Price

One of the most important attritubtes of any piece of software is the price. It may be the best software ever written, but if you can't afford it, what good is it to you?

Dolphin - $100 for the core but you will have to buy more modules as the marketing on their web page is misleading. The software is very componentized and each of the components will cost you more money, especially if you want to take down the Dolphin branding and ads.
phpFox - $300 for the core and another $75 to remove "Powered by phpFox"
Joomla - $0 for the core and a few of the modules required for social networking are commercial. Still a very minimal cost.
Drupal - $0 and every module we used to build a social networking site was free.
Ning - Free to startup a social network, but you must pay to remove Ning branding, ads, etc. Price can easily reach $50 PER MONTH or more.
Kickapps - Free to startup a community site but you have the option to "buy out" Kickapps. One package is $300 per month with up to 20,000 page/widget views. Surely you want your network to get more than 20,000 views so imagine what the price is for a successful, busy network.

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Comments

123

0 #30 Megan 2010-02-25 13:41

This article was VERY helpful. I hired a developer to use Joomla to create my social networking site. When he came back and told me phpFox would be better for my needs, I wanted to verify that. This did it for me! Thank you.

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0 #29 Renea 2010-02-15 16:05

I agree with everything in this article (except for Kickapps as I have no experience with it)

Avoid Dolphin. I admit that it looks appealing. But you don't know what you are getting until you have to get into the code. Its a nightmare.

Joomla or Drupal are the way to go in my opinion.

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+1 #28 Networker 2010-02-14 12:55

Would you consider comparing Social Engine Script in this article?
http://www.socialengine.net/
I have used Dolphin, PhpFox, and played a little with drupal and Joomla. and I agree with your results on them.
HoweverI would really like your professional opinion of Social Engine Platform.

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+3 #27 Sam D 2010-02-14 12:14

PHPFox is a great NO NO. Pathetic support & autocratic forum with a half-done script. Heaven for crappy modders

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+5 #26 Site Visitor 2010-02-14 12:03

Don't go to phpfox, they ban people for insane and unjust reasons for silly things like moaning or expressing lite disatisfaction of the product development. The staff that run their community forums are hypocrites of their own policies and the rules don't apply to everyone... Just whomever they feel like applying them too.

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0 #25 Ian 2010-02-05 21:12

How does SocialGo compare to KickApps? Anybody seriously study the two? Thank you

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0 #24 dingoman11 2010-01-29 08:50

This is an excellent article. Thank You!

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0 #23 Richard 2010-01-08 09:50

Boonex is a scam. If you pay 12 months hosting in advance and then you loose your debit card that the hosting was registered for renewal in TEN MONTHS TIME!
So this is 2 months in to your 12 month already paid hosting the direct debit is cancelled they then delete your whole site that has cost in building and advertising nearly $2000 est £1600 GBP ! as they are that stupid to think you would cancel hosting thats costs nothing after spending hundreds on building...SIMPLE WORD JOKERS LOOSERS...TRY CALLING THERE PHONE NUMBER IM SURE THEY RUN IT FROM MC DONALDS OR BURGER KING S PUBLIC LOO AS IT BLENDS WITH THERE SERVICE! sH17....PLEASE AVOID EVERCURRENT LIKE A ROBBER IN A SUIT ITS JUST ANOTHER BUNCH OF NO GOOD HUMAN CON ARTISTS! Boonex is a scam!

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0 #22 site visitor 2009-09-10 20:55

Thank you so much for the helpful article! I will agree that Dolphin comes with it's shares of headaches and to only buy it if you are a sadomasochist.

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