User Relationship API vs Friendslist API

We encourage users to post events happening in the community to the community events group on https://www.drupal.org.
You are viewing a wiki page. You are welcome to join the group and then edit it. Be bold!

This wiki page is setup to define the differences between the User Relationship API (UR) and Friendslist API (FL).

Some history info first: the original UR developer acknowledged he no longer wishes to support the UR module and the maintainership has been handed over to Alex.k. While the process was in progress, mercmobily wrote a complete new API which he called friendslist API. The architectural differences between FriendList and User Relationships are mainly in the API style and the database structure (see the "architecture" section in the table below). After discussing the issue, the developers decided that both modules should live happily next to each other, serving different use cases.

For an outsider it is still very hard to line up this comparison between both modules. Therefore, it is useful to use this wiki page to centralize the data and end up with a clear overview.

Comparison table (for D6 release only):

User Relationship Friendslist
General information
User base See it yourself! (~5600) See it yourself! (~730)
Currently Maintained Yes No
Architecture
API style CRUD Relation-oriented
DB style 2-way relation=2 records 2-way relation=2 records
Feature
one way relationships yes yes
one way relationships with approval required yes no, by default
two way relationships yes yes
two way relationships without approval yes yes (Rules)
two way relationships expiry no no
pending relationships expiry yes planned
configurable relationship types yes yes
requestee can send message along with relation request yes yes
approver can add a note to self when approving relationships yes no
no relation request possible once denied planned yes
requesting relationship UI yes yes
Import abilities Buddylist, Buddylist2 Buddylist, Buddylist2 and User Relationships
AJAX in accepting and sending requests yes yes (via Popups)
User profile privacy content_profile no
Email notifications yes yes
Relationships node activity ? yes
API
Return number of relationships yes yes
Integration
Views yes yes
Rules yes yes
User Access yes yes
CCK Field Privacy yes yes
CCK Private Fields yes yes
Privatemsg yes planned
Invite yes planned
Node Access yes (configurable UI) yes
Activity yes no
Facebook-style Statuses yes no
Heartbeat yes yes
Services yes no