Will s2member ever be updated/modernized?

#1

I’ve been using s2member for years now. It’s served my site well for the most part.

But there are some aspects of this plugin that are SO old and clunky. So many unnecessary limitations.

After being a loyal Pro user for all this time but really fed up now (whenever I search for a solution, all I can find are YouTube videos from 2011!), I’m considering the switch to MemberMouse because it seems to be updated regularly and seems to solve all the frustrating limitations of s2member.

What are the long term plans for s2member? Is it going to stay outdated or any plans by the devs to bring it into the 21st century soon? I feel like they’re just ‘maintaining’ the software now but not actually trying to improve it.

#2

Not speaking for the devs, but, unfortunately, that appears to be the case. They have, to my knowledge, been focusing on the plugins available on WP Sharks (including WooCommerce Restrictions).

#3

Response to similar question on Github…

raamdev
commented about 1 month ago
@Lifeischoice ‘New’ features are not something that we are currently in search of for this plugin. s2Member is already a mature membership platform that provides a very large set of features that we maintain for compatibility with WordPress Core, with payment gateways, protocols, and other plugins. In terms of ‘new’ features, you can check out additional plugins that we are actively working on at https://wpsharks.com.

#4

My impression is the same as that of @JediShark and @Lifeischoice.

But I am very surprised at your considering MemberMouse. It wouldn’t make my top 6 alternatives – maybe not even top 10 – so I am wondering what specifically you are looking for.

#5

Well, use what is good for you… But I am curious: what exactly you need to be added in s2M? What is the feature, that let you switch to another membership plugin?

#6

I still think S2member is one the best (if not the best) membership plugins out there in terms of features and flexibility - just that it is geared more towards coders! it can be frustrating sometimes to do “simple stuff” if you’re not into php (I am not) - I prefer automagic creation of required pages and point and click for the rest!.

1 Like
#7

Well, to give you all an example of what I’m talking about, here’s the s2member payment page we’re using on our site:

See what we’ve had to do in order for the customer to select payment type/option. There’s no way to do all this with a dropdown box or select box, there’s no way to add an Upsell “bump” option. Also, the Stripe box doesn’t show our logo or the payment amount.

I just hate the limitations.

#8

Hi Tim. See my other reply.

Thanks.

#9

That’s an issue with the way you’ve set up your Stripe account (which is where you set those things), and nothing to do with s2Member. The Stripe box on my subscription pages shows both.

As for this:

I am genuinely baffled. There is a significant problem with your page, but I doubt it’s what you think it is. After all, your page looks great – much better than many I see. It seems that you have customized it to do just what you need in a manner that makes it easy for a sighted customer with good fine-motor control to choose his/her options.

The main problem is actually that the page is completely inaccessible to anyone unable to use a mouse. s2Member’s default forms aren’t much better, but they can easily be customized so as to overcome that problem. jQueryUI plugins are great for that on more complex forms because they come with WordPress and are fully accessible. But there are probably thousands of other jQuery plugins that can be utilized instead.

I just don’t see limitations here. I realize that’s personal preference. But then (so far, at least) your talk of “limitations” is just that too.

What I can say is that I can find no information that suggests that MemberMouse offers good conditional logic. But that shouldn’t be too surprising because MM is not open source. Trying to customize its code (even to make it accessible) is a booby-trap that no-one should take on lightly. And that’s far from the worst consequence of MM not being open source.

#10

Can I ask how you’ve managed to set up Stripe to show the logo and payment amount? I’ve been through the Stripe settings a thousand times and added my logo in there (which seems to only apply to email receipts). Can I have a link to your Stripe payment page?

We offer upsells and addons that I would like the customer to be able to select during this purchase process (the way ClickFunnels does for instance). That way they don’t have to go through a second purchase process.

#11

You’re right about the logo in Stripe only being for email receipts.

