Forum Moderators: buckworks
However, I wanted to start a post comparing the two directly and getting feedback on either your impressions or experiences regarding them. Here is a post that I put up on one of the RedHat Akopia Interchange forums:
<post>
A comparison of osCommerce and Interchange + A plea for suggestions.
Regarding set up of Interchange. I can program in perl on *nix machines, etc...
but even so I couldn't set up Interchange on a hosted account for the life of me.
There were way too many problems with necessary packages, non-root access, etc ...
one host was completely unwilling to do anything (a very popular host by the way)
to help. Another host was willing to help, but even so we couldn't get it to work.
(I'm sure you all know this... but hear me out)
osCommerce 2.2 is a development version, but it was *easy* to install. Even though
there is little to no documentation, anyone with some programming
experience can figure out a whole lot about the package just by looking at the
source code. I had *no* problems setting it up ... it is written in PHP
and does not have dependencies on perl packages, etc. So if you can't afford a
server with root access I recommend using osCommerce
or going with a web host which offers Interchange with the hosting package.
So, to me it seems we all have 3 options:
1) Get a dedicated server, do whatever you want.
2) Get osCommerce and host it wherever you want.
3) Get an account with someone who offers Interchange setup.
I am about to start a new project and so I would like peoples opinions, as well as
possibly recommendations
for specific hosts. Here are some considerations:
1) osCommerce 2.2 has many more features now then it did and most people say that
certain cvs snapshots are more stable than the release versions
2) I don't want to move to a bad host that just happens to offer Interchange... I
would obviously like a quality host in general also.
3) I want SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY URLS ... is this a function in interchange... I
know how to use .htaccess but getting interchange to spit out the modified URLs is
my concern.
4) Whatever the final situation, it should be possible to highly modify the
package to fit specific needs (assuming one has intermediate skill...)
Thanks.
</post>
And also, for clarity I put
<post>
BTW, here is an elaboration of what I meant by 'search engine friendly URLs'
Instead of
www.foo.com/cgi-bin/foo.cgi?goo=1&moo=2
I want
www.foo.com/foo/goo/1/moo/2
I know how to implement mod_rewrite, but I *don't* know if redhat
interchange is capable of changing all of it's links to look this way.
[this is possible in osCommerce by the way ... with some tweaking]
</post>
The short of it is, osCommerce is easier ... but I get the impression that Interchange is better. I assume Interchange will be very difficult to modify, seeing as installing it is such a bear.
At this point I have cut it down to two options:
1) Go with a hosting company that supports osCommerce and has osCommerce developers that can work with me on mods, etc.
2) Go with a hosting company that supports Interchange - level of support unknown.
What do you think (opinions appreciated)?
Resources:
[google.com ]
[google.com ]
[google.com ]
[google.com ]
Interchange mail archive search [interchange.redhat.com]
See also:
(external link)TEP compared to Interchange? [oscommerce.com]
(external link) A post from someone who defected from interchange to oscommerce [interchange.redhat.com]
[Edited for clarity... I have too many numbered points in the above posts!]
