[opensourcedex]

pH7-Social-Dating-CMS is a free, open source social networking project written in PHP and released under MIT. It has 1,056 GitHub stars, 608 forks and 0 open issues, and was last pushed 31 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #31 of 44 tracked projects in Social Networking, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available.

What is pH7-Social-Dating-CMS?

pH7Builder is self-hosted, open-source PHP 8.2+ software for building white-label dating sites, matchmaking communities, and social networks, aimed at entrepreneurs who want to keep control of their code, hosting, database, and member data.

What it is

pH7Builder, formerly pH7CMS, is a self-hosted PHP application for running dating sites, matchmaking communities, and social networks on infrastructure the operator chooses. It is a modular MVC application built on the project-specific pH7Framework and PH7Tpl template engine, with MySQL as the database and PWA support when served over HTTPS. It lives in the PHP community-platform ecosystem and ships under the MIT license, with the MIT notice remaining with copies or substantial portions of the software.

The concrete problem it solves is the rented SaaS platform: instead of paying a vendor for a hosted dating service, an operator deploys pH7Builder on a server they control, adapts the source code to their niche, and retains the application, database, files, and member data. There is no required public "Powered by" link. Self-hosting also lets an owner choose energy-conscious infrastructure and decide how media, caching, and server resources are used, though the actual footprint depends on the host, traffic, content, and configuration.

Key capabilities

  • Discovery and matching: advanced member search, behavioral matchmaking, related profiles, nearby people, Hot or Not, profile ratings, mutual friends, visits, likes, and privacy controls.
  • Publishing and conversation: private mail, instant messaging, chat, notifications, comments, blogs, notes, forums, pages, photo albums, videos, newsletters, invitations, and activity streams.
  • Business tools: membership groups and permissions, paid plans, advertisements, an affiliate programme, payment-gateway integrations, basic analytics, database backups, file management, dynamic profile fields, and CSV user import.
  • Trust and moderation: member and content approval queues, abuse reports, blocking tools, country restrictions, login-attempt protection, registration throttling, duplicate-content checks, optional image screening, and two-factor authentication.
  • Localisation and theming: multilingual routes and content, translated interface packs, multiple themes, and an administration panel with PWA support when served over HTTPS.
  • Operational tooling: documented quick start, upgrade guide, and launch checklist in the docs/ directory.

Who uses it and how

  • Entrepreneurs launching a white-label dating or matchmaking site who want to own the database and member data rather than rent them.
  • Community operators building niche social networks, with profiles, friends, activity streams, forums, blogs, and groups enabled module by module.
  • Operators monetising membership through paid plans, advertisements, and an affiliate programme with integrated payment gateways.
  • Moderated communities that need approval queues, abuse reporting, blocking, registration throttling, and optional image screening before accepting real users.
  • Teams running the exact production configuration and completing docs/LAUNCH_CHECKLIST.md before taking real users or payments.

Getting started

Deploy from the versioned release ZIP, which includes locked production dependencies, or use Composer 2 for a source checkout; the required stack is PHP 8.2+, MySQL 8.0+, URL rewriting, and a web server, followed by a guided browser installer.

How it compares

No paid products this project replaces are named in the facts, and no comparable tools are named either, so pH7Builder stands alone in this registry. The README positions it generally as a self-hosted alternative to rented SaaS platforms, with the difference resting on ownership of the application, database, files, and member data, and on the MIT license rather than a rental cost model.

When to use it — and when not to

Choose pH7Builder if you can operate PHP 8.2+, MySQL 8.0+, URL rewriting, a web server, and a mail provider, and if you accept that DNS setup, TLS certificate issuance, and mail-provider approval fall outside the roughly 20–30 minute deployment and installer estimate. Do not pick it if you want a fully managed hosted service or cannot maintain a database-backed PHP application, since self-hosting puts patching, backups, and server resources on you. Note also that features depend on which modules you enable and which external services you configure, so the out-of-the-box surface is not the full feature list.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

pH7Builder

Self-hosted, open-source PHP software for building white-label dating sites, matchmaking communities, and social networks. You keep control of the code, hosting, database, and member data.

Formerly pH7CMS.

Tests PHPStan Composer PHP 8.2+ MIT License Latest release

What you need: PHP 8.2+, MySQL 8.0+, URL rewriting, and a web server. Composer 2 is needed only for a source checkout; the versioned release ZIP includes locked production dependencies. With the server ready, allow about 20–30 minutes for deployment and the guided browser installer. DNS, TLS certificate issuance, and mail-provider approval are outside that estimate.

Quick Start · Upgrade Guide · Launch Checklist · Release guides · Releases

alt="Build a self-hosted social dating community with pH7Builder"

Built for ownership

pH7Builder gives entrepreneurs a self-hosted alternative to rented SaaS platforms. Deploy it on infrastructure you choose, adapt the source code to your niche, and retain control of the application, database, files, and member data. There is no required public “Powered by” link; the MIT license notice simply remains with copies or substantial portions of the software.

Self-hosting also lets an owner choose energy-conscious infrastructure and control how media, caching, and server resources are used. The actual footprint depends on the host, traffic, content, and configuration.

