Hi Guys, Someone suggested that if I need a Rapid application development then I should choose buddypress for a medium sized social networking site. I liked the idea as I found a lots of existing plugins/themes and boiler plate code available for this task, but really is that so easy? I mean buddypress is cool but isn't it just a CMS with some user community thrown in ? how scalable it is, and what about user levels and complexity and access levels, it don't even support ORM. What if my site also needs to have shopping basket, analysis engine and stuff that's not available yet, how easy is to develop plugin and say add wiki support. I know there are pros and cons for all framework and buddypress too, but I am yet to be sure about it. If you guys has experience using/working on social networking site with some good amount of user base then please help me out and share your experience alternative, keep in mind development time is important here maximum 12 weeks and I need a robust/scalable easy of use system.
Can't answer a question like that without knowing your programming ability and experience. An experienced web developer could do what you need (or just write a site to do it) easily. Someone who can't sit down with a text editor and write a CMS in a few days? Probably shouldn't be doing much more than slightly modifying a script that already does almost everything you want.
Dear Venomdog, The decision to use wordpress i.e. buddypress would be good and you are right it does have pros & cons. The biggest pro would be the time to launch. 12 weeks is way too much of time if you need to setup everything. I believe multiple plugins to wordpress i.e. wp+ buddypress+ecommerce+multisite+common admin+a few more... (paid & free) combination will get the job done. In terms of scalability, I believe we have enabled sites that get a million visitors annually and has a db size exceeding 3-4GB implemented using above frameworks. The wp framework is awesome, easy to work with and will be around for a long time. You can always find support in design, development. Of course you need to get to someone who has actual experience doing such things. I do have such experience and I can help you in delivering PoC, so that you can be absolutely sure that this is good. Like I said before, 12 weeks is more than enough time to get this done. Let me know if you want to proceed on this. You can PM me. Thanks