Compare Bespoke & Alfresco

[dhimanharry]

Hi all,

I am in confusion about Bespoke & Alfresco CMS, Please help me to differenciate these two.


Thanks in Advance,

Harry

[zaizi]

Bespoke means custom making something. E.g. making a bespoke suit. Made to order.

Why build your own CMS or puchase a customised one when you can just use Alfresco? You can even use Alfresco within your own application: http://www.alfresco.com/partners/programme/oem/.

[dhimanharry]

Thanks zaizi,

Can u please lemme know in depth……technical Streangths of Alfresco over Bespoke.


Thanks in Advance

[mrogers]

A bespoke solution will be perfectly fitted to your requirements (if you are lucky and skillfull) but expensive.   If you are unlucky you will pay a fortune for something that does not fit your requirements or for something that is not well made or fit for purpose.   So to ask for technical strenghts of a bespoke solution, since it could do anything, is non-sense.   Its simply going to be as good as your developers, analysts, managers and finances allow.

What Alfresco will bring is a system that works for most people, built by experts in their field over several years, the advantages are cheaper costs for you and less risk but if your requirement is very specialised then a bespoke solution may be what you need.

You could also consider a hybrid solution which is to use a system such as alfresco and extend it with your own bespoke extensions if you have special requirements which is probably what most people will do.

[zaizi]

The link points to using Alfresco OEM and the advantages of it. If you take Alfresco and customise your specific / bespoke solution on top, then you get the best of both worlds.

You'll have a solution that fits your needs but is built upon a robust ECM platform. Alfresco will of course continue to mature and add new features. You can then just update the underlying Alfresco to make use of these new features.

With a bespoke solution, you are going to have to add new features yourself. Chances are you won't have the resources or the time to add similar features to Alfresco.

As the phrase goes "Why re-invent the wheel?".

This is the open source way. Take components and solutions and put them together to build your specific solution on top. Alfresco uses other open source components that are being developed and enhancement separately by those project teams.