I have experience with both plugins: Peepso and BuddyPress.
BuddyPress is a free plugin and offers integration with BBPress forum. It has its own look and feel, very different from Facebook. For visitors it can be difficult to understand where to do what. It does have tons of option to extend it with other plugins. To be honest you will need other plugins to get some functionality. You can customise a lot if you want to. Development is not too fast as it is run by volunteers….also means less headaches with constant updates ;-). To be honest I find the BuddyPress website a bit confusing, like the plugin it doesn’t follow standard website look and feel.
Peepso is a paid plugin. The free plugin is pretty useless if you ask me, so if you decide to go with Peepso you will probably need the Ultimate Bundle. This bundle offers a lot of options and follows Facebooks look and feel. Users will understand right away how it works. Updates are on a regular basis, like every 2 weeks with bugfixes and extra functionality.
Pros BuddyPress
Free
Extendable with other plugins
Cons BuddyPress
Missing some basic options (can be added with 3rd party plugins)
Bit confusing for new users
More plugins needed – compatibility – problems? – multiple developers -> frustration?
Pros Peepso
Complete package if you go for Ultimate bundle
Users understand Facebook…and Peepso
1 stop shop – 1 plugin – 1 developer
Cons Peepso
Expensive
NOT multilingual! (bit weird for a social network!)
Use as is – fast developing means fast updates breaking customisations.
If you want to build a social network in 1 language, got the money and want an easy solution go for Peepso. I choose BuddyPress as I use WPML and 2 languages.
Well… let me add just my 2 cents here…
PeepSo isn’t really expensive if you consider the level of support we provide, continuous and frequent updates etc. WPML compatibility is on our list, we still have a lot of other things to do before we can get to that.
As we provide plugins for most functionality ourselves, updates won’t break anything. We test PeepSo with latest php, WordPress etc. to ensure it’s ready for whatever comes next. We’re already PHP 7.3 compatible. We have automated testing suite, dedicated server and an engineer to make sure everything always works.
On the other hand there’s BuddyPress… to get all the functionality PeepSo provides with the bundle, you need to pay actually more… not only that but the need to go to multiple vendors, which don’t have the same development rate. You can update one thing and then the others don’t get updated and you’re stuck with outdated code. Or you upgrade something and break your site because it won’t play well with others. If you want to spend time one maintenance and making sure everything plays well together, sure. Go with BP.
But just to touch base on customizations, when they are done properly with plugins, css, template or assets overrides they will not ‘break’ your custom code. Hacking plugins directly is NEVER a good idea. If you need advice on adding functionality or how to go about it, we can give pointers.
It’s not really the place to try to sell your plugin on our support forums, please; it’s rude.
