Buddyboss/Buddpress dynamic sites

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#1

I’m creating a community site using WordPress and the Buddyboss theme and platform. Buddyboss is a Buddypress fork. Im very new to React, Next.js, etc and the headless setup. We would like to harness this new technology for speed, security, and scalability.

As many know, Wordpress is not the fastest platform and slows down when dynamic plugins like Woocommerce are installed. As membership grows the site will definitely slow down.

We will be using dynamic plugins like Woocommerce, Geo Directory, Learndash, and a membership plugin. Not to mention the Buddyboss platform itself is dynamic. These features are a must have and cornerstone of our community.

Buddyboss also has an a native mobile app capability built in using React. They also have may hooks built in which I think will work w React. The app can be published directly to the Apple and Play stores.

QUESTION: Will Frontity work with a dynamic WordPress membership site and other dynamic plugins? Is there any solution for this yet? I’ve read alot of posts that it’s a difficult task. I understand the complexity, but at the same time headless solutions would be useless to us if it will not work w dynamic sites.

Here are some resources relating to the buddyboss platform:
https://github.com/buddyboss/buddyboss-platform/issues/568
From support: “Upon checking with our technical team, I was able to get the confirmation that yes it’s possible since our BuddyBoss Platform has a developer-oriented REST API.”

Thanks in advance for any help or info.

#2

Technically everything is possible, although authorization and authentication are still very early in their implementation in Frontity.

As far as I know are no packages yet which work with Buddypress/Buddyboss, and most plugins won’t work out of the box even when they have REST API endpoints.

In your situation I wouldn’t even think about Frontity, at least not the full website.
Using proper caching and optimized code, and of course a decent server, will make your project run lightning fast. Frontity won’t make it faster anyway if the site is slow.

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#3

Thanks for the info. I was thinking React would really speed things up. From what I read in the Buddyboss docs, they have made it to work w React.
I’m still new to the whole headless cms thing which is the reason for my post.
It looks like this technology still has a ways to go in terms of dynamic sites, which in my opinion is what really counts.

#4

Well, when done right React (or Vue, or Angular) is amazing with dynamic websites, just look at any popular website you use (Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, etc.) because they all use it :wink: However they also have fully optimized code and server infrastructure, something not often seen in WordPress projects.

That said; Frontity is not designed for a single website but as a framework to either fit most cases or be open enough to build your own logic around it.
And React doesn’t make the website faster, it only makes it more fluid for the visitor. In the end, most stuff still needs to be calculated and handled by the server. So if a normal WordPress website is slow, it won’t magically be faster with Frontity (or any other Headless CMS framework).

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#5

Ok thanks for the additional insight.

My thinking was after reading about next.js etc that decoupling my Wordpress site i would be making it virtually unhackable, scalable and faster. I thought i was digesting the information properly in regard to the Wordpress backend severely slowing sites and making it much less secure.

Do you have any recommendations to set me on the right path?

I plan on publishing my site as an app which already uses React. I just know that when i start getting members my site is going to slow down with all of the plugins i have installed. The app should take some load off of the web based site.

Im just trying to figure all of this out now before my membership increases.

Thanks

#6

Frontity (and Next.js and Buxy and many others) will give you a performance boost since it only uses the REST API and don’t need to handle all the PHP from the theme (or plugins which do stuff in the theme).
However it still needs to access the code and database, so if it’s slow it will stay slow.

Regarding security; your WP installation is still publicly available, so still open for WP specific attacks (or any other attack). A Headless CMS is still as secure as the server and systems behind it. The only benefit is that it will be harder to see that WordPress is being used, but depends on how you use it (eg. loading CSS/JS/images from the WP site will still show the URL structure of WP).
Same applies to scalability and speed, if your systems are scalable and fast than your headless frontend will as well.

As a (primarily) backend developer myself I would suggest to work on your current system to optimize as much as possible:

  • less plugins which slow stuff down, and more custom code instead
  • clean theme without any bloatware, so no stuff added/executing on all pages when only needed on one
  • proper caching on all fronts (server, code, database, client, etc.), this also works on dynamic and member driven sites
  • good hosting and sufficient hardware to support the project and visitor amounts

Running Frontity or another framework (or even a custom system) to work with the REST API on top of all that will help a lot, but only when the rest is already working the way you want.

PS. I’m not trying to scare you away from Frontity or React, but I’ve got the feeling that the expectation are a bit too high, something that Frontity won’t be able to supply. Especially not without all the required packages required for the massive amount of plugins out there.

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#7

Thanks again.

I’ve gotten pretty good at speed optimization w Wordpress, but this will be a totally different animal.

Buddyboss is as good as it gets in regards to wordpress. Their theme and platform is so beautiful, intuitive and clean. My plan is to use the mobile app to offload the web version. I need the web version for people selling products, etc. where a desktop is better to use.

Im currenlty hosting on my dedicated: XEON E 2136 32GB DDR4 2 X 480GB SSD SATA

This is just a temporary home to get the site going and I will be scaling. Im going to see how things go before i start upgarding.

I am in talks with a tech company ran by a guys who served the white house and they are using military grade cyber security that is just rolling out and they have first access, so good start for security.

I am also looking at Pantheon cloud hosting. I want to stay away from Amazon or Google Cloud resellers. Trying to avoid the big tech oligarchy as much as possible.

From what i am reading, cloud hosting is better from an upgrading and resource availability standpoint. I know a contained dedicated will not do.

Other solutions I use:

Cloudflare
FastCGI Process Manager (FPM)
Redis
Image compression
Clean Talk (anti spam)
PHP 7.4
Nginx as a reverse proxy
Wordfence

#8

I bypass wordpress built in auth-flow with a custom firebase auth, and sync dynamic content in some cases with firebase, integrated with buddyboss. I am only at the playground stage with this, but believe it may be an interesting avenue to explore for an auth solution for a frontity/buddyboss setup.

#9

A Headless CMS is still as secure as the server and systems behind it. The only benefit is that it will be harder to see that WordPress is being used, but depends on how you use it (eg. loading CSS/JS/images from the WP site will still show the URL structure of WP).