PHP Software Reviews

SkaDate

webmaster — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:01:28 +0000

Summary

SkaDate is a community oriented dating software that is stuffed with features. It is offered as a hosted dating site or as standalone software. With the high price tag and little flexibility, you may want to think twice before purchasing it. Although it does come with some nice features so still worth a look.

Features

SkaDate is filled with various features. It allows profile searches, saving searches, picture and video uploads and others. These features aren’t as flexible as they could have been. It’s also not possible to easily disable those features you do not need. So if you plan on running a site that doesn’t need events, you’ll be stuck with them anyway. This means that your server resources will be spent on something you don’t even use.

Usability

The extensive feature list is good but what would be even better is a well organized control panel. It takes forever to find something in there. Any basic website management activities such as changing menu items, managing profile questions, changing information content, changing watermarks on user photos and other simple actions can be done through the control panel. Front-end side of the website is quite easy to use but could be more user friendly.

Design

SkaDate offers various template designs for you to choose from. They do look almost the same though so if you would like your site to look unique, you’ll probably need to spend some time on customizing templates. Control panel looks a bit old and could use some improvements especially in the design area.

Flexibility

If you opt in for their managed solution, you won’t have any access to the script’s source code so any changes will be impossible. If you purchase standalone version, you’ll be able to modify it but it may prove to be challenging as the code is not very efficient and takes a big learning curve.

Support

SkaDate offers technical support like most other companies. What makes them different is that you have to pay separately for support.

Price

SkaDate dating software is available as a managed solution for $125/month with a $295 setup fee, and as standalone solution for $795. Keep in mind that you will still need to pay separately for support if you decide to purchase their standalone product. They also offer a lot of other non-related products that they’re trying to get you to buy during the ordering process.

Conclusion

The pricing seems a bit on the higher side, particularly if one is to look at the monthly fees to be paid for management and support. Aside that fact there’s very little flexibility and high degree of learning the code and structure of the script if you plan on customizing it. Technical support is also not so “supportive” after the purchase.

vldPersonals

webmaster — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:59:14 +0000

Summary

vldPersonals is packed with numerous useful and easy to use features required to get a professional dating or personals website up and running. From amongst most of the other dating scripts available on the market, it seems to have the most flexibility and the best technical support. All these and other factors make it a very enticing purchase.

Features

Like most PHP dating scripts vldPersonals comes with a set of commonly used features. One of the things that makes it stand out from others is the high level of control you have over every part of your website. Entire management is done through the control panel where you can tweak the system to your needs. Software itself is very flexible and provides you with a wide variety of different settings. It’s important to note that all pages of your site including members’ profiles are search-engine friendly which is crucial in getting your site found and crawled by search engines. vldPersonals also integrates with popular forum boards to help you grow your community. Installation of the software is available free of charge if you require it, making it possible even for non technical people to use this product. Their additional free hosting offer makes it that much easier to get a dating website up and running.

Usability

Control panel is very easy to use and work with. All menus and navigation links are well laid out in a way that makes finding necessary features and settings quite effortless. Extensive automation ensures that website management becomes an absolute breeze for the administrator. Software comes with several free templates you may choose from. Certain features take advantage of the so popular ajax based controls making it easier for your users to navigate through the site.

Design

Several templates are included with vldPersonals which all look different so you can choose one that suits your needs. Considering the importance that designs have in the overall appeal of any dating website, developers have done a good job in terms of offering the variety of options. All of these templates take advantage of the popular table-less structure and are fully customizable. Creating your own templates is also possible. I strongly suggest to view their showcase for examples as some of their clients really performed an outstanding job customizing the look of their websites. Whether you plan on using it for a match making site, social community or personals management, it’s all possible just by giving it the right look.

Flexibility

Websites made with vldPersonals are easy to customize and manage. This script open source and its code is heavily commented so if you feel adventurous you can take it to the next level and modify or extend default functionality. Changing how your website looks and performs is quite simple too. Functionality of the software can be extended by using extensions which is convenient as it doesn’t affect any of the original code which makes software updates easier.

Support

Support offered with the purchase of vldPersonals is another factor that makes this product stand out. Response times are surprisingly fast, not to mention the post-sales support is just as helpful as pre-sales. On top of that their website includes a comprehensive documentation and community forum. Latter one allows users to exchange mutually beneficial viewpoints and experiences related to the software. Most of the time you can find answers to your questions on the forum in case you have any.

