Recommend CMS for Member Areas
 

I'm going over some new option(s) for Member Area(s).

--- Elevated X - Great tour, great features, looking sharp but man your pricing(s) are simply crazy. For my needs $350/month - (which is crazy).

--- MechBunny - One time fee, open sourced, I know this one has a smart guy behind it that knows his stuff inside out: Konrad.

--- Awiz6 - outdated in my opinion, It's not the lack of features but the streaming of the movies are outdated, not supporting every format.

Any more CMS Member Areas recommendations? I got some different setups now, including custom WP driven member areas but wanna go with something more solid / professional for the combined network.

Anyone any other recommendations?

Elevated X user here... great product, a bit expensive, but I tend to think worth it. Never seen the Mech Bunny CMS... don't see it on their website, either. Is there a demo somewhere?

Adam, the demo is on their website http://tube.mechbunny.com/ - our inhouse coder that worked with all of the three above mentioned CMS systems says he was most impressed with Elevated X but in my opinion the modules add on fast, looking in the future with a base fee of $350/month - when for example a new members area feature gets popular and it gets added to elevatedX it could put you easily at an extra $50/$100 month.

How long have you been using Elevated X? Did you use any other CMS before that?

Thanks for your input :)

Adam, some people just use the tube script as their members area cms - we don't have a separate paysite cms

what do you get with the monthly elevated x fee?

btw - konrad, thanks for that help with my videos!!

Setup fee / $500
Base fee / $149 a month
Multi Site Network Support / $100 a month
Video Transcoder / $50
Mobile Paysite Setup / $50

It's crazy pricing if you ask me :2 cents:

not bad for someone with plans to open several pay sites or vod sites!!

Compared to MB for example (hopefully someone has more options to review) which is $1k lifetime license for unlimited domain use and lifetime support. That's about 3 months leasing fee for Elevation X.

Check out MAS CMS.

License to rent : $750
Monthly rent : 249
Multi Site Network Support : Included
Video Transcoder: $49
Mobile Paysite Setup: Included

Support: The best in the industry.

Elevated-X, $150 base price per month, sounds reasonable that you'd want 2 of the feature modules @ $50 each per month, so a total of $250 per month for a nice CMS - multiply that times say 5 years - that's $15,000.

Buy MechBunny for $1000, hire Konrad to custom code the extra features exactly as you want them, if that's $5,000 then you're in for $6000, even if it's $10,000 it's $11,000 - less than $15,000.

I'll ask Konrad right here what it would cost to add in 'multi site network access' and a 'mobile' conversion feature to MechBunny CMS.

doh, it's $100 a month for the multi-site network support - so make that $18,000 over 5 years for Elevated-X.

with the extra $3K I'll get Konrad to add in a little webcam setup :)

That's what we did back in late 2008 and still use it today.

We hacked it up a bit and then made it a part of the entire picture (because we have lots of other features too).

And once you get it the way you want it, it makes a great CMS.

Same here. We developed a pay site tube that has worked nicely to a point. It's not to say you can't keep having more custom pieces built into it. But it will definitely handle a pay site as a solution if that was the O.P.. We've twisted the based MB CMS a couple of different ways for different uses.

:thumbsup

Mobile support is already in there, multi site network access is too broad a term - you can just make the script authenticate off htaccess or strongbox for instance if you want to have one login for several members areas, or modify the login script to autheticate off a completely different db.

We pull the user/pass from all our sites on our NATS data base server to a single password file on the Claudia Marie server and authenticate against that to give our members access to all the sites of SoloSlutCash

The biggest problem I hear about with elevatedX is that they don't do in-house customizations and they don't even have a recommended developers list. On top of that, their template system is written in Smarty, which is total garbage. There's threads on other boards about this.

Not sure about MechBunny, other than its a tube script. K0nr4d always has intelligent posts on gfy but its still a tube script. Is that what you are looking for? A membership tube?

PornCMS is by far the easiest and most affordable paysite or pay-per-view software on the market. And I say that only because I am totally biased lol. You get 30-days free with our most popular account, or you can get 1 year of free hosting if you buy the $395 Lifetime license.

You'll probably kick yourself if you don't at least take a look...
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My biggest turn off for any software.. no live demo, limited information or screenshots. I'm in and out in less than 3 minutes, unless I missed something? :)

You only offer hosted? So, you control our CMS and server? No thanks.

IMO, someone who spends less than 3 minutes investigating software for their business is not a serious professional. It means you are looking for the fastest solution, not the best solution. If that's the case, and you don't care about the success of your business, just install Wordpress or Joomla and start looking for a job.

I'm sure all software vendors in any sector have demos or trials, but you would have to be serious enough to contact them for more information. We had a public demo a few years ago but there are way too many hackers and scammers in the porn industry to allow an anonymous open demo. We set up private 30-day trial accounts for any serious prospects.

