WordPress the most popular blogging platform and the most installed CMS, by far. According to W3Tech survey - WordPress is used by 21.4% of all the websites, followed by Joomla and Drupal.
Many web developers and bloggers (of course), know that WordPress is very flexible and powerful platform that is going beyond blogging. Practically WordPress is suitable for any kind of web project starting with blog and going through e-commerce, membership websites, applications and even social networks.
This article is a brief overview of possibilities to build social network with WordPress. By any means this is not a tutorial, WordPress plug-in review or plug-in recommendation. I will just list the option and share tips regarding best practices to build social network with WordPress.
Plug-ins are not listed in any particular order, but let's start with the oldest one. New to WordPress, learn more about WordPress maintenance services.
BuddyPress
https://buddypress.org/
BuddyPress is probably the most popular free plug-in that can easily turn your WordPress blog into social network. BuddyPress offer all necessary features that every full-fledged social network needs like:
Private Messaging
User Profiles (extended)
Discussion Forums
Activity Streams
User Groups
Friend Connections
etc...
Plug-in as it is promoted work out of...