Web Forums: Buy versus Build
Posted by Matthew Evans on 18 July 2006
We have also built our own forums that we sell as part of our CMS product WebDeck. There were a number of reasons for this:
- Consistent technology platform. Our CMS product is built from the ground up in Java. We could have made use of any one of a number of Java based forum systems, some are open source and some are paid for. Even if we had made use of a third party product, they almost certainly would have made use of additional libraries and API's that were not in our current suite of products. This adds complexity when wanting to add additional functionality to the forums. Our developers would need to learn the different web and persistence frameworks that these forums make use of. This adds time and cost to projects. We dont like needlessly adding time or cost to projects!
- Consistent look and feel. Controlling the forum code ourselves means we can easily customise each site build to ensure that the forums integrate well into the existing site design.
- Simplicity. A lot of the current forum applications are locked in a functionality arms race. That leaves their systems bloated, complicated and hard to use for the simple task of allowing your users to talk to each other. Our clients like simple solutions.
- Security Upgrades. Each time a new security vulnerability is discovered in an existing forum suite (and believe me, people find LOTS of security holes in third party forums as many are so well established and consequently have such large user bases) we would need to upgrade every site we have developed to ensure the forums are secure. If we have customised the forum to integrate into the site and user database it would mean a disasterous tangle of version control and package updates.
Writing a simple forum is not hard, and should not cost you an arm and a leg. We have generally found that the cost spent upfront in rolling your own is quickly recovered based on the above points.