Posting a thread on gfy is not due diligence. If you are serious about your business, you would take the time to investigate your options rather than simply reading replies on gfy. Most of the professional software developers are too busy to troll gfy all day. This is not a serious or professional industry board. I heard about this thread from an employee.

Of course we don't only offer hosted. See my message above regarding due diligence.

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Yeah, there's a half dozen different ways to do it - the best way is decided on a case per case basis

Wordpress works well.

Have spent about a week investigating the other options listed in initial reply. I think you would be suprised how many leads and sales you lose by not having proper information and functions + live demo, couldl ask for a double opt-in email to protect it and you have my business. Didnt visit your website with the intation to leave, but I see CMS system with lack of listing all of their features all the time, not having demo's or broken ones. Years ago I would e-mail companies and ask for access, nowadays if they cant provide proper information / tour / demo I just leave - there's 100's out there and not worth my time.

thanks for the input.

we get 4-5 new prospect emails a day, so we aren't hurting for leads. we've tried anonymous open demos, we've tried free accounts, but in my opinion, if someone can't contact us and open a dialogue, or simply sign up for a 30-day free account, i don't want them using our software because they probably aren't professional and/or don't have honest intentions.

a double opt-in demo signup doesn't keep Russian and Chinese hackers off our servers and to me its more important to keep the servers safe rather than get 1-2 extra customers a month that don't know how to use a contact form. we add 10-20 new accounts a month, so we can afford to vet our customers.

every vendor in porn should vet their customers, even if they make 1 sale a month. this industry is mostly scammers and always has been. porn attracts the worst element. we get at least 5-6 customers a year that buy a Lifetime license with a stolen credit card and then rush us to get it installed on their dedicated servers. there are hundreds of honest customers looking for software. knowing your customer saves time and money in the long run.

good luck and i hope you find what you are looking for :)
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Your program is impressive. I think it works very well. It looks like it has a lot of code tweaking to it to give it all the features.

mechbunny is great script, and the best part is its unencoded, comes with unlimited license....and the awesome support.

endless possibilities.

tube site
paytube
members area
fake tubes
and many more.

Thanks, I like how flexible Worpdpress is. The only site that's really been tweaked is Gloryhole Swallow. JD made a custom theme that's been working very well.

You get free tech support and free product updates which are now automatic (https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1074158). We add new features throughout the year and these are made available to you for free as well along with any updates to paid add-ons you have.

Here are links to some recent additions:

https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1074158
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1075894
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1070420
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1062733
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1052337
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1047731
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1043115

A couple corrections:

1) We do provide customization services and do several projects for customers each week. We do, however, limit custom coding to features within the scope of the CMS and do not offer custom programming to spec.

2) We do have a list of referral designers and developers including Zuzana Designs, WyldeSites and other reputable sources of design and coding services. We went as far as offering a developer program for this purpose (https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1040291) so more coders could become familiar with the product.

As for the opinion that Smarty is garbage, fortunately it isn't an opinion that's been shared by most of our customers or the designers that work with the system. It's posed no problem for us. The only negative feedback we've had in the last 3 years is from some users saying they wish we had a WYSIWYG editor or a built in design interface to make extensive design changes easier.

The next major revision to the core Elevated X product will include a proprietary templating system and design editing interfaces. :)

AJ

well, i'm a mech bunny customer. but was still curious as to what there would be a monthly fee for, rather then a one time license fee.

hey AJ you should visit the other boards. one of them has a very recent thread regarding your lack of template customization support and a bashing of Smarty by a guy who is also very active on gfy. the Smarty bashing was then continued by other developers.

i've also received several new sales from customers in the last few months that said you refused to help them with template customizations and other system usage problems. i found it surprising, but it wasn't refuted on any other board and these comments came from several different people. i don't make shit up to get customers, i am simply relaying comments and messages i have read on boards or received from customers.
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All major formats are supported by aWIZ. Any extra player can be added by request free of charge - by script support or by customer itself since the players page code is not encrypted and is quite simple.
Should just mention the customer support "to a day" during years for the single-time script price of 99 - 350 USD in total. Now you have full info to compare:)
And BTW, new powerful version should be issued up to the end of year.

Please shoot me an email and link me to the specific forum threads you're referencing.

We offer unlimited online support. We also offer 1 on 1 chats and phone calls to help customers learn to use their CMS. This is offered free of charge.

I'll say to anyone reading this thread - If you're a customer who is truly struggling with our system I urge you to reach out to me personally by email and/or phone and I will see to it that you get the help you need.

It doesn't surprise me that people complain that we don't provide template customization or design services but it's not a service we advertise and we're very up front about what we provide. We offer referrals to several designers including 2 award winning companies so our customers can compare multiple quotes for this type of work.

