Disappointed

[floweringmind]

I am a php programmer and webdeveloper, yet even after following your instructions and video tutorials, the plugin would not redirect the user to a welcome page after subscribing. They were dumped to the front of the website everytime they tried to log in and the system did not consider them logged in. I see that other people have the same issue and there response from support.

That is fine that you don't want to support your own plugin, except for paying customers, yet if we can't get your plugin to work right and can't get any support you leave no choice but to default to another solution which is what I have done. There are other plugins for doing the same thing as yours and that is what I have switched to.

It is too bad because if I had been able to get your plugin to work I would purchased the pro version.

[inkpressrealty]

I really feel the same way, I only asked one question, but never got a single answer, the funny thing is, I was budgeting to buy the pro version, since it would allow a more streamlined registration process, but I wanted to test out the free version and make sure it did not conflict with any of the other plugins. I bought wpmudev membership, but not too impressed with their membership plugin either.. what solution did you revert to?

[sheilahoff]

New here today and looking to see what's being said. I'm also checking out:
http://www.digitalaccesspass.com/
http://member.wishlistproducts.com/wlp.php?af=1024538 ( a friend's affiliate link but you can just to directly to them)
Just starting so interested in what others are finding.

[Lifeischoice]

I am a php programmer and webdeveloper, yet even after following your instructions and video tutorials, the plugin would not redirect the user to a welcome page after subscribing. They were dumped to the front of the website everytime they tried to log in and the system did not consider them logged in. I see that other people have the same issue and there response from support.

That is fine that you don't want to support your own plugin, except for paying customers, yet if we can't get your plugin to work right and can't get any support you leave no choice but to default to another solution which is what I have done. There are other plugins for doing the same thing as yours and that is what I have switched to.

It is too bad because if I had been able to get your plugin to work I would purchased the pro version.

It is ok to read the notice at the top of each forum page regarding support.

[madsem]

You won't find a better membership plugin tbh... I tried them all and s2member is the only one that allows extreme customization, in any way imaginable. You should realize that as php programmer and webdeveloper imho.

And no I'm not paid for this post haha.

[foxydot]

I haven't had much experience with S2 Member yet (just getting started) but was elated to find an open source membership option.

Caveats: 1) I am a developer 2) I don't have my own membership site; the sites I've done are for clients whose expectations often do not match available technology!

I have had experience with two "closed source" membership plugins. I drink more because of these experiences (battle scars!)

WishList Member: Actually, not awful if it is working. However, conflicts with other plug-ins abound and I had a disastrous time attempting the upgrade to WP3.0. The client threw up her hands in frustration and we are running an old plugin and WP 2.8 for now. She has hired a "Certified Wishlist Expert" to try to "fix" things. The fact that a PHP developer with my experience is stymied is indicative of issues. The support team was intermittently unresponsive and didn't seem to understand requests put to them in plain or "programmy" language. The source is protected by ionCube or Zend, so fixing code issues or customizing functionality yourself is a nonstarter.

Magic Members: Support staff actually worse than WishList. When an "upgrade" was released recently, we discovered upon installation that it was not actually an "upgrade" as all of our setting for the previous version were ignored and the entire setup had to be "redone". (Apparently a migration engine will be available in two months. Why release an "upgrade" without migration capes?) This plugin is obfuscated with SourceCop, which slows response time as it has to interpret every line of code twice. Creating a custom payment plugin for the older version was a small nightmare, as there was no "sample" to work from and I was pretty much flying blind until I got an unobfuscated piece of code from the support staff. (About a week after I asked for it.) Unsuprisingly, my plugin does not work with the "upgrade" so I'm back to the drawing board.

I have high hopes that S2 member will work for my clients needs and will purchase the pro *especially* if there is an API for other payment modules. I don't mind building/donating them if it's not made nearly impossible to do!

I know this is a very critical review, but I hope it will help other developers see the pitfalls that aren't covered in the marketing materials. Now, if you are a user and you plan to use the thing EXACTLY as advertised, they might work fine for you. Have at. I personally don't like having my hands tied, and will gleefully pay for well designed open source code that I can build on.

[madsem]

And that's exactly what you can do with s2member, everything is open source and they have a million hooks available. We customized Wordpress in a really heavy way and s2member still plays nicely.

I have yet to see a membership "plugin" that flexible and Jason is always repsonsive and has good ideas for solutions. I can only recommend to anyone buying the MS or Dev license, that's what I did and I haven't regretted this decision just once.

I'm still fascinated every time we come up with a new idea for the site and the question comes up "Can we do that with s2member?" and the answer was always yes so far.

[Jwrbloom]

I just got done with two rounds of support by clicking on the support link at the top of each page. I heard back first thing this morning after emailing on Saturday.