MegaSocial — Your Own Facebook, Self-Hosted, Owned Once
A complete social network for WordPress — custom React frontend, real-time messaging, no BuddyPress, no per-member fees, no subscription.
Feed, friends, groups, pages, marketplace, jobs, events, stories, gamification — the same feature set people expect from Facebook or a WoWonder-style community script, running on your own WordPress install that you already pay for hosting on. Buy once, own it, keep every update.
Why Not a Social-Network SaaS or Subscription Plugin?
|
WoWonder |
BuddyBoss / PeepSo / FluentCommunity |
MegaSocial |
| Cost |
~$69 one-time (web only) |
$99–$599 every year, forever |
One-time purchase, from $49 |
| Source code |
Obfuscated / encoded |
Open, self-hosted |
Open, self-hosted WordPress plugin |
| Mobile-ready |
Native apps sold separately |
Varies by plan |
Installable PWA included, no extra purchase |
| Hosting |
Your own |
Your own |
Your own — same server as your other WordPress sites |
| Marketplace, Jobs, Ads built in |
Partial |
Not standard |
Yes, all three included |
A subscription competitor priced at $299/year has already cost more than MegaSocial's entire top tier before the second year even starts — and keeps costing that, every year, forever.
📰 Feed & Content
- Global, Following, and Trending feed tabs
- Reactions, threaded comments, polls
- Post scheduling, content warnings, hashtags with dedicated discovery
- Stories — 24-hour ephemeral posts
- Bookmarks / saved posts
- AI Post Generator — server-side proxy (your API key never reaches the browser), per-member daily cap
🤝 Relationships & Community
- Friends system with request/accept/decline, separate from one-way Follow
- A genuine "Friends Only" post-visibility mode — enforced consistently across the feed and profile, not just one of the two
- Groups with their own discussion forums
- Pages — a business/public-figure entity people Like rather than follow or friend, separate from personal profiles and Groups
- Member directory, profile-visit tracking ("who viewed your profile", admin-toggleable), pokes
💬 Messaging & Notifications
- Direct and group conversations
- Optional self-hosted WebSocket server for real-time delivery — without it, a short polling fallback keeps chat and the new-post indicator working with zero extra setup
- Per-type notification preferences that actually control what gets sent, not just a UI toggle
🛒 Commerce & Engagement
- Marketplace — member-to-member listings
- Job board — postings and applications
- Ads & Boost — sponsored posts injected into the feed, members can boost their own posts
- Gamification — points, badges, leaderboard
- Events with RSVP
🔒 Accounts & Trust
- Two-Factor Authentication (TOTP)
- Google OAuth sign-in
- Member reporting and an admin moderation queue
- Configurable per-action rate limiting
- Self-service GDPR data export and account deletion
- Block users
Technical Highlights
| Feature |
Detail |
| Frontend |
Custom React SPA (not a WordPress theme skin) — Zustand, TanStack Query, Framer Motion |
| Backend |
Custom PHP/MySQL, own REST API namespace, no BuddyPress or page-builder dependency |
| Real-time |
Optional Node.js WebSocket server included; automatic polling fallback if you skip it |
| Storage |
Local uploads, or S3 / Cloudflare R2 with your own bucket + credentials |
| Caching |
Built-in cache layer — transient, Redis, or Memcached |
| Multisite |
Built and run in production as a WordPress Multisite subsite |
| PWA |
Installable to home screen on mobile — no app-store submission needed |
| PHP |
Tested on PHP 8.x |
Included in This Package
- megasocial.zip — full plugin (install via Plugins → Add New → Upload)
- Optional WebSocket server (Node.js) for real-time messaging
- Free updates while your support period is active
Who Is This For?
- Niche or regional communities who don't want their members' data on Facebook
- Membership sites and creator communities wanting a real social layer, not just forums
- Agencies building a branded community product for a client, without a recurring per-site licence fee
- Anyone evaluating WoWonder, BuddyBoss, PeepSo, or FluentCommunity who wants the features without an obfuscated codebase or a subscription that outlasts the product's own cost
