I disagree with a few of the past post. This is a great addition to Joomla. As far as support goes, yeah it might take a little while to get support but we have to realize everyone is spread-out around the world. The issues with the delayed releases, I applaud them for not releasing a buggie program. So it took a few days more, at least it saved alot of people alot of headaches.

The component / module is more then user management. It is exactly what it says. It builds communities. Take a look at the user sites in the forum at the Community Builder homepage. There are some very nice Joomla/community builder sites that rivial many of the myspace-style sites.

Hats off to the CB team and supporters. Great program. Keep up the good work.

This component/module does not allow much customization. If you want to get rid of the annoying icons on the registration page, you have to hack the code. You can't remove the title from the registration page either. I don't see how this is any better than the user management component that comes standard with Joomla.

Great, but check the joomlapolis site cos the 1.0 stable release is out and much better install and support

*****

The CB team has just released 1.0 Stable. The wait was frustrating, to be sure, but it was worth it, and what was a very solid component is now even better, with a more advanced plug in framework. The forums are very active, and the community is happy to help newbies get off to a running start. You can set up a MySpace-like website in just a few minutes, and 1.0 Stable was written with compatibility with Joomla 1.5. So no upgrade pains. Download it, you'll love it.

Roger

A fine idea, but to this point it's been nothing but excuses from the developer(s) regarding any updates.

The developer(s) have stated several times over the last few months specific times and dates to received an update. All of these dates have come and gone without a release.

A quick view of the boards there shows users at the point of begging for the updates. I don't know if this is a situation anyone wants to expose themselves to.

Not to be taken as a lack of gratitude, as we all know this offering is freebie/donation based, but I think this needs to out there so one can make an informed decision before deciding or relying on this component or devs of this component.

Again, fine concept but poor support.

Great component however the organization behind it is woefully inept in the maintenance/release aspect. Current version is RC2.

Since Feb2006 they have been announcing a stable release. Several "to be released on" announcements later (too numerous to count) nothing. They even went as far as to put up a countdown clock recently as to when the stable release was to be provided.

All events, announcements and countdowns have come and gone without a release...

It's unfortunate - this is a component that shows the promise and ability to enhance Joomla as a whole.

Community Builder is a good reason to use Joomla, as it allows it to be member-orientated. Quick to install, masses of useful add-ons, and easy to set up Profile Pages for your members, with added fields and tabs.

I love this component, it's almost like a whole application unto itself. Use it in several community sites.

This addon is 100% gold. I've used it on a couple of web sites now. Very easy to use, fast easy to find support and looks great. Lots of other extensions (addons) are designed to work with it and do!

I was a bit concerned with no documentation to speak of, however, it is a beautiful thing when something runs so smoothly you dont need it. A+ extention, very powerful, and it just works.

Sounds like a great idea, but comes with practically no documentation. Good luck getting it going.

This is really a great component. It adds much needed functionality to Joomla sites, but there are certainly some pretty major and obvious drawbacks.

The pace of development CB has is not good. Its been near enough 6 months since it was released, 11k+ members on their site and not any significant updates in this time. There are little to no "official" Plugins/Addons released by CB, most of which are 3rd party and only 1 of these has been "officially" certified by CB ( Which makes me feel very safe when I install them! ). There is an update coming shortly, but as far as I can tell its mainly a stability release.

The support for CB is poor. Check out Joomlapolis and note that many of the threads go unanswered by any official CB staff. I can appreciate that they run a "paid" support service, which gives you access to the Community Builder Manual...but a massive amount of questions go simply ignored on their forums (I have started numerous threads myself and they have gone ignored). It seems the more "technical" the question the quicker its answered...Simple things get overlooked and get passed by.

You will lose quite alot of "choice" you have for components and modules when you install CB. Many Modules don't work with it...Numerous Components and Bridges the same. This is to be expected of course, but I didn't quite realise how much "choice" I would lose when I installed this.

Anyway, it IS a good component...But honestly, if you have a genuinely large Joomla community and are somebody who needs to develop at a good pace "with" your Community, I'd think carefully before installing this.

Want to integrate Joomla with standalone phpBB - I reckon installing community builder and using the phpBB plugin for community builder is the easiest & nicest way to do it! What is really nice is the facility to easily get the databases synchronised if you are already starting with a populated phpBB forum

I love this component! This is the hardcore component for my alumni-site. And there'a an active community for this component as well, so lot of help available. There are still some whishes, but these are of minor concerns. I've all the trust it will be come better by every new release.

Community builder is super. It nicely links together content contributed by site users and makes it easy to organize and view this content. It is easy to install, easy to learn. I use for a non-profit organization website and it works great on our to keep track of articles and blogs submitted by users in each department. We really enjoy being able to click on a person's profile and see what they have blogged, uploaded to the gallery, articles contributed and more! Cool.