Customizable Vs. Custom Application	1.8/5.0 (4 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Maneet Puri September 28, 2007

For deploying a website there are always two approaches a) use a third party product, customize it for your needs or b) develop an application specifically tailored for your needs. Most of the times nature of website to be deployed is generic i.e. it will be a web store, an informational website, a placement website or a product catalogue etc. These days many ready to use applications are available on the internet, which have one of these functionalities built in and provide tools to change the look ‘n’ feel by changing design templates.

As there are pros and corns of everything so is for using such ready to use software, the only benefits of using them are: -

a) It allows you to save cost that would incur in deploying the website from scratch.
b) It saves the time that would be required to design & develop the website from scratch.

And disadvantages of using such software are: -

a) There will be defined patterns for layout, you can put your own colors & graphics but the layout and placement of various components will remain the same, which would mean your site will look very similar in style to other sites using the same software.
b) It’s tough to add specific functional features to such websites.
c) The scope of scalability is less
d) Would need an expert in that software to customize it.
e) Every time a new feature is to be added you will have to go thru all the scripts to understand the relations they are following other wise adding a new feature can lead to errors in other sections of the website.

Whereas if you go for the second approach i.e. developing a website from scratch, this approach is any day better then the previous one as it ensures that the application delivered is easy to scale for future enhancements, it will have a unique style and of-course is tailored to your specific needs.

For the purpose of listing the advantages & disadvantages of the having a customized site (second approach), the disadvantages can be: -

a) It’s more costly then using a third party application.
b) It takes more time to deploy.

I can not think of any other disadvantage of this approach, but if I have to list advantages of this the list goes as below: -

a) Scalability
b) Can have unique style & layout
c) Easy to make updates
d) Any developer can do it, not required to have someone with the expertise in the third party software
e) You can have your own standard of coding implemented for writing scripts for your website
f) The interface can be designed keeping the target audience in mind, which ensures that visitors have fulfilling experience when they visit your website.
g) You have the option to have different styles & layouts for different sections of your website.
h) You will have full control over the functionalities of the website, incase of third party applications chances are pretty bright that deleting a piece of code can result into errors in different sections of the website.

I am sure there would be many other benefits of deploying a website specifically tailored for your needs. Still people go for using the third party software, and the main reason I can think of is cost and time that is involved. Now its your call you want quality & scalability or need a quick & cheaper solution?

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