What is included

  • Member profiles, search, matchmaking, nearby people, friends, and activity streams.
  • Private messages, instant chat, notifications, comments, forums, blogs, photos, and videos.
  • Membership groups, paid plans, advertisements, affiliates, and supported payment-gateway integrations.
  • Account approval, reporting, moderation queues, registration throttling, blocking tools, and optional image screening.
  • Multilingual routes and content, translated interface packs, multiple themes, an administration panel, and PWA support when served over HTTPS.
  • A modular MVC application built on the project-specific pH7Framework and PH7Tpl template engine.

Features depend on the modules you enable and the external services you configure. Before accepting real users or payments, complete the Launch Checklist and test the exact production configuration.

Explore the feature set
  • Discovery and matching: advanced member search, behavioral matchmaking, related profiles, nearby people, Hot or Not, profile ratings, mutual friends, visits, likes, profile backgrounds, and privacy controls.
  • Publishing and conversation: private mail, instant messaging, chat, notifications, comments, blogs, notes, forums, pages, photo albums, videos, newsletters, invitations, and activity streams.
  • Business tools: membership groups and permissions, paid plans, advertisements, an affiliate programme, payment integrations, basic analytics, database backups, file management, dynamic profile fields, and CSV user import.
  • Trust and moderation: member and content approval queues, abuse reports, blocking tools, country restrictions, login-attempt protection, registration throttling, duplicate-content checks, optional image screening, two-factor authentication, and optional SMS verification through configured providers.
  • Platform and reach: multilingual routes and interface packs, responsive themes, SEO controls, sitemap and RSS support, a REST API module, PWA support, cron automation, maintenance mode, and sample-profile generation for non-production evaluation.

Requirements

  • PHP 8.2 or newer with curl, dom, exif, fileinfo, GD with FreeType and WebP, hash, iconv, json, mbstring, openssl, pdo_mysql, simplexml, xmlwriter, xml, zip, and zlib.
  • MySQL 8.0 or newer with utf8mb4 support. Older MySQL releases and MariaDB are not verified or supported for this release.
  • Apache with URL rewriting, or nginx with equivalent routing and protected path rules.
  • Composer 2 and outbound Internet access when installing from a source checkout instead of the versioned release ZIP.
  • A server/hosting sendmail transport, or SMTP credentials supplied through the server environment as PH7_MAILER_DSN. The application does not store SMTP credentials in its admin form.
  • HTTPS for production.
  • FFmpeg only when locally uploaded video processing is enabled.

The browser installer checks the runtime, extensions, writable paths, MySQL version, and database connection before importing the schema.

Quick start

Local evaluation with Docker

This path is for development and evaluation, not a production deployment:

git clone https://github.com/pH7Software/pH7-Social-Dating-CMS.git
cd pH7-Social-Dating-CMS
docker compose up --build -d
docker compose exec php php _install/create-install-token.php

Copy the one-time token printed by the second command, then open and enter it. In the installer, use database host db, database ph7builder, username ph7builder, password ph7builder, and port 3306. The checkout is snapshotted into a Docker volume. To test changed source, run docker compose down -v before docker compose up --build -d; this refreshes the snapshot but permanently deletes the local application and database volumes.

Production

Use the ready-to-run ZIP attached to a tagged release, set only the required writable paths, configure the web server, and then open /_install/. Generate the required installer access token from the deployed directory before opening the browser installer.

curl -LO https://github.com/pH7Software/pH7-Social-Dating-CMS/releases/download/v19.2.0/pH7Builder-v19.2.0.zip
curl -LO https://github.com/pH7Software/pH7-Social-Dating-CMS/releases/download/v19.2.0/pH7Builder-v19.2.0.zip.sha256
sha256sum -c pH7Builder-v19.2.0.zip.sha256
unzip pH7Builder-v19.2.0.zip
cd pH7Builder-v19.2.0

Composer can install the same tagged release from Packagist:

composer create-project ph7software/ph7builder:19.2.0 pH7Builder-v19.2.0 --no-dev --prefer-dist

pH7Builder is also listed on Softaculous and SourceForge. Those catalogues can lag behind GitHub and Packagist, so compare the offered version with the latest GitHub release before installing or upgrading.

The complete copy-paste deployment procedure—including database creation, permissions, nginx/Apache notes, HTTPS, cron, mail, payments, and the first test signup—is in the Production Quick Start.

[!IMPORTANT] Never expose _protected, _repository, _tests, _tools, .git, or installer-private directories. The tracked nginx.conf shows the required production protections; replace its example domain, document root, log paths, and PHP-FPM socket for your server.

From install to launch

After installation, sign in at /admin123/ and work through these areas:

  1. Branding: Settings → General, Meta Tags/Homepage Texts, and your theme.
  2. Registration: Settings → Registration; choose activation and moderation rules deliberately.
  3. Memberships: Billing → Memberships List; verify every limit and price.
  4. Payments: Billing → Gateways Configuration; begin with test credentials and keep unused gateways disabled.
  5. **Em

readme truncated — read the full docs on github

Frequently asked questions

Is pH7-Social-Dating-CMS free to use?

pH7-Social-Dating-CMS is open source under the MIT licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does pH7-Social-Dating-CMS do?

Self-hosted, open-source PHP 8.2+ software for building white-label dating sites, matchmaking communities, and social networks. Own your code, hosting, database

What is pH7-Social-Dating-CMS written in?

pH7-Social-Dating-CMS is primarily written in PHP. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/pH7Software/pH7-Social-Dating-CMS, and it has 1,056 GitHub stars.