My testimony

This is dedicated to those who are thinking of leaving Dolphin, and those thinking of using Dolphin.

When I first started on a particular project, it was around mid 2008. My knowledge of coding was very minimal but the original site was a simple one. So, I did the whole site from scratch. No templates of any kind. I did use a lot of code samples that I found online.

After this site was completed, more ides evolved, and as such, the site needed to evolve. This evolution put me into a position that I needed something that was easy to use, and could do a list of specific functions, based on the new ides of the website. I started with Joomla. It worked for a few of the functions, but the coding needed for a good bit of them was too complex for me at that time. Then tried Drupal, then Moodle. They both left me with an undesirable amount of custom coding.

Then I ran across Dolphin. I do not even remember how. It intrigued me because it is a social networking platform. And 70% of the site would be about some form of interaction between members/users of the site. This was lacking on the others because they are "Content Management Systems". Something I did not really think about when I decided to try them out. I could have bought "modules" or whatever, but I decided it would have still been too much of a hassle.

Now, here we are, Aug 2015, and not till yesterday have we officially been able to say that this project is complete. Or as complete as it is going to be for now. Next step is marketing - which is out of my wheelhouse. Once we have users, then we will be able to determine from them what the do and do not like about the site, and then my work will begin again.

I said all that to say this:

Any platform will have its ups and downs. I have used a few. Sometimes, going through trial and error with a few is the best thing to do in order to see which one truly fits your needs. And please do not go into your project thinking it will be a quick put together - regardless of what platform you use. I made that mistake. Here we are, 7 years later, and finally have a product to really market.

Do be prepared to spend some cash as well. Not trying to discourage anyone with the money aspect, but depending on your particular site topic/needs, it may hit hard in the pocket. In our case we needed dedicated servers with HIPAA-complaint security - that's not cheap ($750/month for us).

Again - play around with different platforms to see what truly fits your needs. If you are thinking of leaving, I hope to see you again. If you are new to Dolphin - Welcome, I hope Dolphin fits your needs. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the Forums. There are a number of users here willing to assist.

why are you using a deticated sever? there are many other option such as cloued base:

google, amazon. i am using openshift from redhat

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

HIPAA compliancy is our biggest reason. Whoever we went with needed to be as well. The place we found at $750/month was one of the cheapest for what we needed.

 
I see he already answered.

http://www.rackspace.co.uk/cloud-computing/cloud-vs-dedicated

http://www.itworld.com/article/2832631/cloud-computing/when-to-use-cloud-platforms-vs--dedicated-servers.html

For him it is the HIPAA compliance which is a requirement for him. Cannot be achieved with cloud hosting.

For me it's the superior performance. I have tried cloud several times, and it cannot touch a dedicated servers speed/performance.

When I first started thinking about social sites, I hunted for as many social platforms I could find.  I downloaded and tested all that had trial versions; phpFOX does not so that was only tested by looking at their rather lousy demo.  We actually decided on ELGG and I started working to build the site.  However, ELGG had some areas that we questioned.  One is the "Stream" concept where all content on the site gets dumped into one table.  The other was that if you were not careful in the order in which you installed plugins, you could break the site; break the admin.  We decided to take a second look at Dolphin knowing that we would need a license and I don't regret that we decided to go with Dolphin.  Dolphin is a very stable platform with many features..  The only issue I had was with Boonex's  misleading shared hosting recommendations which has not changed.  Most shared hosting sites have way too many sites on the same server.

I can almost always find something about Dolphin to bitch about.  The fact that I am here griping about Dolphin, and not hanging around on some other site bitching about Elgg, SE, etc, is my testament.  As long as someone is cheering for you, or bitching about you, you're ok.  When they're not doing either, it's time to worry.

Now... if we could just get rid of those awful antiquated flash apps.