Elgg vs. BuddyPress

I am in experimentation mode. Recently, I just began to toy around with BuddyPress. Being that I have become very familiar with WordPress over the years, I thought, what’s better than using WordPress’ engine, implementing BuddyPress and taking advantage of Wordpress’ plugin directory.

But let me explain to those who don’t know what BuddyPress is… BuddyPress is an open source Social Networking script used to build your own communities like Facebook or Myspace.

Now, my dilemma with BuddyPress is that plugins that are built for Wordpress don’t altogether work in or for BuddyPress. And being that I am in no way a PHP writer, I don’t see me making my own plugins. There are certain things I believe that make a Social Networks social, and file sharing is one of them. Of course you could always just email files to your friends but then why use BuddyPress? You could just get away with having a Forum (since most of them have profile information and links to your post).

This leads me to Elgg; another open source Social Networking script. Right out of the box Elgg allows file sharing and does most of the things you expect Social Networks to do. When looking at how other’s compare Elgg and BuddyPress their biggest debate was theming. I guess it is easier to theme BuddyPress…? Who cares? If your Social Network isn’t what you or anyone expects, then who cares how easy it was to design it. From what I’ve read, Elgg is exactly what you would expect out of a Social Network.

I will test both of these options. I’ll will keep you posted as to what is working or worked for me.