Don't Reinvent the Wheel - Use Open Source

Don't reinvent the wheel.  It's a cliche for a reason.  And it's true in most aspects of life, especially business.  Very rarely will you want to start from scratch - with anything.

When launching a product or starting a business, would you like to invent plastic again?  How about paper?  The pen?  Of course not.

And yet with web development, many desire to do just that.  They desire to throw away years of experience and dedicated development in favor of untested, custom code.

In most cases, doing something from the ground up is a complete waste of time and resources.  This is why we always recommend open source frameworks as a foundation.  It save us time and money, and therefore save you time and money.

Content Management Systems (CMS) like Drupal and Wordpress (our favorties) offer basic functionality for you to manage and update your website, plus built-in advanced functionality like user accounts, comments, and integrated rich-text editors. With their design and layout themeing systems, you can make your website look 100% custom and unique without spending the actual time and money to make it 100% custom and unique.

Both of these CMS's also have a full library of modules and/or plugins that extend the basic functionality without having to write a line of code.  Just upload the files and enable it.  It would be pointless to list any at the moment, because there are literally tens of thousands of them.

Since these open source frameworks are created and maintained by thousands of dedicated developers, the code is usually clean, well-written, and secure.  And it's always being improved and updated, adding more value to your website everyday.

Customization is still an option with open source.  That's why it's open source, so anyone can take a look at the code and make it do what they want.  If a module or plugin doesn't meet your needs, one can be written so that it does.  Rather than starting with nothing, however, you already have a foundation and frame.  You just need to add the interior decoration, or maybe an extra bathroom.

And that's where Propdrop comes in.  We can manage all of this for you, to hosting, installation, management, and customization.