita a partecipare alla discussione sul forum ufficiale di Joomla.org.[...]

http://www.joomlashow.it/news-blog/joomla/jom-social-vs-community-builder/
Gone too far with CB
posted by Alig8r on 2009-04-02
JomSocial looks great but I've got so much invested with CB in terms of addons and plugins that integrate with Sobi2, Adsmanager, etc. I'm getting ready to start a userpoints program. It would be nice if there was a trial version of JomSocial.
I like the jom social
posted by I am trying Jom social on 2009-04-14
I am a big fan of Cb. With that said I love jom social. its pretty pricey and I was worried that I was wasting my money on it. But after seeing it in action and playing with it for a little while I realized its worth every penny. A must have. def.
Waiting to Decide
posted by Freddie Famble on 2009-04-14
I'm working on a revised website for my church. I want a social networking site for the members side. I'm new to Joomla and am reading a lot about both CB and Jom Social. I have demoed Jom Social but not CB. I'm following this blog very carefully to help me make up my mind.

FF
Jom Social all the way.
posted by LG on 2009-04-16
The first community extension for Joomla I came across was CB. I just felt it was to bland and lacking, and wouldn't be a good fit for my project without a huge amount of work.
CB is good, but Jomsocial makes you more money
posted by Ven Tasman on 2009-04-18
I really like CB. I have used it for some 3 years and integrated almost every plugin, module, hack or personal kitchen recipe. But in 9 days of jomsocial i published a community site (www.calendariofemenino.com), and in 2 days i had a community fully working. That is efficient.

I´ll switch everything to joomsocial soon. CB will remain only in my sites for the community of joomla users.
JomSocial--permissions control?
posted by Annie Mac on 2009-04-20
I've been looking very carefully both at JomSocial as well as community builder. I was first introduced to JomSocial at the recent Denver Joomla Expo in Denver last December. I got a really good look at the program as well as have tested out the demo on the site quite extensively.

First off to agree with the other users, it looks like a more solid set up right out of the box. It has a true social look and feel to it. And it seems there doesn't need to be as much to be customized as far as hacks and plugins.

One thing I find that is severely lacking of jom social is permissions control. Since I'm particularly interested in using it as an application for an internal intranet site, it seems pointless to undermine company e-mail with internal 'messaging', not to mention lack of control/moderation.
posted by Mattew Barrie on 2009-04-21
How come jcommunity is not in the picture? :/
Jomsocial is "Open Source"
posted by Brent Friar on 2009-04-27
This is just a nitpick, but Jomsocial is open source, it's just not free. Open source means that you have access to the source code of the extension, which you get with Jomsocial. You are free to modify the source to your hearts desire.

I am looking forward to your review. I have used both and in my opinion there is a clear winner.
Community Builder annoyingly outdated
posted by lars blackmore on 2009-04-27
I've been using CB for quite some time, but the more I try to move forward w/ my site the more I find CB to be a restraint. Case in point: organizing and validating extensions for the component seems to be of no concern to the developers -- something as simple as finding language plugins for CB is a major pain, and it seems to me as if the project is slowly but surely dissolving -- many initiatives have faded out, posts on the forums are left unanswered... Too bad, really, to see this happen to what was once the showcase open source extension package to Joomla.
JomSocial--only if you're a programmer/developer
posted by alicia on 2009-04-27
only get JomSocial if you're a coder who is able to spend hours upon hours making modifications and fixing problems (like basic issues like search problems (you can only search names), issues with photo uploads not working (think is currently a jomsocial support topic with over 150 posts and thousands of views), and crazy text sizing problems. This is all while CB is obviously cheaper and has a better searching feature.

for $150 it might not be worth it (unfortunately, you can't see the support forum until after you purchase the product and in the pre-sales forums it looks like everything is peachy). i have been frustrated with JS since I bought it, posting questions in the forums all of the time. they bill it as if anyone can use it, but i think it's hard if you're not an experienced developer who can work with databases and do extensive analysis necessary to figure out how to fix your issues. it takes too much time.
posted by James on 2009-05-01
I am so lost...I dont whih one i should use
Round 1
posted by Saphirus on 2009-05-05
Well, round 1 and round only, CB knockout Social.
Joomla developer
posted by Joomla developer on 2009-07-15
Well Joom social is really good but with Community builder we can have SOBI2. Sobi2 is really large component and with it so many things can be manged very easily.

Eg if you are running a book directory you can store some books manufacture with address, retails, distributors with country, city, address every thing

So community builder is really vast.
Hmmmm
posted by Chris on 2009-11-05
The thing is with Joomla is that the modules and components that are available are what make Joomla so great. I dont know much about community builder - but Joomla is brilliant in my mind because of the additional items available.

-----------------------------
London Tours and Devon Cottages
re:
posted by Joomla Fan on 2009-12-22
Mattew Barrie wrote:
How come jcommunity is not in the picture? :/


Because I own it!
Where is the review or round 2?
posted by Kathleen on 2010-01-17
Just wondering if you got any further on this subject. I'd love to see a comparison between the two.
posted by Behzad on 2010-01-21
Good content that was really usefull
posted by Behzad on 2010-01-21
Good content that was usefull
JomSocial Kicks CB AsS
posted by auni on 2010-01-28
If you think CB beets JS, you need to go to JS and check some of it out... Ha ha ha... Jomsocial is Off the freakin Chain... been with it for a few months... and it's amazing... I grant it, I'm not the most intelligent person on Earth, but I'm happy to promote JS like Crazy... Made my life easy, and i'm a Novice Developer... Never went to any schools or anything, but just good with computers... so JS is good for me... if this doesn't work, I don't care, I'm a little drun... and JS is Cool... Ha ha ha... CB... freakin joke!
www.joomlanews.ro
posted by Andrei Rubin on 2010-02-22
I prefer JomSocial, because should have waited for ages for CB's updates with fixes
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[photo of qasim]why joomla? is mainly contributed to by Qasim Virjee - the Principal @ Design Guru

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