Successional development of communities is a key ecological process modulating patterns of ecosystem diversity. Insights have been provided by the examination of a wide range of habitats, resulting in many models, difficult to find a general explanation of a single ecological phenomenon. Here we present results of field experiments evaluating the community development at small spatial scales on soft and hard bottom artificial substrates. We aimed to conceptually compare the resilience time and successional mechanisms in order to highlight similarities and differences between developing communities. Experiments were deployed at El Colorado (23o 30S, 70o 31W soft bottom) and Anemones Wall (23o 28 S, 70o 37 W hard bottom), both locations around Peninsula Mejillones. Three artificial soft sediments were sampled after 3, 6, 9 ... 24 months while hard bottom panels were analyzed in the 3-months intervals up to 27 months and compared with natural control communities. The soft bottom community took about one year to resemble control surrounding communities. Larval settlement and juvenile migration were the mechanisms for colonizers arrival with a non evident pattern of species replacement (i.e. sequence) as early and late colonizers coexisted during the experiment. In hard bottom communities a resilience time of three years is estimated. Larval settlement was the most important mechanism for the arrival of early and late colonizers being migration of minor relevance. Hierarchical competition for space between dominant colonial over solitary species finally featured the successional sequence. However, in both habitats a deterministic pattern in the direction towards the control community was identified. The ecological importance of these findings is discussed in the context of community succession from distinct habitats.