Today more than half of the world’s (4.57 billion) people use social media. A video conference call handles varied tasks from interviews and business propositions to birthday celebrations. A requirement of private online platform is a must in any sort of community. Today we are going to compare the best WordPress solution for social media websites. BuddyPress from the WordPress team shows the path to developers on how WordPress can be used to create a large online community website.
PeepSo came to the WordPress scene in mid-2015 taking inspiration from JomSocial, a community extension for Joomla! CMS and providing an alternative premium solution with more inbuilt features. Although the inspiration for PeepSo is found in a completely different platform, PeepSo is not a simple fork of software available for different CMS. It is built from scratch to follow all strict WordPress coding standards. BuddyBoss Platform which is a fork of BuddyPress comes to some commonly used BuddyPress third-party add-ons and bbPress forums into one to provide a premium product and to sell a theme for it.
Today we have easy solutions to create community membership websites, and popular LMS plugins like LearnDash provide a modern solution for social learning. Similarly, support for Multi-Vendor solutions like Dokan and WC Vendor paid the way for social Marketplace.
The core features of a community are member profiles, activity streams, notifications, groups, private messages, and friendships. Having an online community for any social cause, brand or business is a big plus today!
Social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc are the most accessed websites online. Their popularity warrants businesses to make their social network be it a forum, community, or a Facebookesque website. Take the PlayStation support community, HP Support Community, or Royal Enfield Community forum for example.
When creating a WordPress website you can start with free BuddyPress or go with one of these premium solutions BuddyBoss Platform or PeepSo. We dive into a comparison between them both items of features and performance.
In terms of features, the BuddyBoss platform has the upper hand as it was built on top of BuddyPress which is from around 2009 and lots of themes and plugins are available for BuddyPress. There is not much new to create instead of combining the free or premium BuddyPress addons into one solution, which has its advantages and disadvantages and selling as BuddyBoss Platform Pro.
PeepSo was built from scratch around 2017 and they played safe by not combining all the features into one to provide the best speed performance and keeping Peepso Addons for customers to choose from. There are only a few third-party add-ons for PeepSo and every new feature needs to be built from scratch so the new development process takes time. When it comes to themes, PeepSo is built with their template which makes it compatible with almost any properly coded WordPress Theme.
BuddyBoss Vs PeepSo
|
BuddyBoss |
PeepSo |
Price |
BuddyPress fork BuddyBoss Platform is Free and has support for BuddyX Free Theme Premium BuddyBoss Theme and BuddyBoss Platform Pro are Paid starting from $228. |
The Foundation Version of PeepSo is Free. This means you won’t get all the features but there will be enough to kick-start a community. They have monthly pricing which starts at $39/mo for all available features. |
Themes |
Reign BuddyPress Theme Starts from $69 BuddyBoss Theme and BuddyBBoss Plarform Pro $228 |
Gecko Theme $99 |
Addons |
BuddyPress Addons which have support for BuddyBoss Platform like Hashtags, Polls, etc. Available |
Ultimate Bundle comes with all the add-ons for $39/mo. Third-Party PeepSo add-ons like for forum integration are available at $39 |
Updates |
More frequent updates |
From time to time Major updates |
Privacy options |
BuddyPress Private Community Pro addon has support for the BuddyBoss Platform |
User control Content privacy. (Public, Site Members, Only Me) included in the Free version and can be extended to Friends as well with the Ultimate bundle starting at 39$/mo |
Community Moderation |
BuddyPress Moderation Pro Addon is compatible with the BuddyBoss Platform |
Full control by designated community moderators in the free version. |
Chat |
BuddyPress Chat plugins will work with the BuddyBoss Platform |
Yes with Ultimate Bundle starting at $39/mo |
Hashtags |
BuddyPress Hashtags Addon has support for the BuddyBoss Platform |
Yes free |
Poll |
BuddyPress Poll Addon has Supported for BuuddyBoss Platform |
Yes free |
Auto Friends |
BuddyPress Auto Friends have Supported the BuuddyBoss Platform |
Yes with Ultimate Bundle starting at $39/mo |
Friend Suggestion |
BuddyPress Friends and Follow suggestions have been Supported for the BuddyBoss Platform |
No |
Pin Activity Post |
BuddyPress Sticky Post has Supported for the BuddyBoss Platform |
|
Activity background colors |
BuddyPress Quotes have been Supported by the BuuddyBoss Platform |
Yes – With the Gecko theme you can style the activity Yes – background images come as a free feature |
Member Blog |
