Ok, now that only the IT crowd is left...
We decided yesterday on which platform to use for our project. In the end, we decided to go for the Dot Net Nuke, ASP.NET/MS SQL based platform with a Wiki and Social Networking plug-in.
We like the plug-and-play nature of the modules, the security model and the degree of open-source freedom that goes with the product (the standard edition and many modules are free and open source). The team also felt that since our skill set was predominently .NET that it made the most sense to stay with this technology.
But, until today, this was not a foregone conclusion.
We began our product search by looking at virtually every platform that came up after a number of detailed searches on the web and a number of product comparisons could find (Wikipedia has some great comparisons).
Some of the products we looked at in detail were:
- DotNetDating (note: most social networking software is the same as dating software--but uses slightly different terminology for its "matching"/friend finding)
- PlanetWebFoot
- Chameleon
- Elgg
- Dot Net Nuke
- Buddy Press (based on Word Press)
- BoonEx Dolphin
- Leverage
- Communifire
- MonoX
The runner-up solution was BoonEx Dolphin. This is simply a fantastic, psuedo-open source product. It looks amazing out-of-the-box and is pretty friendly for users. Our concern was that it appeared to be somewhat difficult to build custom modules for. We were also put off a bit by the fact that the demo site looks much better than any of the live sites actually using the software. Usually, it's the other way around.
I was very impressed by the DotNetDating software which is proprietary, but very reasonably priced. The team's only concern was that it might be an as-is product. Since it appears to be from a smallish company, we were worried that there might not be guaranteed future versions leaving us obsolete at some point in the future. But, functionality was great for the price! Chameleon was a similar solution (but the demo site's look & feel is very off-putting...great functionality if you can get past that).
MonoX appears to be a product more widely in use. But, we couldn't locate any additional plug-in modules apart from the core product. Still, it looks great and we were very impressed by the price.
My personal favourite proprietary was Planet Web Foot. This is a company that custom-develops social networking solutions and several of their portfolio sites are really amazing. We weren't looking to outsource our development, but this was the only reason they were taken out of the running.
BuddyPress and Elgg were also two we liked a lot. Basically, these are systems where you add in as many plug-ins as you need to get the functionality you want. Both are open-source and have massive user/developer communities. Our only concern was that the plug-ins for both typically required over-writing some of the functionality of other plug-ins. We were scared that if you built your solution in the wrong order, you could actually end up with a buggy solution. For example, if you added modules A, B and C and then module D overwrites part of modules A and B...and then when you go to add module E, IT wants to overwrite module B, will module B still work with module D?
For smaller sites with less complexity, I would definitley use Elgg and think seriously about Buddy Press (Buddy Press is VERY easy to use and is based on WordPress which most people pick up in minutes).
The other two solutions were proprietary and mostly ruled out for cost reasons. We actually never got a reply to repeated emails to one company--so we STILL don't know the cost. You know the rule: if the sales team won't respond to you, what hope do you have with support afterwards?
As always, please email me your comments and ideas to webmaster@mayococo.ie and please join our Mayo Worldwide Community Facebook group.
Thanks for reading!
Rick Love
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