General Overview
UNA is an open-source community software framework and a CMS (Community Management System). Designed primarily for online communities, social networks and collaboration hubs, UNA can be configured to power any multi-user website. UNA works well for both small, niche, hyper-local communities and for large-scale networks, institutional and corporate projects.
Read our Introduction and Principles to learn more about the UNA vision.
Create UNA.IO Account
UNA.IO offers everything you need to build an online community - powerful full-stack software, professional services, extension apps, education and community support. Create a free account here at UNA.IO to launch your site instantly on UNA Cloud; download self-hosted package; access API keys for automatic updates and connect with the community of fellow webmasters.
Create a free UNA.IO account or sign in to your account if you haven’t done so already.
Choose Hosting
You can host UNA platform on your own dedicated server, choose a recommended hosting or use a cloud hosting instance (such as AWS, Linode, Digital Ocean, etc). When using your own hosting, you will need to configure the server, install UNA and manage your setup yourself. The core platform and all UNA CoreApps can be linked to UNA.IO Market for free version updates.
For quick, automated deployment, pre-configured backups and managed updates, please - sign up for UNA Cloud. Each UNA Cloud instance is an independent, containerised cloud server dedicated to one UNA-powered site only, ensuring stability and security. You get control over your site, UNA Studio, content, backups and the ability to migrate to external server anytime. UNA Cloud plans include free access to all UNA PowerApps.
Site Name and Domain
Think about the name of your site - a short, one-two word moniker that will be used to present your site on all pages, in emails, notifications, etc. Something like, say, “MasterMinds” or “Master Minds” will work. You will be asked to input that name during installation, but you can change it later in site settings.
When launching a self-hosted UNA site, you need to have a registered domain name (i.e. “masterminds.net”) to associate with your site. You can buy it at any registrar you like - GoDaddy, Name.com, etc.
When launching the site at UNA Cloud, you will first get an address at una.io subdomain (i.e. masterminds.una.io). You can use that address or connect your own domain name.
Get PowerApps
UNA platform comes with a set of “apps” - modules, integrations, templates, tools and other components that make up your site. The SysApps are integral system elements, CoreApps are free apps that your can download and update free of charge. Additionally, you can buy, download and update the PowerApps - premium UNA modules - available via UNA Market.
When you “buy” an UNA PowerApp via UNA Market, you subscibe for a yearly plan that includes access to the app download, automatic updates and basic support. You can buy PowerApps separately or sign up for UNA Pro monthly plan that includes access to all PowerApps.
Custom Support Options
UNA team is here to help you. We offer complete set of professional services, including development, modification, customisation, data migration, integrations, maintanance and server configuration for UNA-based communities. The services are prices in “blocks” of 10 hours or more, with hourly rate varied from $50/hour to $100/hour depending on specialists involved.
Contact us to discuss your project and make it happen!
Server Requirements
UNA script is written using bundle of PHP and MySQL. Minimum requirements for the latest version of UNA are PHP 5.5.10 and MySQL 5.5.3. To get more detailed information use this link.
Server Recommendations
Any server which complies with minimal requirements is suitable, but for installing Jot and Rocket.Chat server you will need dedicated server, VPS or Cloud instance.
We recommend to use UNA Cloud which is dedicated cloud instance which can be resized on demand up to 192GB RAM, 32 CPU, 3840GB SSD
Architecture
UNA is build using PHP and MySQL as backend, for the frontend we used HTML, CSS and Javascript, you can find more information about UNA architecturehere.
Code Convention
UNA script has a set of rules which helps to write readable and secure code. If you are a developer and plans to work with UNA script: create custom modules, modifications or provide some services you need to learn UNA's Code Convention. You may read more about Code Convention here.
Developer Documentation
During some custom work (creation of custom module, modification, etc) with UNA script you may need to get some info about a class, a code structure, etc. First of all you need to check the main class related to the feature you are working with. For example, you want to create a form with different fields, which will add something in database. In this case you need to take a look at inc/classes/BxDolForm.php file. You'll find detailed description of the class with some examples of its usage in the very beginning of the file.
To get more detailed information about custom development for UNA you may check our Developer Documentation here.
UNA on GitHub
UNA script is open-source software and it's available on GitHub. There you may find a list of all Issues (opened and closed), Milestones which our development process is connected to and Documentation which may help you to use UNA script.