Would you recommend using buddypress to build a scalable community?

Question

There are tons of platforms for building communities, i have been searching all around and i think the best would be to go with an open source platform, i am evaluating buddypress new community module by automatic the guys behind wordpress,it seems pretty solid, i tried also Drupal but i see it is very complicated.

What would you recommend to use that is flexible and were i could create modules and things constantly, i don't want to get into a paying a lot to start.

Answer 1

I can't comment on BuddyPress as I've never heard of it - but I do have some experience with Drupal, having used it to set up two quite different web sites (one business, one church) and I would heartily recommend it as the plumbing for a community site.

While Drupal does have it's complexities, it has the benefits of a very strong user community, a good architecture (improving all the time), and there is lots and lots of documentation out there. There are even some good books, if they suit your learning style, or you might like a podcast - like the one from Lullabot.

I'd recommend going with Drupal 6.x - while there are fewer third party modules, this release is very worthwhile.

Answer 2

I've been using django a lot lately and I can recommend it as a platform. Something you may want to look at is the Pinax project. It's a basic social networking site on top of django, ready for your own additions. You can see the example site they built at cloud27.com

Answer 3

I would also recommend Drupal. I think once you get past the learning curve of Drupal you will be much happier with it. With complexity comes customability. Also, with a social (scalable) community, you DO NOT want to have to change the underlying program once it starts rolling. Learn Drupal and never look back.

Answer 4

it's great for developers familiar with Wordpress code.

Answer 5

I haven't looked at BuddyPress code but I have played with WordPress code. It's simple, easy and light weight. I am sure BuddyPress will also be simpler.

Drupal seems too heavy and complex.

Also it's very easy to get help on WordPress/BuddyPress if you get stuck since it is getting very popular these days and more and more developers, designers are using it.