Price

There are two different license options offered. Personals license for $99 and commercial license for $199. Both are almost identical in terms of features. The main difference is that commercial license allows you to use your site for commercial purposes.

Conclusion

vldPersonals comes across as a top notch dating software suite that is rich on features and yet very flexible and stable. All the basic goodies required to have a successful website up and running are included. It is priced quite low in comparison to other similar products available on the market which makes it even more appealing for purchase. On top of that, unlike other products, all features offered with the product are included and you don’t have to pay extra for them. Combined with free installation, templates, language packs and free upgrades vldPersonals is a rock-solid solution to break into the world of dating and match making business and makes an excellent value for your money.

webDate

webmaster — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:57:35 +0000

Summary

webDate is combined with numerous features and seems to come across as good value for money. It has several additional offers which are provided free of cost such as installation, and one year of updates all of which also make it appealing. It does have pitfalls though which could make you turn around and walk away, read on to find out why.

Features

webDate is packed with features, both at the front and back ends. They claim to be able to support upwards of 300,000 profiles at a time although we failed to find any live websites using their product to support such claim. At the profile level, members can create their profiles either in four steps, or in a single one. At the administrative panel, general features include a template system, a built in billing system, along with software settings that are modifiable. Statistics are available to administrators to view site’s activity. It’s very important to note that some features must be purchased separately so even though you see them in their online demo, it doesn’t mean they’re included.

Usability

In short webDate is quite easy-to-use. Even a person with negligible programming or coding knowledge can create a reasonably powerful, feature-rich dating website. This however makes customizations harder for designers since they have to work around the built in code. There are also numerous bugs in this product that will not allow any serious buyer use webDate for their website. What’s worse is that developers don’t seem to fix these bugs as they have been outstanding for a very long time.

Design

The webDate software suite, when purchased, comes with several template files that are customizable and can be modified if needed. Each of these templates has a bit old fashioned and contemporary feel to them which may appeal to older users of dating sites. The control panel is easy to manage but can be somewhat complicated at first.

Flexibility

A few templates are included with the software purchase but you can also purchase so called premium templates that are supposedly better. Unfortunately the coding of these templates is by far not the best so you may have to struggle some to make necessary modifications.

Support

webDate is strong on the pre-sales support front however post-sales support is lacking to say the least. If you have a problem or encountered a bug, you’re likely not going to get any response, let alone provided with a solution. In fact, it’s so bad that we found one of their clients set up a website where unfortunate buyers could communicate and help each other.

Price

webDate offers a very straightforward, at the same time, dynamic pricing option. The standard dating software suite comes for $199, which is acceptable until you learn that you have to pay more for some of the features they advertise and showcase in their online demo.

Conclusion

webDate is a feature-rich dating software suite. Considering the straightforward and low pricing offered by the company, webDate could be considered to be very good value for money. That is until you learn about its problems and non-existent post-sales support. If you are serious about your purchase and would like to run a successful website, you should look at some other dating software solutions.

Dating Pro

webmaster — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:56:01 +0000

Summary

Dating Pro is a fully functional dating software script that allows the prompt and easy creation of dating, personals and social networking websites. It does not claim itself to be the best in business, particularly if one is to look at the competition around. Rather it endeavors to be a useful, value-for-money online dating software suite, which suitably addresses the demanding nature of today’s youth, who are by far the biggest consumers of online dating websites.

Features

The latest version of Dating Pro includes some free templates, an ecards service, a questions and answers section, a blogs catalogue, a newly-launched hot or not rating as well as a top 100 listing. Overall Dating Pro features are quite common for the product in this category. What we didn’t like however was that were no easy way, or perhaps no way at all in some cases, to disable unwanted features. Sure it’s great to have a variety of different functionality, but hey, not all of us want classifieds, forums, or events. It’s important to note that their online demo showcases quite a lot of features, which in fact you have to pay for separately if you want them.

Usability

Administration panel is somewhat confusing and could definitely use better structuring. They could also do some work on improving the overall layout. Front end interface is better but still not as user friendly as it could have been. For non-technical users it may take some time to figure out what is what.

