Building a Community Site -- Please Recommend Tech / Dev Options
I want to build a community site. There are many options. But I wanted something minimal. My requirements are:
- a forum, more like modern Q&A site with upvote, etc
- a map that shows countries / cities with number of users
- social login and registration
- user profile page
- static pages
- news pages
When it comes to implementation or development, I know I have these options:
- WordPress + plugins and customizations
- Forum script + customizations
- Hosted (disciple, tribe, circle)
- Custom dev everything + Firebase authentication (maybe)
But I am just throwing this out there for those who's probably built something like this, as a developer or the community leader. Maybe you can share your experience in the development process, and also maybe post-development and maintenance process.
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Focus on community, not technologies. Use circle.so and just start growing it. You can switch it later, community will follow if you specify reasons for migration.
Examples:
Slack => Discord
Forums => Discourse
Facebook => Circle
I agree with all the comments, build your community first, the platform is secondary.
IMO community is probably one of the hardest things to build from the ground up, and the technicals involved is probably the easiest part. Traction is the only thing matters for community/marketplace type of service, you can have the least attractive website but with a lot of people and would still find success (see Hacker News or 4chan). I think before building a website of your own, try to build a community on Facebook, LinkedIn group, etc. where there're already people hanging out. Once you have built up a number of loyal audiences, you can convince them to join your community website.
Valid points. I agree. Community is one of the hardest. I am also trying to move kick start a community for an event I just finished. Peoples to be still interested and looking forward to the platform.
discourse.org can do almost all of what you want out of the box. self-hosted and services options available. been using them for years for one community that has 17k folks. almost zero problems from inception.
Yep... Discourse looks good. Price wise, too high for now. And to install my own, I am not a Ruby guy. But then again, about 8 years ago, I did install and get Gitlab to run for our company. It's also based on Ruby.
+1 for Discourse. No need to understand Ruby to get going on the self-hosted approach. I am an IT amateur and I have got it working self-hosted.
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md
Set up Discourse in the cloud in under 30 minutes with zero knowledge of Rails or Linux shell.
Awesome
cool! let us know how it goes.
What do you have as a community or and audience right now?
I ask because:
I'm a increasingly a big fan of custom building, but it's definitely not the easiest route, and you need the skills. Hosted options are pretty decent these days too, it's the tie in and lack of flexibility that puts me off hosted options.
What do you mean by tie in and lack of flexibility?
When you use a community tool, you are generally restricted to the features/functionality that they have.
Where as, if you custom build (like Indie Hackers), you have the freedom to build what you like.
100%
I've noticed older hosted options (like discourse, for instance) have a ton of bloat and cruft you have to fight through in the admin settings -- while newer community tools (like circle and tribe) are built around trendy (and imo unproven) designs.
Either way you're getting stuck!
Yeah... I like the minimal options today. Activities are focused and they don't try to offer everything like personal posts, chat, forum, news feed, yadda...
Good questions. Recently I ran an online event, JOMLAUNCH Asia. And I believe more can be done if we come together as an online community.
But yeah.... Good points there.
You know, sometimes I know all the many options, and that make me spoilt for choices not knowing which to choose.
Have you tried onlyfams.co? (No, it's not what it sounds.) It has got an extensions architecture and the ability to build upon an API.
We're using circle.so for our community of founders (join.coulf.com)
Cool I will check it out. A misspell (or intentional), you are at a different site. ;)
An intentional misspelling of could haha
Having built platforms for communities in the past, I'd say either find a forum script you like or go with a hosted option.
WordPress wasn't built for the purpose of communities, so using that would just be shoehorning a solution that is not fit for purpose.
Building your own platform is tremendously hard. You likely won't have all the bells and whistles that the existing platforms can offer - direct messaging, notifications, moderation, good search and etc - lots of things we take for granted. You can eventually develop them but it will take a substantial amount of time and effort to get there.
Thanks. Good points. While I can code and enjoy the process, sometimes I don't have the stamina to build it.