Open Source and Web Site Design

Where the code used to develop your web site comes from, is something that should not be overlooked when you are considering having a web site design created for your company, group or organization. Where the code your web developer or web design company chooses, can actually affect the price you pay for the development of your web site. There are  3 main avenues of code sourcing to consider when planning for your web site design. You can have custom code written for your site, you can go with a 3^rd party company’s proprietary code/software or you can choose to use an open source solution for your web site design and development.

In my personal opinion I think it’s best to always go with an open source solution…

The main reason is due to the open source software being developed by a community, it is usually offered for free, thus keeps costs lower. From my own point of view as a freelance web designer and developer, this means that since I get the source code to start the base of a clients web site development for free, I can then charge my client a lower, and more competive price. If I had to choose a commercial source or custom code from scratch a web site for them, the costs incurred would obviously be much higher. By choosing an open source web site design solution a lot of the “ground work” has already been laid out for the development of  a site. That means I can not worry about the “basics” in the development of the site such as user accounts, content management, basic e-commerce functions etc, but rather concentrate on the special and custom features and modifications the client requires for their web site design project. Plus, most open source solutions have a community of developers and users who share insights into modifying code, adding new features and general support for the open source web site design solution.

When I develop sites, there are 3 main open source solutions I utilize for my clients.

osCommerce

If I am hired to do an e-commerce web site design I will usually opt to use osCommerce (http://www.oscommerce.com) . OsCommerce is a very powerful, feature rich open source e-commerce solution that has been around for many years, and has a strong community to support it. There are many custom modules available for osCommerce including many shipping and payment modules, making it very customizable in regards to client needs. The source code is fairly simple to work with (based in PHP), and works as a great basis to build a great e-commerce base site. There are several commercial products out there that are actually based off of osCommerce, including creLoaded (http://www.creloaded.com) where they have taken the open source code, added additional proprietary code and features, and repacked it to sell as a commercial project.

WordPress

if A client needs a simple blog style website, or just a simple and easy to manage web site design, I often use WordPress as the basis for the website. (http://www.wordpress.org). WordPress is a great blogging system, and has a massive amount of free additional feature/plug-in and modules available for it. It also has a very strong community and is continually being updated and improved buy the development team.

Joomla

If a client requires a content management system for their web site for a portal type website or one that has a little more functionality for the web site design then I opt to use Joomla (http://www.joomla.org). Joomla is one of most used open source content management systems there is. It has a massive amount of additional modules and plug-in’s available to enhance it’s functionality, and has an extremely strong community to go with it. Joomla even has some e-commerce extensions to integrate  Joomla with a shopping cart, or even directly integrate it with osCommerce (which makes to be a great combo CMS/E-Commerce site).  There are so many great free and commercial contributions that Joomla could in reality be used to create just about any type of site needed.