Beginner's Guide to Dolphin and BoonEx

What is Dolphin?

Dolphin is a marine mammal and a web-software platform that you can download and use to build your own niche social network, community site, online club or an interest-based social website. Dolphin is designed to be simple, easy to use and customise. One doesn't have to be a programmer or web-designer to operate a Dolphin-powered website. Some understanding of web-servers, web-development, site administration, etc, would be beneficial, however.

Dolphin is an independent, self-hosted solution. This means that once you setup your site - you own it, you take care of it, you reap what you sow. This is a huge benefit, especially if you ever plan to turn your site into a profitable business, but this may imply certain level of involvement on your part. You need to update the software periodically, moderate content of your site regularly and pay for web-hosting.

Dolphin comes packed with ​tens of modules and thousands of features. It is always a good idea to "activate" only those features that are absolutely needed for implementation of your idea. Turning everything on may result in a cluttered interface, increased server load and diluted focus of your site visitors. You can extend Dolphin functionality even further by using modules, plugins, templates and language packs from ​Boonex Market.

Dolphin is an "open source" platform, which means that you can modify it to suit your specific needs. Any modification, however, may complicate future version upgrades, so think ahead.

Mobile Apps

Dolphin comes with native apps for iPhone, iPod, iPad and Android devices. With Prime license your can modify and rebrand them. Read more at Understanding Dolphin Mobile Apps.

Getting A License

Dolphin can be used free of charge as a "trial" for unlimited period of time. Trial version is not feature-limited, but it requires display of Boonex references, that are already built-in into Dolphin. You can buy a paid license to remove those links and present the site as 100% yours. Read more at Dolphin Licenses.

Boonex Market

​Boonex Market is a community of independent developers, designers and other professionals offering Dolphin extensions for sale or for free download. Extensions include full modules, plugins, modifications, design templates, language packs, graphics packs, etc. Providers of products and services on Boonex Market are called Vendors. Vendors are not affiliated with Boonex and accept payments directly.

Choosing Web Hosting

Dolphin is a web software, which means that it is meant to be installed on a web-server (a computer connected to Internet and serving web-site pages to remote visitors). It is possible to install Dolphin on your local computer and run your site "from home", but this is highly ineffective. In most cases, you would need to find a hosting provider.

There are thousands of big and small hosting companies around the world that offer different packages, services and setups. You do not have to choose a provider in your country, since your site would be accessible from anywhere in the world from wherever it is hosted. US-based hosting companies generally offer better deals. There's one trick though - Dolphin derives its time from the server, so if you're running, say, a local community site for Belgium and host it in the US, you may need to adjust your time settings and PHP and MySQL. Future versions of Dolphin are planned to be switched to "relative time".

Not any hosting is OK. Make sure that the Hosting Requirements are met by your hosting. Just copy and send these to the hosting pre-sale support before paying. We offer a list of ​Recommended Hosting Providers for Dolphin.