Advice needed-6 or 7 for new site?

Hello,

We are planning to start development on a new site in 2 weeks.  The initial site will be launced about 30 days later.   We had assumed that we would be using version 6.16, but now I see 7 is up to RC5.  We have no clue how many release candidates are planned, so it is very unclear how much work is left for 7 to be released. 

We are not sure if any of the new features on 7 will benefit us in the near term - in fact, we are not even sure what is different in terms of features (we get the underlying code is better).

If you were us, would you go with the well user tested 6.16 or start out with 7?   Boonex appears to be claiming that 7 is their best tested release to date, but other posts seem to indicate a variety of issues.  We have not been following things closely enough to know what makes the most sense.  Your input is appreciated.

J

You only want to go with D7!  The current version is stable and working great.

I wouldn't really go as far as to call it "stable," but it is working fairly well. If you're making a new site that has yet to launch, I'd go with the current release: Dolphin 7.0. While Dolphin 6.1.6 continues to be supported with updates to the version branch, I feel that road's for those who are established.

Edit: see mydatery's post below.

Ok, your right, but seems to be working better than my D6 site :)  I am for sure way more excited about it!

Actually, it depends on what your end goal is.  D6 & D7 are both stable products when put on the correct server set-up.  You need to take a look at what you want the site to do and who your end users are.  While D7 holds a ton of new features that are not in D6, D6 does have it's advantages. 

Currently there are a ton of moderation features available for D6 (Aftermarket)  that are NOT currently available as of yet for D7 as the developers have not had enough time yet to create them. 

• IP Tracking
• Anti-Spam/Scam Systems
• Word Censoring
• Advanced Mail Systems

Those are just 4 items off the top that you can do to D6 that D7 does not have yet unless your have the ability to code them in yourself.  If your looking for all the bells and whistles, a site that has the store & sub-sites integrated into it already then go with D7.  If your looking for strictly a community site that has good moderation abilities then I strongly suggest you go with D6.

Really, you have to step back and take a look at what you want the end product to be and then decide what is best for you.  As far as having it live in 30 days goes, well you might want to rethink that, as it takes time to even learn how to run a Dolphin site if your brand new to it.  Good Luck.

Is there a good list of the differences between D6 and D7?