Real Web Hosting Reviews

Web Hosting Jargon Explained, Part 4: Installable Software

Web hosting companies commonly offer a variety of software that you can install and use for free as part of your hosting plan. How do you choose the one you need? Here is an overview of the categories of software commonly included with Web hosting plans, including the most popular software.

Installable Software

Many Web hosting companies have a set of applications that you can easily install on your Web hosting account. You are free to install other compatible software, or a different version of programs offered by your hosting company. However, this usually requires more skill, and most companies will not provide support for programs that you install yourself. A few Web hosting companies offer their own proprietary software as part of a Web hosting plan.

The following programs are mostly written in PHP, a programming language available on all plans. They are open-source applications, meaning that anyone can use them, free of charge.

Blog

A blog allows you to quickly write and publish short articles, news items, and images. You can easily interact with your audience by letting them post comments on your blog. Blogs include an RSS feed which readers can subscribe to, and which notifies them automatically of any new blog post.

These are the most common software programs for publishing blogs:

Wordpress

One of the three most popular blog platforms. Wordpress lets you host your blog with their free hosting service, or on your own Web site. There are a lot of plug-ins that add additional features to Wordpress.

b2evolution

b2evolution supports multiple authors and multiple blogs with one installation. You can find a detailed list of features here.

LifeType

LifeType also supports multiple authors and multiple blogs with one installation. You can find a detailed list of features here.

Serendipity

Serendipity is one of the easiest to use. You can find a detailed list of features here.

Forums

A blog allows you to communicate with your visitors, while a forum lets your users communicate among themselves. Forums can be moderated.

The most common forum software offered are as follows:

phpBB

phpBB is by far the most popular forum software. It is also famous for requiring more resources from the server than the alternatives. You can find a detailed list of features here.

SMF (Simple Machines Forum)

SMF is a lighter alternative to phpBB. You can find a detailed list of features here.

Vanilla Forum

Vanilla Forum supports multiple languages.

Administration

Administrations software helps you manage your databases, table indexes, etc.

The most popular administration software programs are:

phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is the standard application to manage MySQL databases.

paFileDB

This is an older, now obsolete alternative to phpMyAdmin.

Advertising

Only a few plans offer advertising software:

Noah's Classifieds

This software lets you create classified listings. You can find a detailed list of features here.

OpenX (formerly phpAdsNew)

OpenX will handle your ads.

E-commerce

If you sell goods or services on your website, you will need shopping cart software, or a full ready-to-use online store.

The most common e-commerce applications are:

osCommerce

This is the most popular online store application. You can customize it with thousands of free add-ons. To see it in action, look at the live demo here.

AgoraCart Shopping Cart

If you just need a shopping cart, AgoraCart is easier to manage than osCommerce. The list of features is here.

Zen Cart

Zen Cart is another easy-to-use shopping cart program.

phpCOIN

phpCOIN stands for Clients, Orders, Invoices, and Notes. Originally designed for Web hosting resellers, it can now be used for any type of business.

Content Management System (CMS)

A Content Management System (CMS) is a powerful application that allows you to create a dynamic website without any knowledge of HTML, Javascript or PHP. A CMS provides several applications which are integrated and interdependent. You can use all of them, or just a few of them:

• a wiki
• a blog
• a forums

A CMS can be a great tool to easily manage an entire website. The user communities of the most popular CMS design add-ons that greatly expand their features.

The best known CMS are the following:

Drupal

This is currently the most popular CMS, and one of the first.

Joomla

Joomla is a relatively new player, but its user base has expanded very quickly.

Mambo

Mambo is another easy-to-use CMS.

PHP-Nuke

Another popular CMS.

The best way to choose which CMS would be best for your site is to test them. opensourceCMS has hundreds of CMS already installed that you can try for free without having to install them.

Project Management

Project management systems have a wide array of features, from bug tracking systems to a collaboration tools. They are aimed at small or medium businesses to coordinate the work of a team.

PHProjekt

PHProjekt is a groupware, a tool to coordinate a group or a community: calendar, events, file sharing, etc. The list of features is available here.

Mantis

Mantis is a bug tracking system. It can be used as a more generic ticketing system for doing customer support.

dotProject

dotProject is a project and task management system. You can try a live demo of the program here.

Image Gallery

Using image gallery tools, you can easily display photographs or artwork on your Web site. They can be your own photos, or your users’ pictures that they want to share with the world.

Coppermine Photo Gallery

Coppermine is the most popular photo gallery software. You can check out demos on their website.

Gallery

Show off your photos in one or more albums using Gallery. The list of features is available here.

4images

This is another image gallery management system. The list of features is available here.

Social Network

A wiki is a collection of Web pages which can be accessed and modified by anyone using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to share frequently updated information.. The most well-known example of a wiki is Wikipedia. You can use a wiki to build an entire website, or use a Content Management System if you need a dynamic site.

MediaWiki

MediaWiki is the wiki software that powers Wikipedia.

pmWiki

This is a simple wiki. The list of features is available here.

Twiki

Twiki is a modern-looking wiki. The list of features is available on the home page.

Other Software

Web hosting companies can offer more than 100 applications, not all of them are always useful. The other most popular software are the following:

Site builder

This application is an easy way to quickly create a few static pages from a template. However, this is not as powerful as a wiki or Content Management System.

Guestbook

Having a guestbook, where visitors could write down their comments about the site, was very popular early in the Web’s history. Now, they’re considered outdated, and attract too much spam.

phpMyVisites

phpMyVisites tracks Web statistics. This tool doesn't offer much more than the standard statistics already provided by most Web hosting companies.

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