As 3DPixel.net’s resident coder extraordinaire I talk with end users and design agencies on a daily basis about current projects, quoting for prospective projects and just pie in the sky ideas.
When a new project is submitted for quote, I look at the brief and make a decision about whether the site needs to be bespoke or whether there is an existing product that fits the brief (with small modifications/plugins where necessary). Over the years we’ve learned that it makes a lot more sense to steer our clients towards existing products rather than bespoke solutions, the reasons for which can be summed up as follows:
1. Less development time, meaning lower costs.
2. Existing products are more mature, meaning more features, better security and less bugs.
3. Security Updates are rolled out frequently and cost nothing.
Of course, all this is pointless if you don’t have a good knowledge of what products are available, their strengths and weaknesses, and of course, the cost involved in both purchasing the product (if applicable) and modifying it for the client’s needs. Fortunately I have over 9000 years experience in “the internets”, and thus, I am a legend with much knowledge.
Below is a list of my preferred products for various scenarios. It isn’t the most comprehensive list in the world, it’s simply a list of the products I’ve found to be the most appealing.
eCommerce
LemonStand – A feature rich and modern e-commerce solution. Provides excellent statistics about visitors/customers, and full blog and user customisable (wysiwig) pages. It’s extendable through plugins, but there isn’t much that it doesn’t already do, so you’d need something very very specific to need to develop a plugin.
In the grand scheme of things they’re incredibly new, the product only came out of Beta about 6 months ago which does mean that existing plugin’s are incredibly limited. However the development team are very open to adjusting their release schedule for new features that they feel should be added, so it’s always worth getting in touch with them. They also have a very fast release schedule for new features.
A one off cost of $299 is incredibly reasonable for the features it offers, and because they’re so new there are frequent sales and/or coupons that can reduce this price a fair bit. Discounts are also available for bulk purchases.
Incredible value for what it offers.
Blogs & Content Management Systems
Wordpress – Basic blogging software that has been the defacto standard in it’s field for years. Absolutely outstanding administrative user interface and great usability all round. Recently it has been erring more towards a full blown CMS which is a positive thing.
It has masses of Plugin’s ranging from simple Twitter addons to full blown e-commerce solutions (which I wouldn’t actually recommend, see product above). Wordpress is free, but some of the larger plugin’s can charge modest amounts.
Joomla – A true open source (free) Content Management System that’s used in a lot of very large websites (if I remember correctly the Audi website uses Joomla). Excellent backend and a very wide range of plugin’s. Caters towards considerably more complicated/larger websites that Wordpress.
Discussion Forums
These days, we see virtually zero demand for traditional discussion forums as blog’s and their comment systems are more suited for business use. Now and then though someone asks what we recommend.
vBulletin – Advanced Forum software, with excellent security and features abound. In recent years the company was bought and the product has been expanded to include a limited CMS. The recent changes are not positive however in our experience, and the product is somewhat buggy, bloated and overly expensive.
xenForo – A new forum software from the old developer team from vBulletin. Excellent product with many useful social improvements over vBulletin. Much slimmer and more refined also. Price point is much better than vBulletin. Their website is also very limited in it’s information, which can be attributed to the fact that it is still in beta (although an incredibly stable beta).