Talking about Social Media Network websites the only names that come to our mind, those are best such as Facebook, Twitter, and few others. In today’s world, the social network is more than just a chatting platform, it is now a source of knowledge and awareness. Before developing any social network sites you should need to have a deep knowledge of PHP, MySQL, and Linux. But even having a knowledge of coding languages, still developing a social media platform is a long, slow, and time-consuming task and also nobody guarantees its success. So, how to make a social networking site?To build your own Social networking website you need some tools and open source social network development platforms are one of those. They come with pre-inbuilt tools that are flexible and help you to easily customize and build your own on top of it.
There are a couple of good online platforms available that allow you to create social networking sites but rather than using online platforms try to self-hosted social network software to get more control over your social networking website.
There are plenty of paid and free scripts to create a social network but if you are looking for the only free and open-source, please see the below-given list.
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List of Best Open Source Social Network platforms to create a social network in 2021
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Elgg
The Elgg is open-source social network software that is free to download. It is built on a framework that allows creating any kind of social environment; whether to start a social network for school, colleges, or for an organization to build communities you can use the Elgg. It is a 2008 award-winning open source social networking engine. Elgg uses the Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Linux environments and has a good community to solve the arising issues with a repository of 1000+ open-source plugins.
Elgg features
- Well-documented core API for developers to easily start and learn
- Composer to make the installation of Elgg easy and simple, also maintain the Elgg core and plugins.
- A flexible system of hooks to allows extension and modifications of application with help of plugins,custom themes
- Cacheable system for good performance, user authentication, built-in security system such asanti-CSRF validation, strict XSS filters, HMAC signatures
- Client-side API
- Content access policies
- File storage
- Notifications service
- RPC web services
- And More…
Dolphin social networking software
Dolphin Pro is open-source software for creating custom social networks and web communities. It is written in PHP and the database uses MYSQL. This social networking website software platform is fully modular and offers multiple modules such as Ads, Payments, Photos, Polls, Profile Customizer, Profiler, Chat, Profiler, Desktop, Facebook Connect, Forums, Videos, Memberships, Messenger, Page Access Control, World Map, Events, Custom RSS, Chat, SMTP Mailer, Sounds and more… It also features social profiles, timelines, likes, shares, voting, friends, Chat+ (WebRTC multiuser audio/video chat) and comments.
The Dolphin is available in three editions Free, Monthly ($29/month), and Permanent ($599/one-time). In the free version of your social media, it shows powered by Dolphin badge.
Opensource social network
The OSSN is another best open source social network software with a bit Facebook-like interface and features such as messaging, friend request panel, and few other elements. It allows creating a full-featured social media network platform that allows groups, photos, files, messages, and more. OSSN is multilanguage social network software, however, you can add as many languages you want. It is available in two versions basic and premium, furthermore the user can download it as an installer (Linux) or virtual image.
The Open source social network features third Party integrations, Tools Themes, Games, Audio Video Call, Authentication (Google reCAPTCHA), and more.
Humhub
HumHub is a free and open-source social network software kit and framework with a user-friendly interface just like Facebook. It is lightweight and features multiple tools to make communication and collaboration easy. The Humhub offers you an ability to customize it to built and create your own customized social network, social intranet, or huge social enterprise application.
The HubHum is a flexible system and offers a modular design that can be extended using the third-party tools to connect existing software or any other even written by you. The Humhub offers a self-hosted solution that gives full control over your social network, which means your server, your data, and your rules. Community and enterprise edition options are available.
See: Learn how to install HumHub on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Linux server
HumHub Social Network Software Features
- Notifications
- Activity Stream
- Social tools
- Files
- Directory
- Groups
- User profiles
- Share content with non-registered users
- Search files and peoples
- Mobile Ready
- And More
Oxwall
Oxwall is a free social network software cum content management system. It is based on PHP and uses MYSQL as a database to deploy the social network environment development. It is available in three editions Free, Starter solution ($249), and Advanced solution ($2999). In the free edition, you will get the Oxwall software, Access to developers forum, Access to third-party plugins, and Access to the documentation. Their CMS is compatible with all types of websites and scalable too.
Oxwall social network CMS (content management system) Features:
- Facebook Connect to log in easily
- Facebook-style friend system
- chat and more
- Google Analytics
- Facebook-like newsfeed
- Video embedsfrom Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc.
- Social media sharing
- Activity notifications
- User blogs
- Contact importer to invite friends
- Groups
- Photo sharing
- Create online and offline events
- Displaying users’ birthdays Like Facebook
- Privacy control
- Image slideshow
- Cloudflare integration
- And More…
BuddyPress
BuddyPress is a product of the well-known content management system WordPress. It helps you to create social media networking websites with WordPress. It is simple and tons of themes available online for it, those help you to easily customize the look and feel of your social network website. BuddyPress is based on PHP and can be customized easily if you have the coding knowledge. BuddyPress is a completely free & open source social network development platform.
The BuddyPress social content management system features Custom profile fields, personal profile, email notifications (Smart read/unread), allow your users to create micro-communities, plugins and extensions support, private messaging, friendship connections, a platform for discussions, and much more.
Other Available Opensource and Free Social Network Software projects
Apart from the above best and top social network platforms, here are a few other free software available online for creating a social network and collaboration.
pH7 Social Dating Software
pH7CMS is for those people interesting in building social dating websites. It’s a totally open source enterprise-class social dating web app builder. The pH7CMS allows developers to start social dating websites like Tinder or Badoo. As it is open-source, so a person with knowledge of PHP coding can easily customize it to full fill the custom social network requirements.
Jcow
Jcow is a social networking script written in PHP, helps to make your own niche social network and online community. It has a Facebook-like interface.
Jamroom – Self Hosted
Jamroom Open Source can host on personal servers. It is also available in Premium & Professional editions with premium features that are paid.
eXo Tribe
Free eXo-based online collaboration platform dedicated to the community of customers.
Peepso
It is a plugin to enable the social networking capabilities of WordPress CMS based websites. It featuresFriends,Targeted Ads,Photos, Extended Profiles, Groups, BlogPosts, Chat, and Reactions.
AstroSPACES
Free and open-source social network software coded from scratch, web-based, and written PHP Programming Language.
Insoshi social software
Insoshi is a social networking platform developed in Ruby on Rails. It is free software and can use to create custom social networks. The compiled and source code of Insoshi both are available on Github.
Friendi
Friendica is to create a distributed social network. It is free software and developed by many people around the world. It features Post “Status Updates”, Photos, albums, tagging, privacy, Events Calendar, privacy with military encryption, relationship Control, browsing Network Filter, Themes, and Plugins, and much more.
AROUNDMe
AROUNDMe allows creating multiple collaborative groups, webspace, community, or social networking websites. It features tools such as a blog, forum, wiki, guestbook, and completely customizable with XHTML, PHP, Java, and CSS. Groups in AroundMe can be private or public.
Anahita
Anahita is another Open Source Social Networking platform & framework for developing open science and knowledge sharing applications.
Community engine
CommunityEngine is a free, open-source social network plugin for Ruby on Rails applications. User profiles, Blogs, Private messaging, Events, andForums are some of its core features.
Mahara
Mahara is an open-source social networking web application to build your electronic portfolio. You can create journals, upload files, embed third-party, and collaborate with other users in groups.
Pump.io
It’s a streaming server for social media networks.
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If you know any other open-source social network platform which is best in your case, please help us to grow this list. The comment box is all yours…