Hi: I'm about to set up a site and am considering Mike Filsaime's vtribes (at $197/month) and amember. Could someone make a case for either? Big cost difference, yes, but there must be some good reasons for that. I'm willling to pay if the value is there. Has anyone else studied vtribes enough to comment? Are their plug ins for amember that would allow me to do more "community building"? Thank you, Tom
I would never touch a monthly licence. The problem is if they decide to stop trading for any reason, your built up business goes with it.
I have to agree with pilot. Any membership system where you have to pay a monthly fee is a bad idea in my opinion. I'd understand some reasonable "yearly maintenance fee" or paid upgrades but almost $200 each month?! Of course, I can not comment on the quality of vtribes. It may be a great system and it's probably more plug-and-play than aMember. But at $197 a month + $100 setup which is $2464 just for the first year it's roughly 13.7 times more expensive than aMember and we are talking just about the first year. I am quite sure that for $2.5K you will easily find someone who will integrate aMember with Joomla or Drupal, some forum software, make a custom design and some code customization so in the end you will have a ready-to-go system based on aMember in no time. On the other hand, vtribes can really be a good system. But in my opinion, it's blatantly overpriced and the sensitive membership data will be on a 3rd party operated server. If their server goes down, so does your business. If they decide they no longer want to offer the service what happens? Are they going to sign a legally binding "service continuity" contract with you? I doubt it. Well, just my personal opinion anyway. Tomas
I personally use MemberSpeed when AMember is not enough. I needed something that was like a CMS with membership processing. I bought it when it first came out for $997. I know it's gone up in price, but it's a great package and easy to install/maintain. Plug and Play is a definite plus in anything you look at. They offer a monthly lease - or outright buy. I wouldn't want my data to be on somebody else's server either. As stated, if they go away, so does your business! Full Disclosure: The link below is my partner link for them. MemberSpeed Website They have different versions as far as features and how many sites you can have. Good Luck in whatever you choose.
urgent help please! We have a JV mailing monday and want to upgrade from our current Ning site (+fantasos backend). The site is BIGLIFE.ws if you want to see it. I need to get a solution up and running fast. I found this thread by googling VTRIBES... and this is my final decision, between amember and vtribes (membergate, etc not good for various reasons). The 200/month is absolutely a non-issue, this is a money making membership site. #1 can anyone here help me setup my amember TONITE... (and what would be the cost, please and thank you!) #2 does amember do squeeze pages, affiliate payout, cloaked links? #3 what are the requirements to host it... I'm using 1&1 managed server (hate that company but it's what we have now) any issues with them? As I understand it vtribes is a hosted solutions so sounds like a lot of potential problems may be avoided there. other than that, can you tell me all the positives about amember I may not have thought of. THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP! I really appreciate member supported forums like this to get truly objective answers. (that's one of the positives!) I will check my PM's tonite... but if u can email simonBL AT universityofvictory --dot-- com directly that would be great. thanks again! -simple simon
vTribes / Visiongate Customers: 50% Off Special Deal vTribes / Visiongate Customers: 50% Off Special Deal Following the unfortunate closure of vTribes, formerly known as Visiongate, a lot of online businesses have been left without support. The option of downloading software and migrating data is complicated and risky . . . and it still leaves your website unsupported. SubHub, a world leader in managing membership websites, would like to offer you a great alternative. For vTribes and Visiongate users we are delighted to offer you a special discount of 50% off our normal monthly price, to help you keep your website going. For more details about the vTribes closure and SubHub's offer please click here