One question that keeps being asked about IndicThreads.com is that how
come you are running on PHP when you are supposed to be a Java J2EE
portal?

Honestly, we would have loved to be on Java and be able to experiment on the site using Java software and also keep generating in house articles about how we manage IndicThreads using X component and how we upgraded to Y server and so on.

However going with a Java Content Management
System (CMS) wasn’t the best option for us at the time we launched and I am not sure if it still is.? While creating IndicThreads, we tried out and compared several CMSs from the Java as well as the PHP stable. Based on those learnings, below is an attempt to list some of the points that I think make PHP CMSs a better choice than the Java ones:

• Evolved:
  The PHP CMSs seemed far more evolved. Mambo, PostNuke, Drupal all have huge communities and have been around for quite some time. They are also running on thousands of sites and so are very well tested.
• Ease of Use:
  PHP CMSs are remarkably easy to use. In 15 minutes time, even a PHP illiterate person can get a site going . I doubt if that can be done with a Java CMS.
• Hosting:
  Java hosting is not only costly but it is also a specialized segment. Not many hosting providers understand how Java J2EE web applications are deployed. Apache + PHP is so common that even the small hosting companies are good at it and can fix issues in no time.
• Sleek:
  Some Java CMSs are 10 times bigger and more complex than the popular PHP ones. If you know HTML, you can more or less figure out how a PHP CMS is working. That also makes tweaking the CMS a fairly simple task.
• Community:
  The community? around Java is one of its strong points but PHP CMS also have huge community bases and so getting help from fellow users is simple.
• Non Issues:
  Even if we presume that PHP cannot match Java in terms of scalability, object orientation…. it wouldn’t matter much to most website creators. Having a good, simple, feature rich, easy to host and maintain site, are the things that matter most.

As of today, the PHP CMSs seem to have convincingly beaten the Java ones.

Maybe while the Java world was engaged in talking of high end, super techie stuff, with the words ‘enterprise’, ‘transactions’ and ‘SOA ‘embedded in every sentence, the PHP guys actually went out and created a lot of simple yet very useful software.

>> PHP CMS: http://www.opensourcecms.com/
>> Java CMS: http://java-source.net/open-source/content-managment-systems