Design

Along with your purchase, a few template design templates are included. All of these templates are customizable and one can easily add one’s own images, text or colors. Additional premium design templates are not included in the license package, but may be purchased separately. Personally default templates look kind of old and don’t meet today’s standards.

Flexibility

Software templates can be customized by default. If you would like to have access to software PHP files, you will need to purchase an open source license that costs almost twice as much. Without it you won’t be able to change default functionality or extend feature set of the script.

Support

Support for Dating Pro is satisfactory. You can communicate with their staff via several methods including help desk, live chat or phone at your own preference. You can also request a callback using their online form. Lastly, Dating Pro already has in place an extensive knowledge base which is likely to contain answers to all the plausible questions that customers generally tend to raise.

Price

Dating Pro has two licenses for you to choose from including basic license and an open source one. Furthermore each license can be purchased either with a full set of features starting from $1399 or you can choose feature modules separately. In addition to the above options, Dating Pro also has the option of multi domain licenses if you would like to run more than one website. It would be noteworthy to mention that Dating Pro does not charge any separate monthly or annual fees.

Conclusion

In conclusion, one can say that Dating Pro is robust and feature-rich online dating software. The templates offered by Dating Pro need a bit of improvement but are good enough. There’s free installation and support which is a big plus for non technical people, though this is not necessarily a big advantage as many other online dating software providers offer the same. Other than a high price tag and a little shortage of flexibility, Dating Pro is a good choice.

eMeeting

webmaster — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:54:06 +0000

Summary

eMeeting dating software suite is a neat package, with a lot of features and an affordable price tag. Using eMeeting, one can create a dating site such as match.com fairly quickly, without banging your head against the wall for the programming involved. The software is fully automated and comes with features such as instant messaging, photo galleries, private photos, video clips, among a host of others. All of this is backed by reliable technical support and free installation.

Features

eMeeting offers a whole host of various features including flash chat rooms, instant messenger, forums and others. Nothing out of the ordinary that would make it stand out among other dating software providers. It would be great if features included in the product were more flexible and provided more options though. It’s also not possible to disable those features you do not want to have on your website. Most companies add a ton of features to their scripts which is a good thing until the whole product looks like a pile of unproductive code. Maybe one day they’ll redo certain things to make them better. They could also improve efficiency of the code because your website will get slower as it grows.

Usability

This dating script is reasonably easy to use and manage. It is almost fully automated, so the process of building a dating website and running it is almost hassle-free. Most tasks get streamlined and automated. Control panel looks unintuitive so you need to spend some time to find a certain feature or setting. Developers should probably reorganize their administrative layout to make it more efficient.

Design

eMeeting offers both paid and free design templates. Additionally, every template comes with a demo preview option so that the user can try the same out before actually downloading them. All templates are customizable and one can add one’s own colors, images and text. Template categories are wide and varied. Majority is of course for plain-Jane online dating, but there are also the lascivious ones like those for Swingers, Gays/Lesbians, as well as those categorized along racial groups such as blacks, Indians, etc. It does look though that their templates do not take advantage of latest technologies and rely on old coding style. While it still works, you may have a hard time when it comes to customizing templates.

Flexibility

If you’re looking to customize the software or extend its functionality you need to spend several times more on an open source license. With the basic license files are encoded and you will not be able to make changes to anything but templates. Also as it was mentioned above, there is no easy way of disabling unwanted features so you’re stuck with whatever there is. It would be great if eMeeting was able to integrate with third party products such as forums or instant messengers.

Support

Customer support is of reasonably good quality, with numerous options available for contacting the company, whether phone, email or live chat across most of the popular IM clients. Their website also features video tutorials which make the process of familiarization with eMeeting rather effortless. The online ticketing system on the website also provides for easy submission of complaints or any other issues you’re faced while using eMeeting.

Price

eMeeting has two licenses you may choose from. Basic license is $200 and offers all of the features but is encoded so you won’t be able to modify the script. Their developer license is a whooping $800 but gives you an option to edit the source code. If you would like to remove eMeeting’s branding from your website you will need to spend another $130 to for branding removal option.

Conclusion

Development, software updates and community could be a bit more active. But if you don’t plan on making any customizations, extending the default functionality or having complete control over the site’s features, eMeeting is a neat product at a fair price. Webmasters looking to offer a comprehensive dating solution should consider it.

