Choosing a CMS

komodosp

Coming up with a new website and was going to just use Wordpress since I kind of know it...

But while I am thinking about it, is there another one I'd be better off using? Wordpress is sort of primarily aimed at blogging - and is better for the type of websites that like, have regular updates and that kind of thing, with basic support for users (leaving comments on articles, etc.)

However my website is more of a "social network" type, where there will be more emphasis on the membership / user accounts and stuff like that, and less on the regular-blog-type updates. Is there a more appropriate (open source) CMS?

Signpost

Wordpress can be used no problem at all for that kind of thing! The possibilities are pretty much endless with what you can develop on the platform if you are any way technically saavy! If you want examples just give me a shout!

Dave!

Gwan Signpost, give us a few examples if ya don't mind

Razzuh

If what you need is not at all related to content publishing of some kind then wordpress is probably not very suitable. I'm sure you could start with wordpress and achieve what you want, but if you're going to have to modify it so much that it becomes a distant cousin, many times removed from what wordpress is meant for, then there's really no point. You might be better off developing a custom application than using wordpress.

What's your technical background? Can you give any more details about the type of site? (a link to something you think is similar?)

komodosp

I suppose something like facebook or myspace would be similar. The experience I have is developing in Wordpress. (LAMP) And I have worked on something similar which was done in Wordpress - a sort of community for alumni of a school, but I found that while I could achieve everything I wanted, it involved a lot of customisation, which I am convinced is what lead to the slowness of the site.

I haven't any experience in any other CMS.

fasty

Why not try making your own with a framework like CakePHP? Shoehorning web applications into Wordpress or other ready made content management systems can only get you so far and as you rightly said, when you start customizing them, it can be a bit too much sometimes and it all falls apart.

Razzuh

I agree with fasty, I'd suggest you go for writing your own application, but don't try to do it from scratch, use a php framework. You have some experience with php from customising wordpress at least I take it?

I'd recommend using symfony (http://symfony.com/) framework, as it has the best documentation I think, which is very handy when you're starting out with a framework for the first time.

murphaph

The Yii framework was chosen at my work for a (frontend bit of a) new project. One of the reasons chosen was speed and "ease of learning for junior developers" (the thing this project replaces is all magento based and a huge problem was the steep learning curve there apparently). This new project uses a zend based backend and yii frontend. Yii is my first framework and I can say it is a lot easier looking than the bit of magento I have seen here. Concepts are not as abstract etc.

Could be a good choice too, and the community is good (another reason it was chosen here).

was.deevey

I've done a few community based sites using Joomla + plugins to achieve the community aspect + membership control.

I'm not so to speak a Developer so to speak and rely on primarily turnkey solutions and modify them as required by my clients. I don't write my own scripts, but do modify many so I'm approaching this from a easy to get running and customized with as many features working "out of the box".

I've used both Community Builder & Jomsocial for the community aspects of the sites.

Honestly community builder IMHO is junk in comparison, the basic software is free but you need to subscribe to get even a half of the plugins (which may or may not work) that Jomsocial has as standard.

If its a money making site i'd go with Jomsocial for ease of use and a tidy application with virtually unlimited addons.

Its pretty simple to customize everything with a little effort.

You could also have a look at some dating site scripts as many of them can be adopted quite easily to a community site.

Sorry but, I dont believe in re-inventing the wheel .. and the cost of Jomsocial vs custom dev is definitely worth it in my book.