Joomla, is one of the popular open source content management systems among the users nowadays. There are many sites being built with this Joomla. Some used Joomla to build their small business sites, some used it for corporate site purposes, bundled with a lot of third-party extensions such as poll, blog, shopping cart, i.e. VirtueMart, CRM, and etc.
Most recently, there is a new tool namely JomSocial dedicated to everything Joomla for the Joomla users in their efforts to build a Joomla social network/community. JomSocial was developed by Azrul, subtly coined himself as the Joomla expert and released it to the Joomla community as a paid extension which charge $149 for the Professional version. For users to install and use it in their Joomla sites, their Joomla must be version 1.5.7 and above. In terms of functionality, there’s a ton of features if you’re using this JomSocial, you’ll get a custom user profile, private messaging system, friend-buddy system, activity stream, etc. To get a grasp on it, you can visit this JomSocial development site.
For years, Joomla users when they developed their community sites with Joomla, they can use the free modules available such as Community Builder, GroupJive, and Fireboard. Although these three (3) extensions can easily help to create a best Joomla social networking possible, but integrate these three is always a pain and one might wondered how much custom work is under the hood.
Does Joomla social networking have a steep learning curve? Yes, but it seems the goal of JomSocial is to be a killer extension to have in Joomla with an aim to help users to build their social networks with much less time and work.
I have tried both JomSocial and CommunityBuilder, and as a non-programming web designer I had no choice but vote for JomSocial. Yes, it is not free – but I needed to have a blog for each member – and Mamblog (which is the only blog I found that is integrated with CB is not compatible with Joomla 1.5
JomSocial was easy to configure, is doing exactly what I wanted it to do and I did impress my client
So I suppose it depends on what you are familiar with, what your goals are and how much can you customize yourself. With JomSocial, there is not much of a learning curve…it is out-of-the-box solution.