AbleDating

webmaster — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:58:33 +0000

Summary

AbleDating is one of the very few fully ajax-based dating products available in the market. Of Russian origin, with a small American presence, it’s supported by Russian freelance programmers. AbleDating offers numerous features. Multiple payment options are also supported by AbleDating including PayPal, WorldPay, GoldPay, 2CO, NetBilling and PaySystems. Overall, one can assume that AbleDating is a good dating script that can help you get your dating website up and running, promptly and without any hassles. But is that really the case? Read on to find out.

Features

One feature offered by AbleDating that stands out is its “3D City Second Life Virtual World” which allows customers to click into a completely different fantasy world, occupied by other visitors of the site. This feature allows all of these visitors to in turn interact with one another. Another new feature offered by AbleDating is the MySpace+Flash profile editor which allows members to simply draw their way towards editing their respective profiles, instead of doing any complex coding. Other features include Video Chat, YouTube-like video sharing, Flash chat with multiple rooms, various Flash games, recorded greetings, feature-rich photo album, love calculators, and more. Unfortunately the software itself is quite buggy and sooner or later all of its users run into issues. Perhaps it would be better if company focused its attention on fixing bugs than throwing piles of not functioning features.

Usability

Administration panel of AbleDating looks like it was developed in the 90s by high school students. Navigation menus are placed throughout the control panel without any structure whatsoever. Absolute no error checking whatsoever so even slight tampering with the URL causes a problem. If such a small thing as URL validation is not done, I’d hate to say how unsecure the whole script really is. Not much to say about the front-end either as it’s not any better than their control panel.

Design

AbleDating offers several template designs, each of which is completely unique. AbleDating claims that all these templates are customizable. The reality of this is totally opposite though. If you would like to customize any part of the template, prepare for a challenge because that’s what it takes to make changes.

Flexibility

Considering poor coding of the script it’s not that easy, to say the least, to customize it. Software files have no organization whatsoever. In other words you’ll be stuck with what you bought without any possibility of customizations.

Support

Their technical support seems to be quite quick to answer questions via email. That is presales support. If you have a question after you have purchased the software, prepare for a long wait. If you have a problem with the software or ran into a bug, brace yourself as you’re on your own.

Price

AbleDating offers differential pricing with varied licensing options. Single domain license will cost you $597, or if you would like to have a unique design $697. Unique template design is supposedly made by the company however I highly doubt you will get a truly unique template for only a $100. Other licenses are also available for people who want to install AbleDating on more than one domain.

Conclusion

AbleDating is an oasis in the desert. It looks great from the distance but once you come closer and do a little research, your hopes will fade away quickly. Buggy features and non-existent post-sales support with a high price tag on the software. And on top of all that, developers of AbleDating run several of their own dating sites which means they are your direct competition. As a final warning I should point out that there are many fake reviews about AbleDating on the internet left by its developers and staff. Something to watch out for if you would like to research this further.

HostGator

webmaster — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:59:12 +0000

HostGator has become one of the better known web hosts in the industry by being themselves. Though nothing they do is completely spectacular or unbelievable, they do what they should do. That is, HostGator actually answers their phones, replies to their emails, responds to live chat requests, doesn’t rip you off, and provides quality hosting. HostGator is providing shared, reseller and dedicated plans. All three plans have different packages according to your requirements, which can be easily compared with any other web hosting for their exceptional price and incredible features.

BlueHost

webmaster — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:44:58 +0000

BlueHost is one of the oldest web hosting companies and has gone through a lot of changes. They have increased the space, bandwidth and no of domains per account to match the best offer in the industry while keeping the price affordable. Now they offer unlimited domains and resources to match. If you are looking to host multiple domains and want the assurance of a reliable host, BlueHost is a great option.

Lunarpages

webmaster — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:15:33 +0000

Lunarpages has a reputation of being one of the top shared web hosts. Their prices are reasonable and they offer good customer support and high uptime. Lunarpages offers extreme amount of space and bandwidth, taking overselling to the next level. They also offer windows hosting. Another favorite for small business web sites, who may need good amount of bandwidth and good support. Lunarpages offers a 30 day money back guarantee, so if for some reason you are unsatisfied with the service you recieve, you will recieve a full refund for the package you signed up for.