The top open source social networking platforms

May 28, 2008 · Posted in India Social Networking, Tech tidbit 

Here’s a list of some of the most promising open source social networking platforms for those of you who might be interested.

1) BuddyPress

bpresslogo.gifBuddyPress was started by Andy Peatling as a series of plugins for WordPress MU that will turn it into a fully functional social network. It was acquired by AutoMattic, founders of WordPress, and has been launched as a standalone open source project. Features include extended profiles, personal blogs, messaging, friends, groups, albums etc. Few of these features have been launched already while several others are under active development.

While BuddyPress still has a long way to go, it definitely seems to be the most promising open source social networking platform out there. Not only do the founders have the success of WordPress under their belt, the total number of active WordPress installs provides a ready made base for  BuddyPress installs as well.


2) Insoshi

insoshilogo.JPGInsoshi is a Ruby on Rails based, open source social networking project and has been incubated by YCombinator. Michael Hartl, the founder, is the author of Railspace: Building a Social Networking Website with RoR. While Insoshi is also under active development, current feature set includes activity feeds, extended profiles with comment walls, friends, forums, blogs, messaging etc.

While Insoshi is awesome, one of the aspects that probably may hamper public adoption is that the project is RoR based and there still arent enough folks with RoR skills (I speak relative to number of folks with PHP skills).




3)  Elgg

elggclassiclogo.gifElgg started out as an open source social networking project, focusing on the education niche. While the platform had a lot of cutting edge features like support for OpenID, FOAF, API, extensibility via plugins etc., an Elgg powered site wasnt very easy to install and configure. Having tried it out myself, I ran into several issues related to feature and version compatibility. Based on my use, I got the feeling that when Elgg started out, it was never meant to be a social networking platform and was merely stretching itself to fit itself into the genre.

Having said that, Elgg seems to be relaunching this summer with a complete rewrite of its core engine. Lets see how the new version pans out.


4)  PeopleAggregator

palogo.JPGPeopleAggregator is an open source social networking platform from Marc Canter’s BroadbandMechanics.  Users can either opt for a hosted version or download and host it themselves. Features include APIs, widgets, blogging, groups, profile pages etc. Marc has been a staunch supporter of open standards and hence, PA does provide support for several open standards like OpenID, FOAF, media RSS, OpenEvents.

iTimes, the recently launched social networking site from Indiatimes, is based on PA code.


5) AroudMe

aroundme.JPGAroundMe is an open source social networking project with Swedish origins. The project has changed substantially since the last time I tried it out. It now comprises of three products - the Personal Identity, the Identity Server and the Collaboration Server. OpenID is at the heart of the project and all identities seem to be using OpenID for authentication.


6) PHPizabi

izabi.gifPHPizabi is a freeware social networking product that has been downloaded about 172,132 times already. While the core engine and a few modules can be downloaded for free, a community marketplace has evolved on the site, where users can buy special modules developed by other community members.  The company also charges a fee for removing their branding.


7) OpenPNE

openpne.gifOpenPNE is a Japanese open social networking platform. While there are English instructions to install OpenPNE, rest of the project will not make much sense unless you know Japanese.




8 ) MediaWiki based social networking

Wikia, the for profit search engine launched by Jimmy Wales, released some of their social networking components as open source. The components extend MediaWiki (one of the most popular Wiki platforms - WikiPedia is based on MediaWiki) with several social networking features like profile creation, avatars, friends, comment wall etc. You can see some of these features in action on some of the sub sites hosted on Wikia.


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Comments

6 Responses to “The top open source social networking platforms”

  1. rajesh moorjani on May 28th, 2008 2:47 pm

    thanks, this is a great list.

    even though it is not a direct open source “social networking” tool, i think drupal deserves a mention in this list too.

    drupal has all the social networking features as modules, and one can make an orkut-like portal using drupal with hardly any programming.

    rajesh

  2. pranav on May 28th, 2008 3:10 pm

    @rajesh,

    I intentionally left out Drupal and Joomla, since they’re more CMS than social networking engines.

    Yes, there exist modules for drupal and joomla has the community builder component, but I’ve tried my hand at both — and customizing these modules / components to my needs resulted in some real ugly code.

    In other words, building a social networking site using these modules - components is not a very easy - straightforward task. That’s why I chose to leave them out of this list.

    But yes, Drupal - Joomla - either of them can be used as well.

  3. Brent McConnell on May 28th, 2008 5:58 pm

    Great list of new and upcoming software. I would recommend that ICEcore be evaluated for inclusion in this list. ICEcore is the open source equivalent of Novell’s Teaming + Conferencing and has some really cool collaboration and social networking features. Each user has access to their own set of knowledge tools (blog, wiki, discussion forums, file folders, etc). Plus, users have the ability to create teams that have access to a similar tool set and invite others to join and collaborate. All these features are also indexed and searchable from one index (even attached files) which makes finding things a snap.

    The next version of ICEcore (now in early Alpha and available from SourceForge) comes with Twitter like features so that users can track one another and share content with other ICEcore users.

    Again, thanks for a great list and continue the good work.

  4. Sudhir on May 29th, 2008 6:08 am

    Thanks Pranav,
    A very great compile..

  5. pranav on May 29th, 2008 4:45 pm

    @sudhir,

    glad to help :-)

  6. Ramesh on July 26th, 2008 12:28 am

    Thanks Pranav, for the effort. Its really good. I didnt find Dolphin in the above list mentioned by you?
    Looking to hear more such articles from you.
    Cheers!!