Working on a college site that will have many, many members (in the hundreds), only a fraction of which will actually be editors in the CMS. All members need to have access to their own information (so they can update with ease). Each member will have a ton of custom fields, too, including specialty fields like Matrix and Playa (which, as I understand it, isn't allowed with the built-in member management).
What are my options here? Really appreciate any suggestions I can get.
There are a number of member add-ons that substitute the native member module for channel entries.
They are:
Since members are handled as regular channel entries, you are free to use any custom fieldtype.
Also, since they are channel entries, you can use Safecracker to allow the users to edit their own profiles/entries.
As Erik mentioned, Focus Lab wrote up a comparison of the big 3 membership addons mentioned above.
I think almost any of the 'member data' in channels add-ons will work for you. Which one would be best, would require more information on what you hope to do with members, besides let them create detailed profiles.
All the 'member data' in channels add-ons, still use EE's Membership Module to manage permissions, and it can easily handle hundreds of records. We've got a couple of clients with more than 45,000 members, and the Membership Module handles it fine. One ONLY uses the Membership Module, the other uses Zoo Visitor.
The membership management field is pretty long, just take a look at Devot-ee, but if you want to start exploring, I'd look at these items: Safecracker Registration, Zoo Visitor, and Profile:Edit.
They offer similar flexibility in terms of being able to handle anything you can throw at channel data, but depending on what else you want to accomplish one maybe better than the other for you.
an option could be visitor, you can use matrix and playa (or other fieldtypes) there http://ee-zoo.com/add-ons/visitor/
