FreshNetworks Blog

There are a lot of community platforms on the market today and we thought it would be useful to collate a complete list of them.

Please let us know if there are any tools missing from the list – think of this as a kind of “wiki” which we will add to over time. We hope it will eventually become a useful community platform tool resource.

• Drupal – Drupal open source content management system can be used for everything from personal blogs to enterprise applications. You can also build websites and use their “Pagebuild” option which enables non technical users to build their website quickly and easily.
• Get Satisfaction - a cost effective platform for SME business solutions.
• Jive – In addition to being a community platform, Jive ‘Engage’ offers collaboration software and social media monitoring.
• Joomla – Open source and one of the most widely used, with an extensive existing community. It enables you to build websites and powerful online applications.
• Kickapps – Everything built on the KickApps platform is powered from the same database of users and content, making it easy to create integrated experiences across your site, mobile app, Twitter, Facebook and more. That means you can update every single KickApps-powered experience from one place, keeping everything consistent and up to date, no matter how or where the audience accesses your content
• Liveworld – They specialise in Facebook Wall, Facebook Forums, Facebook interactive tabs. LiveWorld offers a series of applications and platforms designed to stimulate more conversation and engagement with customers. Comes in more than 60 country/language combinations.
• Lithium – available in 19 languages and dialects. It plugs customers into one powerful network by creating opportunities for them to engage in a community on your own site and connect to other social customers through Facebook and Twitter.
• Mzinga – Cloud based community platform enabling you to embed apps and create private/public communities.
• Ning – claims to be the world’s largest platform for community site building, offering an easily customised structure that can include a real time chat feature. It can also be integrated with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to create a digital hub.
• php-nuke - open source and despite being one of the older, more traditional platforms, it still has a rapidly increasing market-share.
• Pligg – offers an unlimited number of authors and the ability to add modular plugins to the platform according to your needs and desired social networks.
• Telligent – Evolution platform which allows for scalability and integration with existing software programmes.

Additions to the list since the post was made:

• EPiServer Relate – allows you to segment visitors based on location, interests or other profile data, meaning you can personalise each user’s experience to show them relevant articles, content or adverts.
• Social Engine – social network software that helps you build your own customized community websites.
• BuddyPress – Open source, out-of-the-box software to help build your own social network.
• IGLOO – SaaS-based enterprise social networking company. Managed solely in the cloud, IGLOO unites document management, web content management, collaboration and social features in one integrated suite.