database of members

That’s a question of preferences. There are quite a few membership plugins that can achieve what you’re looking for. Most of them are premium plugins, though Paid Memberships Pro is a free open-source membership plugin for WordPress and you only pay if you want to get premium support after you’ve got it setup.

Your best bet is to make a list of all the features and capabilities that you want in your membership site and then review all of your options out there, as it is much better to start with everything you need than to change everything later (which can cause a ton of problems and require significant coding skills to rectify).

Just my two cents, I hope I’ve given you a bit of guidance to help you out.