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Revision of Website Platform: Prepacked or Custom? from 2007, February 1 - 6:38pm

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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 targeting needs similar to our own, as can be seen with a simple web search.

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

AtHomeNet

AtHomeNet is one such organization that provides these packaged services.

Our current association with AtHomeNet may be a product of our hiring Piedmont Management for management services. Piedmont Management's website is powered by AtHomeNet. AtHomeNet's management company website pricing ("$5 monthly reduction in cost of Management Company web site for every community web site signed up by the Management Company"), may have brought AtHomeNet's pitch to the Windsor's Board.

Our work with them can be seen online.

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.

This custom website is built with Drupal, "a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website." Drupal requires only the commodity LAMP software stack, so can be hosted by almost any hosting provider.

Discussion

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.