SNS: BuddyZone vs PhpFox...anyone have any thoughts?

[funducoder]

Hi,
By Illegal I did not mean phpfox has something illegal, I meant I cannot myself disgrace the competitors, because that will be unethical, The comments posted by you really does mean you are bashing our company. Anyways, the code is not encrypted, simply for one reason, we do not shy away from people finding mistakes in our code rather than by encrypting it, I am sure everyone knows no encryption is fool proof, and there are tools available which can decode zend encoded files and ion cube files as well, so by encoding the files did phpfox stop the piracy, no not at all, they just did not want you to know the problems in their code, just search phpfox in google and you will see what I mean. Address Zone is not included in the package and is sold separately.

Thanks.

Regards,
For Vastal I-Tech & Co.,
We make your computers intelligent...
www.vastal.com

[Clenard]

Hi,
By Illegal I did not mean phpfox has something illegal, I meant I cannot myself disgrace the competitors, because that will be unethical, The comments posted by you really does mean you are bashing our company. Anyways, the code is not encrypted, simply for one reason, we do not shy away from people finding mistakes in our code rather than by encrypting it, I am sure everyone knows no encryption is fool proof, and there are tools available which can decode zend encoded files and ion cube files as well, so by encoding the files did phpfox stop the piracy, no not at all, they just did not want you to know the problems in their code, just search phpfox in google and you will see what I mean. Address Zone is not included in the package and is sold separately.

Thanks.

Regards,
For Vastal I-Tech & Co.,
We make your computers intelligent...
www.vastal.com

Yes, I know there are ways to decode the files as I've explained to many people on PHPFox forums.

Luckily, PHPFox will be giving access to all the important functions in the Software - I believe this week.

As for bashing your software - if you believe I was, so be it. I was simply giving my personal opinions of why I do not like it... there is a difference. If I were bashing it - I would simply say "BuddyZone Sucks" - which I did not. I simply said some areas needed improvement and overall - the software lacked some important functions... and the same with PHPFox, which I paid alot of money for. I did say the Design sucked... this is not saying "Buddyzone Sucks". PHPFox has better overall designs - but lacks in other areas which BuddyZone does not.

All in all - I like both programs... although both have items missing that I believe should be incorporated into the Software.

[kas]

Clenard: its a fact ugly sites make more money, i redesigned my site looked great but my income dropped by 40% (i warned my members of the change 1 month notice) i changed it back to the ugly look and know its back to normal income.

i can list lots of ugly looking sites that make $$$$$$$ so when some people (webmasters) look at the site and think thats only making $10 a day hahahaha but its really making $1000-$10,000 a day. ; )

i use phpfox and the max amount of members i can get online is 65 then it runs very slow and my members get pissed off, its not my server its phpfox mysql database sending too many of the same info over and over again slowing it down big time, which it doesnt need to, why sell a script then blame the hosting company, i pay $2000 a month for my server and it can take a lot more then 65 online members.i will be trying buddyzone for my other new project and i think it looks great nice and easy as long as it loads fast i be happy.

[praq]

I don't know guys. I tried buddyzone and PHPFox and both lacked the functionality I wanted. Plus they're both waaaay too expensive for what they offer. I came accross Our Space at http://www.2coolcode.com/ourspace/ which has alot more features than both PHPfox and BuddyZone plus it's alot cheaper. They also promise a free life-time technical support and upgrades which already makes it more attractive. not to mention Our Space was alot easier to customize and my members liked it much more than those other programs.

[pgowder]

I'm the owner of MyTribalSpace.com which has been mentioned here.

I've enjoyed using Buddy Zone and have been using it for quite a while. There have been some bugs and bumps. But the support has been great and prompt.

There are some features I'd like to see added as well. Overall, however, the software is doing very well for me.

[Clenard]

I don't know guys. I tried buddyzone and PHPFox and both lacked the functionality I wanted. Plus they're both waaaay too expensive for what they offer. I came accross Our Space at http://www.2coolcode.com/ourspace/ which has alot more features than both PHPfox and BuddyZone plus it's alot cheaper. They also promise a free life-time technical support and upgrades which already makes it more attractive. not to mention Our Space was alot easier to customize and my members liked it much more than those other programs.

Obvious spam. I've yet to hear anything other than negative from OurSpace...and only one post?

Kas - yeah ugly sites make money but so do nice sites.

Upgrade to 1.1 and watch your problems start to disappear

[kas]

Obvious spam. I've yet to hear anything other than negative from OurSpace...and only one post?

Kas - yeah ugly sites make money but so do nice sites.

Upgrade to 1.1 and watch your problems start to disappear

Hi Clenard,

When you say upgrade to 1.1 do you mean the MYSQL issue is fixed and you can have more then 65 members online at anyone time?

[Clenard]

Hey Kas,

Yes, there are tons of sites with hundreds of members online at once that have no issues.

But keep your eyes and ears open -- 1.5 is being released on the 5th and it's completely rewritten and is supposed to be 100% OOP -- which means easier to modify, cleaner code, etc.

[yeikow]

Hey Clenard,

When 1.5 is released tomorrow is it the version you would get if you buy it then? or is it just a beta version that will need further testing before being fully released?

You know any main new interesting features?

Cheers!

