Website Development Problem CakePHP, WordPress or Start From Scratch?

Question

I'm in the process of starting a new web site that is something like stackoverflow but a little bit more different along with making the members profiles highly more customizable I was thinking of building it from scratch using PHP, but was thinking of using CakePHP, but then I thought WordPress sounded better but I remember working with wordpress and it was a little bit slow at times when you tried to browse the web site.

So what I guess I'm trying to ask is that should I design the site from scratch? And I heard techcrunch.com and 9rules.com are completely done in WordPress, is this true?

Answer 1

Wordpress is a blogging engine, which is a specialised kind of CMS. It's not suitable for building something like Stack Overflow on.

CakePHP on the other hand is a framework - something to help you build a website so you're not starting from scratch. This would be a good bet.

For other PHP frameworks check these questions:

• What PHP framework would you choose for a new application and why?
• PHP Framework Decision - Analysis paralysis!

Answer 2

Be sure to check other frameworks too. CakePHP is a framework which makes a lot of choices for you. If your application fits in it probably works like a charm, but otherwise a framework can be a huge pain. Zend Framework has a lot more flexibility, but it also takes a lot more time to bootstrap your project. In the end it is all about personal preferences, so I would recommend you to just try some frameworks and find out how it feels for you.

Some frameworks:

• Zend Framework
• Symfony
• CodeIgniter or it's successor Kohana

Answer 3

Wordpress isn't slow, if get decent web hosting and know how to tune a webserver. But no, it won't really suffice for this. FastCGI on a threaded webserver with enough memory to cover peak traffic is the way to go.

Drupal (and maybe Plone) could probably do what you want without coding, but you'd still have to learn a lot, so you might not gain much over just coding the thing.

Answer 4

Using wordpress or joomla or any other framework will require enormous emounts of custimization of the framework to meet your ends. If you are not very comfortable with using those frameworks and how they are built, you are probably better off writing by hand, and maybe develop your own framework that suits your own needs.

Answer 5

Hand code the novel aspects of your site first without concern for the final product. You goal should be to find what you really need and how you are going to need them. For instance, if you need a blog for the staff, then you can install WordPress and move on to the next problem (your branding can be duplicated to a WordPress theme).

If existing software solves the problem, then version 1.0 should be a Frankenstein solution (which sucks aesthetically). The idea is to map out the incongruities between the various problems you are trying to solve so that when you do rewrite everything you do not produce the same problems.

Ideally, you will spend most of your time adding value to what you need that is novel about the site.