Criteria and Things to Consider when Choosing a Platform
Before you choose a web developer or begin working on your website, you should decide on which platform is right for you. A developer can help you out with this, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn a bit more so you can understand what your options are. Here you will find a short list of the important criteria in choosing a website platform. We will give you a list of things to consider in finding the tools that fits your goals for your website or web application. It is important to know these criteria so that you can personally review for yourself which one fits you best. Before we go into reviewing, let’s first try to understand its purpose and how it affects users.
Choice of Platform is Crucial
Platform is the base and foundation of your site. It is the computer understandable programming language that the site will use in order to make form. Your choice of Platform has implications on the site’s development, functionality, and cost of maintenance. It affects the type of databases it can use and the kind of servers that should host the site. No doubt that this is a very critical point in building your business. You can take a hard look at existing company systems and the functions it does. Example, in many cases, the site has to accommodate a series and lumps of legacy systems. That is just one thing to consider in reviewing Platforms.
Here are the main criterias that you should check when reviewing for the Platforms of your choice.
Hosting Requirements
Not all platforms are created equal. Some platform may contain a lot of libraries for you to use and that is a good thing but it also means that using them would require a lot of shelving space. Thus you first have to check what kind of hosting is available to you with your current budget. If you are not so much into knowing what hosting you have and what scripts can run in them, you can ask the tech support of your hosting to do this for you. What we will do is put in the required hosting specifications in layman’s terms. We will put a special requirement if ever the said platform in review needs any.
Development and Designing Tools
Once you know your hosting availability and the resources it has, you have to put in the factor of knowing where your website is headed. For example, if you are planning to create a well-timed and regularly updating back-end processes your choice should lead you closer to a heavier development platform. On the other hand, if you are leading towards creating sites that are textual and image heavy, then you should lead towards the design friendly platforms.
Yes, you may also choose the best of both worlds for your site and it is also available. It all has its pros and cons and it shall be discussed here in detail.
Ease of Debugging Resources
Now that you already have an inkling of which platform you should be leaning into but still have choices, another important criteria should be the the availability and usability of debugging tools and various debugging resources. Is it freely available? Can anyone get a hold of it? These are some questions that needs to be answered.
Availability of Debugging Tools
There is always something new to experiment on and little details that you want for your site to differentiate it from other sites. Since no one gets it right the first time, there comes the reliability of the available debugging tools for the platform of your choice. If you cannot see where the error and unwanted result comes from then it is impossible to correct it.
Usability of Debugging Tools
There are some platforms that boast of various and plentiful debugging tools but the other issue is that these tools require a born-genius for it to use. This would then pose another futuristic issue so before it happens, read it in our reviews. Get insights from users and developers who have tried out those tools.
Availability of a Support Community
The next important criteria is the availability of a Support Community for the platform. A support community is usually composed of paid support and long-time users who share their insights on certain issues or bugs that needs fixing. When there is an active community of supporters for a said platform you can be sure it is good to use.
Is there an ongoing and growing support for that platform?
Aside from just saying that there exists a support community or forum for the platform, we are also checking their ongoing and growing tech support. One example is the RSS, a message and notification sending platform used some years ago. It was not long ago that Google removed support for it. So if you use it today, there may be a support group but it is slowly dying and that could be bad for business in the long run.
Updates of Fixes and Bugs
An ongoing update of bugs and fixes is a good milestone that needs to be checked every now and then. If there are no ongoing fixes, then there is a chance that there are many exploitable holes in that library that can be used by malicious programs and people which could break your company in the future. Imagine an online company who will be a target of such an attack. It will be very difficult to gain user’s trust once again. It can haunt you so before it does, check wisely.
Availability of experts and developers
Last but not the least important criteria is the availability of experts and developers that can be hired to apply or perform changes in your chosen platform. If you have a very robust, excellent performing and high promising platform but it is difficult to find any available help then your project might come to a slow run.