Can You Clear Up A Bit Of Confusion On Youzify Please

I’m not sure if this is the right direction so decided to ask. My current plugin of choice to register new members with a custom registration form and decent enough profile is Ultimate Member. I’ve also implemented WPUF and PODS for multi author blogging for members. I use a classic theme, customized by me (ThemesDNA’s Gridmag which I love, with Magshow coming in second), not any sort of page builders. I prefer that setup.

I want to add the social community attractions for the members that are common today like an activity feed, friends, follows, emoji, video, galleries, gamification and all that sort of thing. I don’t need all the stuff but would like enough to make it fun and engaging.

What I DON’T WANT is any option that holds basic stuff hostage to a paid premium version. If the basics are not included in a free version, it’s dismissed. Ultimate Member holds the social stuff hostage that way and then wants to charge a lot of money for each little thing. There is no universe I’d do that.

I read a year old post on the buddypress support forum that led to Youzify where somebody returned to that combo after trying buddyboss and getting the same sort of hostage situation as above. They said Youzify works with any site and brings the social aspect to it.

So if I use the above combo, setting aside WPUF for user blogging, does Youzify work independently with UM to bring the social stuff, or do I also need buddypress installed so both of those work together to handle registrations…or would they work with UM.

I am not sure whether they also do what UM does and adds more stuff or if they’re separate things that can be mixed and matched.

Thanks for the clarification.