Can a new site be cheap/free and robust?

... or must I go pro?

[toonerama]

I need to set up a serious non-profit web site soon. It must accommodate a large number of members (> 100,000). It needs a forum, a blog, news, articles and possibly some Web 2.0 features.

It can be of minimal design and features within this. There is no budget to speak of.

I've set up sites before with all of the above, using individual PHP scripts, and also by using content management systems like Joomla and WordPress. The new site will have professional hosting.

SO MY QUESTION IS, if I do all this with free scripts and my own efforts, am I asking for trouble? Any particular areas where professional design will be necessary? Any particular things to avoid? The site does need to be robust and fast.

Many thanks for your input.

[Quadrille]

All of what you need is available free of charge, and mostly open source - including templates for the professional design features.

The only question is do you have enough design, seo and css/html skills to pull it all together into one successful whole?

Other than that, it's largely a matter of choosing features carefully for reader friendliness, support and updatability; check templates line-by-line for spam features / malware / idiocy.

Oh, and don't scrimp on the hosting, or your web 2.0ish stuff will let you down, and the SEs may skirt neatly around you.

[toonerama]

Thanks, that's most helpful. You've mostly confirmed what I've been thinking. My skills are good enough, but I always have that feeling that the script I end up choosing for any given task isn't good enough; perhaps that's inevitable.

With what you're saying about Web 2.0 stuff, I'm going to label that as "future".