In fact, the setting is in s2Member under Stripe Options -> Stripe Image Branding

#12

Understood – now I see your point. I don’t see that sort of thing as a function of a membership plugin at all, though. That’s a role for a forms plugin. It better have good lawyers, though!

Then use ClickFunnels (with Zapier integration to a plugin that supports it, if necessary). They will also have the necessary lawyers.

#13

If only all bugs were fixed - quite a few are not fixed since long time - e.g.: https://github.com/websharks/s2member/issues/1039
Many others that actually are about core functionality are open on Github too. I really have the feeling nearly no website with large paying userbase relies on s2member - else they would be closed or more complaints/reports. Are there any websites using s2member for checkout/usermanagement that have 6 digit €/USD turnover per year? I don’t believe more than a handful, if at all. Else invoicing, user payment history, UI on frontend/backend would be much better. Functionality for a website that scales and actually sticks to VAT laws now present in not only EU, but also Russia, Japan, India, soon Australia/China and so on would be there (soon every big country except USA will have stringent VAT requirements except USA - and starting with first dollar/euro/whatever spent by one of their citizens). Even if you connect Quaderno or Octobat into your Stripe account paying VAT will be random due to the address country bug…
Yes VAT is super complicated - even more as different products require different rates - but with s2member you cannot even get full VAT support through external providers due to bugs (Stripe) or missing information (Paypal) in an automated way.

It’s great that s2member has loads of features - but to me many of them don’t seem to be working all the way - most things work for 90% of cases but there are quirks here and there and some of the functionality interferes with other functionality.

And the main feature for the pro version - the checkout - gives a UI that is really really tough to understand for people checking out. Lately also more and more combinations of browsers/antivirus and so on that block Stripe from working - especially if you have address check enabled - via old way of setting tax - then there are loads of combinations now that stop the user from checking out.

PHP7.1 warnings are another thing - little things popping up here, then there which show that codebase is really old. In 2012-2013 s2member promised a completely revamped s2member (mostly called new major version or release) - it never appeared however. – nothing promised here ever arrived:

besides the ability (quite complicated) to show the user his EOT (if set - however e.g. not when his next subscription payment is due). Also still no information about any of the other features like payment amounts/times.

Basically instead of a nice backend where your customers can have an overview of past/future payments, EOT and invoices - things that are simply expected nowadays if paying online for services/products - don’t exist and it’s really really difficult to implement. As website owner running s2member I have to rely on gmail search function and s2member notification emails to actually backtrack user history (and yes - that’s essential - far too often customers think they bought something, wrongly remember what they bought and so on - forgetting their username, email used, passwords and much more) - but the only way to research this is going through email notifications by s2member - as there is no history also in backend about the user and his purchases.

Yes that’s many many things, but on other membership/ecommerce platforms they do exist - even though you have to buy them via additional plugins. That’s still way cheaper than hiring a developer to code your one off solution for s2member (within 6 years of using s2member - I ended up paying nearly a 5 digit € figure for s2member fixed/custom addons to external programmers - simply to get it working somehow - actually only getting features which would be available on i.e. wocommerce or EDD as addons). In the end s2member pricing IMHO is way to cheap to deliver a fully working and supported professional product. With S2member pro being a onetime buy, and not a yearly amount - they cut of their income. With wocommerce membership, EDD and so on - I guess most people end up paying 200-500USD yearly for licenses/add-ons. No wonder newer wpshark plugins are not a one time buy lifetime updates model anymore.

If s2member had cleaned their code and kept adapting it to modern web/wordpress standards, and opened up an add-on store many years ago - I guess the situation could be really different. Lot’s of backend functionality - but missing on the frontend/UI/simplicity a lot.

When I started using s2member in 2011 it was one of the best solutions - and even looking back there would have been only one or two other plugins that would have worked out much better in the long run. But changing to another membership plugin if you have thousands of users is really really difficult/expensive. I’m not sure how long until I will end up paying a big big sum to convert however.

