1. Clones
  2. Twitter clone

Free twitter clone with Elgg

This tutorial explaines building twitter clone with elgg open source social engine. Download Elgg here.

There are different options for building twitter clone. You could find and use some twitter clone script, build it on top of CMS like Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla, or you could code it from scratch. My recommendation is to use Elgg for this task. There are many reasons for using elgg instead of previously mentioned options.

  • Out of the box, Twitter clone scripts are most similar to Twitter.com because they are built to replicate twitter. But there is a big problem with this scripts - updating. Usually clone scripts do not get regular updates, and eventually are abandoned by creators and developers. You don't have to trust me on this, just Google for older articles about best twitter clone script, and you'll find that almost all twitter clone scripts popular in 2010. are now abandoned and dead. On the other side, Elgg is started in 2004. and will be here for many years. Elgg is used by universities, schools, companies and government sites, this is why it will exist much longer than some random twitter clone.
  • You can build twitter clone on top of popular Content Management Systems (CMS) like Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla. extensions like Buddypress, JomSocial and Drupal Commons will get you close to goal. Downside of using CMS is having to deal with limitation related base CMS system, it is much harder to customize system which is built for completely different purpose.
  • Code from scratch can be good option if you have development team filled with experienced programmers. If you don't have programming team you will loose to much time for building website instead of using that time for making your website successful.

Advantages of building twitter like website with elgg are:

  1. Free and Open Source
  2. Community support
  3. Regular updates

Elgg plugins for building twitter clone:

thewire - simple microbloging plugin with posts of 140 characters and threaded discussions. Thewire plugin is elgg core plugin, distributed bundled with elgg and preenabled on installation. In case the wire plugin is not enabled go to elgg administration and enable it.

thewire tools - extend thewire functonality. You can enable wire posts in group, extend activity page with thewire post form and add wire post form in widget. You can access settings on elgg administration > Configure > Settings > TheWire Tools

You can now check out tutorial for instaling Elgg on Windows.