[Kat]

Wow, I haven't looked at phpfox in a LONG, time, and it looks as if they've come a LONG way.

Can't wait to see the new release tomorrow. (like the yeikow, I'm curious to know if it's a beta release or not...)

What will the default skins look like?

ETA
Clint, MAJOR congrats on your 2 months w/ no smoking!!

[Clenard]

Kat,

Thanks for the congrats

Yeah, tomorrows release will be 1.5 beta. There will be a demo up tomorrow morning, as far as I know. Thenew system is completely OOP and using Smarty for the Templating system so I'm sure the designs will be getting alot different soon enough. ;-)

As a community - there will be ALOT of testing and bug reporting going on over the next week or so and I'm sure it will help with a quicker Stable release. I know they're doing ALOT of extra stuff to make sure it's better than ALL of the past releases by far... it's like a brand new script to be honest lol

I truly believe by 2.0 -- there won't be any comparison between the current "rival" scripts.

As a new mod on the forums -- I'm seeing alot of new stuff going on and I see Drew, Purefan and others stressing to make sure this release goes very well. They're doing alot of things most companies never even think of ... I see the 'professionalism' shining through alot lately!

[slinky]

I'm the owner of MyTribalSpace.com which has been mentioned here.

I've enjoyed using Buddy Zone and have been using it for quite a while. There have been some bugs and bumps. But the support has been great and prompt.

There are some features I'd like to see added as well. Overall, however, the software is doing very well for me.

Nice site although your ads are incredibly intrusive and note that the site loads slowly (although no more slow than many of the other buddyzone sites I demoed.) I liked some of the advanced searching functionality but it seems that the back end doesn't provide much flexibility given what I've seen on all the other buddy zone sites. Add to the fact that the buddyzone developer went ballistic on me. I'm sure he's getting some abuse from the phpfox guys but he's got a paranoid chip on his shoulder the size of Asia.

There are some other options I've just found that were pretty cool such as elgg and pligg, which are nice free community blogs but nowhere near finished yet in the manner that most people here hope. Zoints is still unfortunately a confusing mess IMHO although they are working hard.

[pgowder]

whatever you do, DO NOT BUY BUDDY ZONE,, IT'S A $400.00 PIECE OF CRAP.. THE SUPPORT SUCKS BUTT!!! I BOUGHT IT 2 YEARS AGO AND I'VE BEEN KICKING MYSELF IN THE BUTT EVER SINCE,, LESSON #1, NEVER BUY ANYTHING OUT OF THE COUNTRY, ESPECIALLY INDIA,, YOU WON'T GET HELP... TRYING SENDING THEM A EMAIL,,IF U CONTACT ME I'LL GIVE YOU THE SCRIPT FOR FREE,,, DO NOT BUY BUDDY ZONE

Wow! Not at all my experience.

Support for me has been outstanding. There have been some bugs and problems, but they have fixed everything very quickly.

[pgowder]

I realize this is an old thread, but I wanted to post an update.

I've switched from BuddyZone to PHPFox.

Today is our first day with the site open after the migration.

www.mytribalspace.com

[subnet_rx]

I am considering using this for a forum community that already has a decent amount of members. I'd love to hear experiences about recent versions of this product, support, and the vBulletin bridge.

[pgowder]

I am considering using this for a forum community that already has a decent amount of members. I'd love to hear experiences about recent versions of this product, support, and the vBulletin bridge.

Right now I'm pretty upset and angry with this software.

My pages are taking 20-30 seconds to load. There are several threads in their forums that others are having similar issues.

It appears that their db's are not optimized, indexed or normalized well.

As of now my site is basically useless!

Support is telling me that the performance is based on server config, size of db, etc.

I'm running on a dedicated server with a 750k post vBulletin. It runs great!

So it can't be the server!

As things progress I'll update this thread.

[strawberries]

sorry to hear of your problems.

But I wouldn't touch PhpFox with a bargepole.

[subnet_rx]

I think I'm going to test PHPizabi. I can't find a vB bridge, but it's free.

[strawberries]

i used to be interested in Phpizabi.......but herd too many bad things about the new alicia version to have any serious interest.

but i did install it last week here, to mess about and test it.

as for free, yes and no.....look at their modules/plugins page......they all add up to money.

[pgowder]

sorry to hear of your problems.

But I wouldn't touch PhpFox with a bargepole.

So what would you recommend?

[strawberries]

depends what you seek from your script.

my favourite for some time is Datemill

and I have been waiting patiently for version 2 to be released.

it is a dating script, with blogs now part of version 2.

[pgowder]

depends what you seek from your script.

my favourite for some time is Datemill

and I have been waiting patiently for version 2 to be released.

it is a dating script, with blogs now part of version 2.

First I couldn't wait. BuddyZone stopped working.

Second I don't need a dating script, need SNS.

[reedy]

Have you considered Dolphin?

I haven't tried it, but it looks pretty good for a free, open source product.

[pgowder]

Have you considered Dolphin?

I haven't tried it, but it looks pretty good for a free, open source product.

Requires Apache, I'm on IIS.

[Kat]

i used to be interested in Phpizabi.......but herd too many bad things about the new alicia version to have any serious interest.

but i did install it last week here, to mess about and test it.

What are your thoughts on it so far?