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I'm looking into developing a membership site using Membrr (http://www.membrr.com). The member details I want to store require line item entries, such as:

1 hour, Web Development, $100
1 hour, Web Design, $125

In order to support line item entries, I think I need to get Matrix.

Now, in order for my member fields to use Channels, I think I need to use Safecracker Registration, Zoo Visitor or Profile:Edit. However, none of them are listed as "Matrix compatible" on Devot-ee site.

Am I on the wrong path? Is what I'm wanting to do impossible?

Also, any suggestions to do membership other than using Membrr? The addon is a bit expensive.

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You are on the right track moving member functionality into channels. It gives you infinite control over what you need to set up and you can use fieldtypes that aren't available with native member fields.

As of today, Membrr is the only addon for setting up subscriptions of which I'm aware. BUT... CartThrob is on the verge of launching an update to their store module and it will include an additional subscription addon that you can also buy for an additional price. It might even be released this week... there were some pages up on their site yesterday that indicated it was coming very soon... those pages are now off the site though from what I understand.

If you don't need to make a decision today, I'd wait till early next week to see if the CartThrob version is released and then compare the addons.

With that said... The cost of CartThrob and the additional Subscription addon will be more expensive than Membrr. I've heard some grumblings about Membrr being difficult to work with... but I haven't used it myself... It's possible that paying the extra money will save you lots of development time. I just don't know. CartThrob has a history of putting out a solid and extendable cart so I'm sure their Subscription addon will be the same. The docs can be a little dense (because it can do a ton) but they may be refreshing those too with this new version launch.

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    I have been in the beta for the CT Subscription and have a large project that is about to launch with it as soon as they officially release the product. Very stable so far – Justin Long Dec 12 '12 at 5:21
  • Justin, can you speak to CT Subscription's ease of use during development? – Anna_MediaGirl♦ Dec 12 '12 at 5:33
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    I have around 20 hours of dev time making CartThrob Subscriptions work with Postmaster to send subscription emails, so this was the beta version (this was a client contract). I found the whole thing to be rather confusing and hard to setup. Things weren't working right in the beta version, so I can't speak to the current status. It could be a lot easier now with proper documentation. – Justin Kimbrell Dec 12 '12 at 14:58
  • I've only had non-ee experience with Subscriptions using aMember and that was years ago. It was a bear with that software too. – Anna_MediaGirl♦ Dec 12 '12 at 15:24
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You can definitely use Matrix with all of these add-ons. The all use Safecracker at the core, which is compatible with pretty much all fieldtypes (unless the developer did something to make it not work).

That "Matrix compatibility" setting is rather new on Devot:ee, so I would be willing to bet the other developer over looked it, as I did. I just updated my page on Safecracker Registration to display Matrix compatibility, thanks for pointing that out.

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  • Any comment about Membrr? Is there an alternate solution I should be looking at? – ExpressionEngineNewbie Dec 12 '12 at 3:46
  • CartThrob has a subscriptions module that is in Beta at the moment so you might want to contact them to see if it will be released soon or if you can get in on the beta. – Justin Long Dec 12 '12 at 5:20

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