People in the windows world say that Community Server is basically a pretty good forum that has a front end with some other stuff hacked on. I thought visually it looks really nice but the more I looked the more I realized it’s not exactly what I’m looking for. Add that it takes hosting Windows which to me is a much bigger hassle and cost. Still, there are people who do it successfully. There is a list of CS sites out there and sadly it made me think much less of CS.
Regarding PHPFox - yes, it has issues. I’ll give you a few. First, it’s very confusing for users to use right out of the box. Second, the code is still spaghetti even though it is much improved from early versions. Try changing a graphic that appears throughout your site and you’ll end up editing 12 different php files which you’ll have to hunt down. Third, it still doesn’t scale extremely well. Fourth, everything you see is mostly superficial with little back end admin power and little validation, which includes email signup. If you look in the forums, while they have a LOT of hacks which is a great plus, there are many people making a living off of stupid addons that should have been in there from day one. It’s sad that these are being sold since most software grew with minor hacks being added by the community and shared.
Still all in all phpfox is still the leader. I’m not crazy about the others nor elgg and its flashy name. It’s a good start but is still far behind being anything other than a useful educational project, IMHO. I have no idea what is “formidable” about it at first glance and not one of the dozen sites in the showcases seemed anything other than stock installs. They do have a well organized site. Customizations are provided for a fee via consulting services it seems. Open source business model it seems.
Alicia… looks like a total dud as most predicted. Flashy nice front page that at first glance gives you the “cool” effect, but it soon goes away. Also seems like crap under the hood and even their own demo site appears to have all sorts of problems. They are still toying with the “insiders club” and taking themselves way too seriously. At least Francisco Burzi actually HAD a product that was out before he resorted to such tactics.
The other stuff just doesn’t seem to be there yet. I’m disappointed that DZOIC Handshakes is encoded and I can’t bring myself to go in that direction for the cost with a small foreign company and limited community. It too seems a little lacking on the admin side. Been burned too often and once you invest the time in your script, it’s a beast to move away.
BuddyZone unfortunately is what it is. I am not at all confident in being able to work with the developer at this point. I do sympathize the heckling I’m sure he’s getting from the phpfox guys who are probably a little scared of the fact that his script seems cleaner and works on the front end. But for $400 you have to know how to run a vendor site, market to and build a community of users, and have your community help you build the software and user base that will pay for it if the other factors are present. There are areas that need work and I know that there isn’t any community to help with development and if I want to do that, I’ll just spend a few thousand and have a dev team build one from scratch instead of using someone else’s and spending the same money. Perhaps this guy will lose some of the stubborn attitude in time but I’m not betting $400 on it…
So that leaves me with Fox, which needs a lot of clean up to work well. Version 2.0 promises to be that although from the way things look it will be a while until they are there. If upgrading was as difficult as it was in earlier versions, be ready to pull any and all hair out that you have.
And there you have it folks… my take on the current state of social networking scripts. 