On our pricing page it says "We have a list of competent design companies and coders we can refer you to should you prefer to hire someone to create a new design or integrate your existing design with the CMS. "

AJ

We have worked with ElevatedX for several years on a magnitude of projects. The support has been outstanding for my developers and clients. They go above and beyond to help with any questions anyone has ever had and bend over backwards to help in any situation. If I need any help I just shoot AJ an e-mail and he always gets back to me very quickly.

been an Elevated X user for a while...recently been moving all my sites over to ELX and between them working very well with my programmers in tieing my existing content to their framework is top notch, as is their ability to make the extra things i want...things that they may have decided not to do or maybe just didnt see the need at the time, they have worked with us every step of the way...

the options that ELX has all in one big package helps a lot...been a fan of Elevated X for some time, finally getting to really dig deep and use many of the features...top notch!

and if youre concerned about the money aspect...well you get what you pay for

As a hosting provider, we work with all of the CMS solutions mentioned and recommended here in this thread. We work more closely with some, than others.

All of the companies mentioned offer great products, but I wanted to chime in and give kudos to ElevatedX for their excellent support of our clients and working with us in a team effort :)

We have been using ElevatedX for about 4 years. All my experiences with AJ and crew have been awesome. One of the main reasons I decided to use ElevatedX was because I dont like relying on freelance programers. Its a great out of the box solution that is very customizable.

We are a happy Elevated X customer. Elevated X has done customizing cms functions for us in the past at a very reasonable rate. No one has really touched on security here. Elevated X offers free upgrades to the cms. There is always security issues that come up in php. There php is encrypted which adds a added layer of security. Shooting down smarty? That is ridiculous. Smarty is the most widely used template system on the web currently. No CMS on the market today has as many features as Elevated X. The only other CMS to compare to Elevated X is build your own custom CMS. You can build your own custom CMS but you will have to pay someone to add new features and take care of php security issues on a regular basis. That's if you plan on having your site evolve on a regular basis. In my opinion it is more cost effective to lease the CMS if your looking to evolve on a regular basis cost effectively.

Definitely elevatedx. Well worth the price!!!

Haha, instantly 6 posts praising elX :)))) yea,not a coincidence

lol, I noticed that earlier :upsidedow

Was it too many posts? Not enough posts? :)

I've seen enough of these threads in the past 6 years to know that it really doesn't matter what I say. What matters are reviews and the experiences of real customers who have been successful using a system. Every person who just posted here has worked with our Smarty template system first hand, in most cases doing some degree of custom coding work themselves. Everyone should make educated buying decisions, be it the decision to buy our CMS or another...

Smarty isn't our first template system and it won't be the last. Every 2-3 years it seems people start to complain and that's our cue that it's time to develop something better. Plans are in the works to develop a new, entirely proprietary template system for Elevated X. I predict that people will love it at first just as they did when we added Smarty and in 2-3 years they'll be bitching about that too :)

Those posting here who use Elevated X or work with it, please email us feedback and suggestions of what you would like to see in a new template system and we'll try our best to make it something you will be happy using for years to come.

AJ

yea he obviously pushes out an email to his fan club when he needs posts on a thread. it happens every time.

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AJ - glad you saw that thread on the other board. as i mentioned, we have lots of sales so i am not trying to hurt your business with false comments. our products speak for themselves. for some sites, your product is the best way to go (such as a large company with lots of people and a large budget) and for solo models and small niche operators, ours is by far a much better choice. i don't see any other viable options for a paysite.
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Ryan, there's no bad blood here man. I know you were just trying to be helpful when you posted here and on the other board saying we don't offer customizations and giving your honest opinion of our templating system being "garbage".

The truth is that we do several customization projects every week. I don't expect you to apologize for your posts or to refrain from trashing us anytime opportunity arises. The only thing I do ask is that in the future please seek facts before you post inaccurate statements about what our company offers its customers. I think this is a fair request.

You're right about the choices for sure. Elevated X is simply not within the budget for some niche site owners and solo models. Ironically most of our customers actually are single owner operations and solo sites like those listed on http://www.elevatedx.com/customers.php which are the majority but they're already established in the business and most of them are not new to running adult sites.

The feature set and pricing of our full Elevated X CMS packages is not designed for pure startups or newbies on a budget.

AJ

Lol is ok, i haven't used your product in that way to even wage an opinion. Just commenting on posts :)

Hey AJ yea you are right. There's no bad blood with me either, just healthy competition.

i don't think I ever said your template system was garbage. i've never actually been inside an ElevatedX install. i did say Smarty is garbage. I do see the logic of why you went with it. NATS uses Smarty and many of your site owners use NATS or MPA3. So you provided a template system they were familiar with.

I have sent clients your way before - mainly when they insist on having phone support. I don't have time for it at our low prices lol

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