CMS systems and web developers in general

newdigi

Hi,

I'm currently looking to build a site, similar to in style to http://www.totalbeauty.com/.
Not similar in content, but will be that type of site with articles, info, forum, blog etc, with space for banner ads, buttons, mpus etc.
We hope/expect to have 10,000+ registered users.

I'm currently getting quotes from Irish web development companies, as well as from people/companies on sites like elance.
As you can imagine there is a vast difference in quotes, and cost as well as quality is key for me.
I'm aware of the usual potential pitfalls of doing business with companies via elance.

So I have a few questions:
1) has anyone here had any good experiences using sites like elance to produce a quality website such as the example above?

2) can anyone recommend anyone/company that would do such a job competitively?

3) using a CMS is the way to go for this, however before getting quotes, Wordpress CMS wasn't even on my radar. A couple of quotes have mentioned using Wordpress. Is this a suitable CMS for this type of project?


Thanks

Graham

Charter -> http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055050400

I would be wary about outsourcing an entire project to a site like elance especially if it's to someone you haven't worked with before and/or you have no experience of managing off-shore development projects. That's not to say it never works but it definitely increases the risk of failure.

KonFusion

You may find some answers here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056842033

In short:

1) More bad than good.

2) Yes. We have a vast amount of talent in our little island. There's a great many that would do such a job competitively*.

3) Wordpress would be fine. Having had a greater look at the functionality, I'm not sure now if wordpress would be most suitable. It would be fine for the guts of the site, but looking now there appears to be a message board and a few other bits which wordpress isn't super great at. I'll get back to you on that.


* It is unlikely however that any will be able to compete with the cheapest prices you receive from elance. Nor should you expect them to really.

yoyo

Joomla or Drupal would be my recommendations for such a project. When it comes to forums, image galleries etc. Wordpress starts to show it's weaknesses, but Joomla & Drupal have excellent free addons. You can use Kunena forum with Joomla for e.g, or install a SMF/PhpBB bridge addon

Nick

Sparks

Closing this - OP next time please read the charter first.