Any best open source programs or even paid ones..? Community website like facebook, matchmaking, marriage etc.. Please help if you know off or what could be the cost if it is developed by web design companies?
There are 2 I can think of immediately (Ning and HiveLive). I have used in the past and are easy to setup.
you can do it even with drupal.. but if u are new to it u will need to hire a developer to do that for you
Are these programs specifically made for community or what? I will check them out. Thanks Drupal is like Joomla right? I have used joomla and i don't find good option there.
drupal and joomla are totally differen CMS packages but drupal has a ton of modules for just about anything you'd want. There are some free and open source social networking type CMS's available but you'll have to google for those.
There are modules in Joomla too for community but those are not Solid. And as for free open source social netoworking cms, I have gone through with some like phpfox, dolphin and etc..but not able to decide which one is the proper one and the BEST one! If you are confident about Drupal, I might give it a try?)
i use drupal all the time and its very modular and the modules have good support. its worth learning and templates are not too hard to code with the drupal api.
Drupal Has a flag module and relationship module that is awesome for building anytype of social networking and apart from it it has activity module for fetching updates like facebook.. I have made a social networking site with drupal and i recommend drupal. The only major problem i faced was with themeing. I really had to preprocess a lot of template file to get the required look and feel...
Community Builder module of joomla can work for you Elgg is also a powerful community builder. Details Dolphin is also somehow good. Buddypress is also far better. Details
I visited the website but we need to use their domain? like www.mysite.ning.com ? If yes then, its not what I am looking for...I want fully control over domain even
Buddypress has a number of bloat issues. You would do better with a empty wordpress multiuser install and build around that.
I personally think that this guy needs a professional team of PHP developers if he's serious... and for that he better have alot of $$$
BuddyPress is the easiest rout for setting up a new community site. It is all free software, so your costs would be around hosting & advertising of the site.
It depends on how much functionality do you want in place. But you should atleast have $1k budget for this....
My site mongeroos.com , is powered by Joomala with the Jomsocial addon. Joomala is much more user-friendly than drupal and if need be I am willing to help set-up the site for $20-$30.00. The only licence you will need is JomSocial.com licence. Simply send me a PM or add or e-mail me.
I don't know what social networking you want to build, but you can read teamsugar articles to see what Drupal can do for one of the biggest women social networking with huge traffic