Developing eCommerce Website - Which one I should choose? Custom PHP or CMS?

by Paul Smith Business Development Manager

Web designing and development for e-commerce companies are in great demand. If you are interested to launch your online e-commerce services, then the question that will come before you are, what platform to choose? Custom PHP or CMS for eCommerce App development.

Both these types of websites have their advantages as well as few drawbacks.

Therefore, depending on your specific needs, you have to choose one or the other.

To know which of these two-powerful websites will suit your requirement, let us do a comparative analysis to find out the differences between these two.

Custom PHP Framework

1). Security

Security is an important concern for any business website.

Hacking websites have become more frequent and hackers not only steal data but also deface the website looks. This can seriously degrade the value of your business and also put doubts in the minds of your potential customers about how secure your website is for making any financial transactions.

From the point of view of security, experts rely more on Frameworks. The reason behind this is that in any Framework, the codes are specifically designed for that program and are not open source. This makes them less vulnerable from the security point of view.

The inbuilt safety features of PHP framework help them guard against the common hacking practices like SQL injection, Cross Style Scripting and Cross Request Forgery.

The amazing secure environment of PHP framework makes them ideal for big corporations where the importance of security is paramount and the cost is not a big factor.

2). Flexibility

For any web designer flexibility in design integration and compatibility with third-party applications plays an important part.

The PHP framework with its innumerable library functions is easy to customize as per the requirement of the business. Having an eCommerce app for your eCommerce business or store brings good flexibility for your users.

3). User experience

One major drawback of PHP Framework is that it does not have any default standard user interface. This makes it difficult for the client to easily change the theme or information posted on the website.

However, if you want, then you go about it in a roundabout way, like creating the interface through the library functions.

Additionally, if you want to improve the user experience further, then you can make use of CSS frameworks like the Bootstrap or SASS.

4). Upgrades

PHP framework does not get many upgrades. Normally, It would get upgrades relating to new features not more than once every five or six months.

However, the lack of frequent upgrades in no way affects the security of this platform.

If you are looking for very robust custom PHP framework, then look at the Laravel or CodeIgniter. Both of these are very robust frameworks but they do have their pros and cons.

Laravel offers more expressive and elegant syntax. And it has something unique up its sleeves like the exceptions which are not available in the CodeIgniter.

On the other hand, CodeIgniter is very simple to download and install. E-commerce sites hire CodeIgniter developer due to many reasons.

It is unbeatable in the field of documentation.
It is a stable platform.
The templating engine inbuilt in this platform is easy to learn by first-time programmers.
It offers output caching which improves the load time.
It has a big community, so the CodeIgniter developer gets a lot of support.

Thanks to all these points, businesses are always looking to hire CodeIgniter developer to build their websites.

Content Management System(CMS)

1). Security

While there are many security features available in the CMS platform, it is not as secure as the PHP platform.

CMS is based on open source code that can be accessed by anyone. As CMS relies on plugins to give the user a great many functionalities, the reliability of these plugins (in terms of security) come into question.

2). Flexibility

Compared to the PHP framework, the CMS is not very flexible. The reason is that it comes with several applications that have different functions which are not easy to tweak to fit in with any changed requirements.

3). User experience

This is one field where CMS beat the PHP framework hands down. You will find that most CMS websites have integrated website manager.

The website manager in the CMS website allows the client not only to edit any information but also the theme. This is very important for the client as he can make frequent changes as per his requirements to keep the website properly updated.

4). Upgrades

In this field also, CMS is way ahead of the PHP framework as it gets regular updates.

As the updates are regarding security patches, new features, new support for plugins or SEO techniques, it is important to install them whenever they are released to keep the website safe and secure.

If you want to build your e-commerce website with the help of CMS open source, then you can use programs like the Magento, OpenCart, WooCommerce and many more.

Conclusion

While both the PHP framework and CMS have their advantages, it all boils down to the fact that if cost is not such a big factor for your company, your business demands increased security and you want to keep the future expansion of your website in mind, then go for the PHP Framework.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a cost-effective solution for your business needs, then go for the CMS opensource.

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