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I’m preparing to build a social networking website, and I’m trying to decide between several frameworks or CMS systems, such as Drupal (possibly Commons), Elgg, Social Engine, Pinax to name a few.

The desired features are:

• Rapid development of initial prototype social networking website with minimal coding required (in a week or two, say)

• Control to eventually customize few key components of the website (code about 5% of functionality from scratch)

• Support for: profile (picture, self description, etc.), forum, messaging, friending

I have a reasonable background in Python/Django and no experience with PHP, but I’m willing to learn PHP if I need to, since most of the tools (Drupal, Elgg, etc.) are written in PHP.

I’ve done a lot of Google searching, but haven’t found a definitive answer. It also seems that these platforms have evolved a lot over the last couple of years.

Does anyone have any recommendations or thoughts on these platforms based on my comments above?

Thanks very much in advance! Scott

Scott
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3 Answers3

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If minimal coding and rapid deployment are required, check out the Ning platform (though it's not free, it is cheap and will have you up in hours).

msanford
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  • Thanks for your response! Ning seems to be a great choice for rapid setup/development. I had looked at it before, and it looked like it didn't allow quite the customization (in terms of coding) I was looking for. Sorry I didn't mention that in the post above. – Scott Jan 09 '12 at 19:40
  • It's true that if you want limited but *some* custom code, Ning won't offer much in terms of flexibility. – msanford Jan 09 '12 at 19:58
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Take a look at BuddyPress for Wordpress. You can set it up (or even build a prototype) in hours, with minimal to no coding.

intellion
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"Social networking website" is a wide project ! Create it in one week seems to be an heresy...

Please indicate wich type of features are needed, an idea of the number of users... Without specifications it will be difficult to help you.

Anyway, don't make a muddle between real frameworks and CMS projects. In PHP, the main fashion frameworks are ZEND or Symfony for MVC strong development.

Valky
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  • Thanks for your reply. Some of the desired features are: profiles (pictures, self description, topics of interest), community forum, messaging, friends. We are probably looking at a small number of users to start (in the hundreds), but may eventually want to scale to a larger number 100s of thousands. The former case is much more likely. – Scott Jan 09 '12 at 19:30