Free BuddyPress Member Blog has Supported for BuuddyBoss Platform |
Yes – With third-party integrations like PeepSo Member Blog |
Birthday Widget |
Yes with Ultimate Bundle starting at $39/mo |
|
Stories |
WP Stories plugin is fully compatible with the BuddyBoss platform. |
WP Stories plugin is fully compatible with the PeepSo platform. |
Group Page |
BuddyPress Business Profile will work with the BuddyBoss platform, you can buy it from our BuddyPress premium plugins bundle. |
N/A |
Contact Forums for Members |
BuddyPress Contact Me works well with the BuddyBoss plugin. |
N/A |
Profile Views for members |
The Who Viewed My Profile plugin is completely compatible with the BuddyBoss platform. |
N/A |
Turn your social network into a marketplace |
The BuddyVendor plugin allows you to turn your community into a social marketplace. It is fully compatible with the BuddyBoss plugin. |
N/A |
Community Analytics |
BuddyPress Statistics is a magnificent community analytics plugin. It is highly compatible with BuddyBoss. |
N/A |
Hotel Check-Ins |
The BuddyPress Check-Ins Pro plugin is fully compatible with BuddyBoss. |
N/A |
GIFs |
The BuddyPress Giphy plugin is fully compatible with the BuddyBoss platform. |
N/A |
Shortcodes |
Shortcodes For BuddyPress Pro is fully compatible with BuddyBoss. |
N/A |
Newsfeed |
BuddyPress Newsfeed works well with the BuddyBoss plugin. |
N/A |
Whatsapp-like status |
BuddyPress Status works well with both BuddyPress and BuddyBoss plugins. |
N/A |
Major Differences are:
Support
Although both the plugins are open-sourced. It is PeepSo that offers Free Support and premium support as it has a free version on WordPress.org for all its users. Whereas the BuddyBoss Platform requires a paid subscription to one of its membership models to provide Priority Support to its patrons.
Reactions
One of the most unique features of social networking platforms has been Reactions. On Facebook, you can Like, Love, Laugh, Wow, etc whereas on Instagram you can Heart. This feature is available with both BuddyBoss and PeepSo but with varying options.
BuddyPress allows its users to react with a Like. On the contrary, PeepSo has constituted more than just Like. Giving reactions like Love, Laugh, Like, Wink, and much more, inbuilt with a robust admin panel that lets you customize everything, from adding your reaction to changing icons and more.
Updates
Regular plugin updates guarantee optimum website performance. BuddyBoss platform does provide updates but only to its paid members. PeepSo has promised to give every user of the free version regular and timely updates, while updates for paid addons are only provided as long as the license is valid.
Notification
Both of the plugins support E-mail notifications and On-site notifications. BuddyBoss Platform requires a bit of customization of API for it while PeepSo comes with an inbuilt notification customizer.
Privacy
Having privacy settings is a must for Social platforms. It is the right of the user to decide which post deserves to be public or hidden. (BuddyBoss Vs PeepSo) BuddyPress and PeepSo every user can make their posts public, and available to site members.
PeepSo allows control of the user post to be in the hands of the user. The user can select from three (or Four if they use the Friends plugin) options, Public, Site Members, Only Me. Placing the control of privacy settings in the hands of the user. If and when necessary users can also Report other users and posts. While also banning repetitive offenders on PeepSo.
Whereas the BuddyBoss Platform allows members to censor themselves by categorizing them into Public, Private, or Hidden figures on the website. But it doesn’t have inbuilt dedicated support for banning, blocking, or reporting individuals or posts.
Verdict
As we already know, BuddyPress is at the core of BuddyBoss, and all the major WordPress plugins have the integration with BuddyPress which in theory, should work with BuddyBoss most of the time, under the condition that those plugins are regularly updated. Also, the availability of Rest API enables the creation of a custom mobile app. PeepSo on the other hand is seemingly hard to customize because not many developers had a chance to work with it yet.
However, PeepSo offers a robust API for developers to hook on almost any feature available in the code, and if there is no needed hook available, PeepSo devs are very easily approachable and willing to cooperate for mutual benefit. Furthermore, if you know the basic things about WordPress code, you will know how to code for PeepSo as well. If you don’t know how to code hire an experienced WordPress developer and they will have no problem with PeepSo.
Overall, if you are the sole person with a good budget, you can work along with the PeepSo team to create your ultimate social network. On the other hand, with the BuddyBoss vs PeepSo comparison, you’ll find that the BuddyBoss vs PeepSo debate highlights BuddyBoss as offering more budget-friendly themes, add-ons, and access to BuddyBoss developers to hire.
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