Please post your objective review on any social networking scripts that you have worked with.
phpFox is not that great, I would not buy it personaly, I bought it for a client who was too impatient to wait for a better script and I needed to justify the $800 web design fee, but if you take a good look at the code (for the coders out there) you will see that it's very messy and the structure is horrible, what does that translate to you, the admin?
It translate into you spending more time sending fix tickets to support and asking people who will most likely charge you a leg and an arm to fix your script, than actually building your website, DO NOT try to upgrade either without having to check in at the forums for the many bugs you have to manually fix before everything works fine.
The backend (admin menu) is just very primitive and a pain in the ass, it reminds me of phpBB forums, where things are very simple yet very robust and functionless.
One high point in the recent 1.1 release which only gives you half the headaches the first version used to give you and it comes with a semi-robust and primitive vBulletin integration, it costs $300, too expensive for a script that to be honest with you really sucks.
phpFox
http://www.phpfox.com full license: $300 includes 1 year upgrades.
Buddy Zone is not great either, although it could be better than phpFox if they ever get the user menu organized and the must-be-just-like-myspace-to-the-teeth attitude and change at least some graphics on their default skin, then it could be at least not as bad as phpfox, but stil very php unfriendly code, hence the very low support from coders and lack of modifications, the community support is... well there isn't, last time I checked their support forum was... empty.
I would not buy buddy zone sorry, just not worth the money, I think the developers could improve upon the current code and make this script much better, it has potential, but as it is right now it just doesn't.
Buddy Zone
http://www.vastal.com/buddy-zone-soc...ng-script.html Full license: $399.99
AlstraSoft efriends honestly I won't waste my time writing about it, I will write to words for it: DO NOT.
Reasons: no support, no community modifications, high priced (for a low quality script), waste of money.
AlstraSoft efriends
http://www.alstrasoft.com/efriends.htm Price: $280
Dzoic's Handshakes, the underdog really, this script is the best well written of the ones mentioned above and has the most functionality of the rest, sadly it's actually a good script, not a great one though since it has a lot of flaws such relatively little community support, and lack of significant upgrades, for example the first script didn't even have an integrated forum and it was expected for members to spend the extra buck to buy either vBulletin or Invision Power Board (even though phpBB was also an option, one I would not take) Handshakes' lastest version of the script (Handshakes Professional V3.0) actually comes packed with extra features many admins take for granted but if you are serious community manager you will use such as music and videos modules, vBulletin and Invision Power Board integration among others, I would had purchased this one instead of phpFox for my client.
This is the least of all evils.
Dzoic's Handshakes
http://www.dzoic.com/ Price: full license $349 includes 1 year of upgrades/support.
Free Myspace Software
There are a couple of scripts out there that replicate the myspace experience and that are open-source and fully developed by the community, these in my opinion are much lower quality but with a A LOT of time and effort could make great social network websites.
Alicia is by far the best one out there, why pay when you can go open source check it out yourself:
http://demo.phpizabi.net/
