Developed and introduced by
Macromedia, ColdFusion is a web application development language. The best
ColdFusion hosting providers have amazing service packages for their clients.
But, before you avail of a ColdFusion Hosting, you should balance the pros and
cons to using the ColdFusion language first.
User-friendliness
ColdFusion is famous for its
user-friendly features. What makes it user-friendly is that it is very easy to
learn because it is very similar from the good-old HTML as it is created from
scratch for the website. Like HTML, it makes use of tags that are very easy to
learn and use. On the downside, PHP hosting is preferred by some website owners
over ColdFusion hosting because the PHP language is easier to learn if you’ve
got no experience in HTML.
Java Support
The best ColdFusion hosting runs
on Java and has Java support. Because of the Java support, ColdFusion can run
on more operating systems than other programming languages. In addition the
createObject function of ColdFusion will excite you if you have any Java code
that you would like to incorporate in your website. This function will enable
you to gain access to the many ColdFusion and J2EE libraries.
On the other hand, the Java
framework can make ColdFusion a bit slow and unreliable at times. Yes, there is
no need for a test server when using ColdFusion as the language is used on a
whole application that potently becomes a test server on its own, but its
unreliability and sluggishness can be quite a bother not only for website
owners but more importantly, for the web visitors. So with ColdFusion, you have
to make a big decision for your website – sacrifice the speed of your website
for the sake of faster development time, compatibility and flexibility.
Integration
Designing your page in
Macromedia’s Dreamweaver will lead you to choose ColdFusion over other
programming languages since both products come from the same programming
company. It is extremely easy and fast to work between Dreamweaver and
ColdFusion. In addition, you will love the built-in code editor in Dreamweaver
to make changes on the code you’ve already created. Furthermore, ColdFusion
works well with Flash, the flagship product of Macromedia. However,
non-Macromedia products might be difficult to integrate to ColdFusion, or
worse, you won’t be able to find a way to integrate them to cheap ColdFusion
hosting at all. Another disadvantage to using ColdFusion and integrating it
with Flash is the frequent crash problems with web apps requiring the use of
Flash player.
Priority
Macromedia does not consider
ColdFusion as its flagship product. Therefore, it is not the top priority of
the company, although there are regular updates with this programming language.
Unlike other companies that develop programming languages as their flagship
products, ColdFusion doesn’t have as much frequency in upgrades and updates.
Cost
ColdFusion can be an expensive
programming language for website owners who would like to run their very own
server. Out of all ColdFusion versions, the Developer version is the best to
try out first since it is free. The Enterprise version is the most expensive,
while the Professional version is cheaper. However, cheap ColdFusion hosting
can save you a lot of money as you don’t have to purchase ColdFusion yourself.
Balancing the pros and cons of
ColdFusion as a programming language can help you a lot in determining whether
ColdFusion hosting is the type of hosting needed by your website. You may also
ask the help of several ColdFusion web providers to assist you with your
choice.
