What Is The Best Suited Website Building Platform for...
My Objective: to create a website where registered users can give and receive answers on NON-technical topics (such as relationships, business, career) - where topics can be categorized - for example: a separate tab for each topic area.
My Approach: find a top tier market product that provides a website building platform with capabilities in my objective (and requirements below):
Website Requirements: (1) Allow for assignment of points and badges - as well as likes/dislikes; (2) Allow for posting articles/videos; (3) Allow for marking posts as abusive.
I am grateful for any and all advice.
Regards,
Walt
My Approach: find a top tier market product that provides a website building platform with capabilities in my objective (and requirements below):
Website Requirements: (1) Allow for assignment of points and badges - as well as likes/dislikes; (2) Allow for posting articles/videos; (3) Allow for marking posts as abusive.
I am grateful for any and all advice.
Regards,
Walt
David Johnson, CD
You can start with Wordpress but you will need to hire a web developer to customize it to your liking (there may be available plugins (additional fees) that can do this for you
There are a couple of options. The first is to hire a team of developers and make something exactly to your specifications. The second is to find something that is already made and see if you can adjust to your rules. Vanillafourums appears to be very full featured and at $600 to $1200 per month will be cheaper in the short run than hiring developers.
https://vanillaforums.com
https://flarum.org/features/
https://nodebb.org/
https://www.discourse.org
Once the site is running, the work has not ended, you still need to manage users, marketing etc.
In your objective, I suggest figuring in a budget. If you have a business plan that calls for million dollar revenue, then do not skimp and go all in. If this is something you are going to do for free as a hobby, then you want something at minimal cost with minimal effort and that will mean some sacrifice.
Without knowing what your expectations are, it is going to hard to help find a solution other than making these types of suggestions.
https://vanillaforums.com
https://flarum.org/features/
https://nodebb.org/
https://www.discourse.org
Once the site is running, the work has not ended, you still need to manage users, marketing etc.
In your objective, I suggest figuring in a budget. If you have a business plan that calls for million dollar revenue, then do not skimp and go all in. If this is something you are going to do for free as a hobby, then you want something at minimal cost with minimal effort and that will mean some sacrifice.
Without knowing what your expectations are, it is going to hard to help find a solution other than making these types of suggestions.
Likely good if you hire a few EE folks for phone calls about how they'd design this type of platform.
For example, consider Discourse vs. WordPress.
1) Discourse requires - Rails + PostgreSQL + Redis - which means you can never run Discourse on in containers (LXC/LXD/Docker), because the Redis network stack breaks communications in a network namespace environment, so you must dedicate an entire machine to Discourse.
Also, Rails + PostgreSQL are oddballs compared to a normal WordPress environment + will require a good bit of time/expense to setup.
Also Discourse Stack (Rails + PostgreSQL + Redis) work will likely be more expensive to keep upgraded, find people to work on, etc...
2) WordPress requires - Default LAMP Stack available with every Linux Distro.
Works in containers. WordPress developers are easy to find.
WordPress site tuning + maintenance are all known step-by-step processes.
If you have a Discourse performance problem... you'll pay a fair bit extra, just to find someone with minimal experience required to tune a Discourse Stack.
Based on your questions, best you start with someone to design your system which understands entire money flow of a project like this... meaning... cost of initial setup, enhancements, maintenance, scaling.
There is no right or wrong platform. There's only the ROI required by a given business over time.
Have someone design your system who is ROI centric/focused.
For example, consider Discourse vs. WordPress.
1) Discourse requires - Rails + PostgreSQL + Redis - which means you can never run Discourse on in containers (LXC/LXD/Docker), because the Redis network stack breaks communications in a network namespace environment, so you must dedicate an entire machine to Discourse.
Also, Rails + PostgreSQL are oddballs compared to a normal WordPress environment + will require a good bit of time/expense to setup.
Also Discourse Stack (Rails + PostgreSQL + Redis) work will likely be more expensive to keep upgraded, find people to work on, etc...
2) WordPress requires - Default LAMP Stack available with every Linux Distro.
Works in containers. WordPress developers are easy to find.
WordPress site tuning + maintenance are all known step-by-step processes.
If you have a Discourse performance problem... you'll pay a fair bit extra, just to find someone with minimal experience required to tune a Discourse Stack.
Based on your questions, best you start with someone to design your system which understands entire money flow of a project like this... meaning... cost of initial setup, enhancements, maintenance, scaling.
There is no right or wrong platform. There's only the ROI required by a given business over time.
Have someone design your system who is ROI centric/focused.
ASKER
I am grateful to you both for your tremendous insights! Here are my specific comments:
@David Johnson: Your suggestion is a great do-it-yourself, minimum cost, maximum effort option.
@Scott Fell: your input is leading me to re-evaluate my core objective(s) and what I'm prepared to invest. The VanillaForums has exactly what I need. I must decide whether or not I'm going to go all-in. Thank you for bringing me to the critical 'cross-roads'. This is exactly what I need.
My next steps are to (a) come up with a business plan, (b) come up with a budget, (c) Mkae the Go/No-Go decision.
Many thanks for this most relevant guidance.
Best regards,
Walt
@David Johnson: Your suggestion is a great do-it-yourself, minimum cost, maximum effort option.
@Scott Fell: your input is leading me to re-evaluate my core objective(s) and what I'm prepared to invest. The VanillaForums has exactly what I need. I must decide whether or not I'm going to go all-in. Thank you for bringing me to the critical 'cross-roads'. This is exactly what I need.
My next steps are to (a) come up with a business plan, (b) come up with a budget, (c) Mkae the Go/No-Go decision.
Many thanks for this most relevant guidance.
Best regards,
Walt
ASKER
@David Favor: Great advice also. I'm nearly sold on WordPress as a platform - although VanillaForums seems like a top tier solution (but costly).
QUESTION: are you an expert available for hire who meets the attributes/qualities you mentioned? I'm referring to your statements "Based on your questions, best you start with someone to design your system which understands entire money flow of a project like this... meaning... cost of initial setup, enhancements, maintenance, scaling...Have someone design your system who is ROI centric/focused."
Otherwise, do you have any recommendations for such an expert?
QUESTION: are you an expert available for hire who meets the attributes/qualities you mentioned? I'm referring to your statements "Based on your questions, best you start with someone to design your system which understands entire money flow of a project like this... meaning... cost of initial setup, enhancements, maintenance, scaling...Have someone design your system who is ROI centric/focused."
Otherwise, do you have any recommendations for such an expert?
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ASKER
I met with David Favor who provided 36 minutes of exceptional treasure in advice & how-to. He even recommended an author & title (I've already purchased 2 of those books)! What a guy!
Scott Fell's advice has definitely helped me to define my crossroads and to decide my direction.
David Johnson's advice is currently the more feasible, which is the path I will take - using insights of methods and approach provided by David Favor.
Overall, my expectations for this question have been passed out of sight! And I thank you all for this. It's been awesome!
Gratefully,
Walt
Scott Fell's advice has definitely helped me to define my crossroads and to decide my direction.
David Johnson's advice is currently the more feasible, which is the path I will take - using insights of methods and approach provided by David Favor.
Overall, my expectations for this question have been passed out of sight! And I thank you all for this. It's been awesome!
Gratefully,
Walt