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Website Platform: Packaged or Custom?

2007, February 1 - 6:38pm — Dave Allen Barker Jr

We know we want a website. We can talk about what we'd like our website to do. But upon what platform do we build this out?

Packaged

There are many packaged offerings that target home owners' associations, as can be seen with a simple web search.

Obviously, a more thorough survey of packaged website options may be wise.

(Perhaps not so obvious, our current (2007-02) website package with AtHomeNet was chosen without such research.)

AtHomeNet

AtHomeNet is a company that offers website packages for property managers. See our page on AtHomeNet for more information.

Custom

Obviously all websites to varying extent are "custom". Here, custom means we the ability to improve our website in any way we'd like.

Example

An example of a custom website for our community can be found online as well. It was built by community members using Drupal.

Differences

Without looking at particular packaged or custom solution, we might note some differences.

Differences Between Packaged and Custom Websites
Difference Packaged Custom
Functionality, Initial Some targeted to our needs Requires some customization
Functionality Fixed Open to improvement
Hosting Covered by package Covered by hosting company of our choice
Support Provider Ourselves
Content Creation Us Us
Vendor Lock-in Perhaps, depending on how much access given to their systems Open systems allow us (or hired help) to access our data for migration
  • See, "TOPS IWSS vs Drupal" for a discussion of the differences between two specific possibilities.

Support for Custom Website

If we're going to manage our own website, we need a group of people that are willing to support the site—the "Web Geeks". Only if such a group can be assembled will we consider a custom website.

Comments

2007, February 3 - 12:27pm — Dave Allen Barker Jr
Dave Allen Barker Jr's picture

Better Alternatives to AtHomeNet?

I haven't done a thorough survey or writeup, but did anyone else get the impression that there are better packaged alternatives to AtHomeNet? Some first impressions I had after looking at AtHomeNet:

  • Ugly underlying code. For anyone who cares to look at the HTML they generate, yikes. (To me, a reflection of general technical prowess.)
  • Poor desig of their forms and preset pages. Different font sizes, bad layout, strange page progressions (e.g. the login page), links not provided when referenced, looks like it's from 1999
  • Rough prose (amateur writing quality)
  • Navigation is defined by the software modules instead of user workflow

To my understanding, they're the only option that's even been considered thus far. Based on my light browsing of the field, they would not even rank in my top half.

Even if we decide to stick with a packaged website, I don't feel comfortable choosing AtHomeNet without evaluating other packaged alternatives.