Maybe s2member should be officially discontinued and a new more expensive but well supported and modern successor should be built. If there are actually still people making money using s2member they will pay for it. Maybe based on woocommerce as so many of the things that are missing in s2member are available there as addons.

e.g. for me also supporting Stripe sources besides Credit Cards would be a must: https://stripe.com/docs/sources
(and invoicing/user payment history, clean account for users to login to find out all info about their account, and actually an easy 1 click and configurable checkout would be really needed. Wocommerce would be 2 click due to cart nature - but the UI is very good so that would be okay too)

#14

There is such a successor: https://wpsharks.com/product/woocommerce-restrictions-pro Do keep up, Felix.

#15

but that successor is not marketed as s2member successor (at least to my knowledge) - and I don’t think it can import s2member data.

If it could - it would be great. Not that I have big trust left - but I would buy it instantly anyhow if it supported what I need now - but I can have woocommerce for checkout/invoicing/VAT/payment processors/modern UI - where s2member really fails.

#16

Well, there’s this old-fashioned method of finding out which involves asking.

#17

Well I guess it would be advertised somewhere - From the screenshots of WoCommerce Restrictions it also seems to miss still quite a few features. I guess I could try the 30 day trial version on a backup site and look what breaks (besides s2member_if shortcodes - which would need to be rewritten).

I do believe it it could fullfill 90% of the most used s2member functions - it would be advertised somewhere that you could change (and also maybe add it on the feature comparison table of s2member what it can do - what can be done by native Woocommerce (e.g. Paypal/Stripe) what can be done by addons (e.g. other payment gateways) and so on.

Oh - And I will definitely not switch over - until there is some big announcement or other reason to believe there is a stable userbase. The more people using a plugin - the higher then chance that needed features will be there, that bugs will be solved, developer can live from it and therefore it will continue to being developed in future (adapted to new technologies / user behaviour). Else I spend a lot of time/money on changing over to find out later it’s a dead end?

#18

Are you saying that s2Member doesn’t support Stripe sources?
Hmm, I was thinking of switching (back) to Stripe again, because it now officially supports iDeal payments (very much used in the Netherlands).
Currently I use a third-party plugin (pronamic) to provide me this, but they won’t allow me to use recurring payments. Recurring payments are possible with that plugin, but only limited to Woocommerce and Gravity Forms, not for s2Member. And as far as I know, they are not offering that feature to s2Member in the near future. I really dislike that.
So when I heard that Stripe is now officially supporting iDeal, I thought it would be a good idea of switching to them, because s2Member supports Stripe recurring payments. But if s2Member doesn’t support so-called Stripe sources (and iDeal is such a source) than this is no-go for me.
Think I’ll have to take a closer look at woo commerce-restrictions-pro, as long as it supports CCAPS because my site heavily relies on that.

#19

Correct - Stripe support is limited to credit cards - there is no support for iDeal, sofort, giropay or outer Stripe sources!
except if I’m blindstruck - but I don’t see how I could enable it.
Stripe support seems to be dropping anyhow - I now get like 1 email asking about payment for each 2 succesful Stripe payments. It used to be Firefox with Kaspersky Suite only that blocked payments - now the combinations that do not work if you also check address are getting more and more. Maybe missing 3d-Secure support is also a major problem in central Europe?

(just one of the reasons why s2member really needs to be modernized - but I guess Stripe sources will never come. s2member never cared for European users (laws/regulations) - so I can also wait for Christmas, Easter and birthday to fall onto one day).

#20

s2 is the backbone of my site - I’ve used it since 2011 and it does a fantastic job for me.

What’s on the roadmap @jaswrks? Will you guys still be actively maintaining/ developing new features at all?

I’d be rather lost if the plugin was abandoned - although I don’t get the feeling that’s what’s happening.

Any light from the devs would be greatly appreciated here!

Thanks! :slight_smile: