Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Found My Site builder

[bashprompt18]

Well I have noticed lot's of talks about online Site builders and
did my research and Talked to companys and I have finaly decided and I will tell you why.

I chose Zen Site builder. http://sitemagix.com/

Why did I do this. Well I looked at Soholaunch I just didn't
feel my new Customers would be able to figure it out with out
a lot of tech support problems and the Cost was just a lot for
a small Web hosting company.

Site Builder Wizard I just didn't like it
and the price was too much for me.

Mambo, Not what I think my Customers could use
it's a frame work and you have to know a lot about
html and CSS to edit the themes.

SiteStudio the contact form and anything e-mail related. You have to set a global SMTP server which we all know would mean relaying, not good and from what people are saying it has more bugs than Cpanel.


I am sure I have not looked at all programs but The site zen staff respond to me fast, they work hard and they truly want your imput, Yes it's a new product and like all new products I am sure it's going to have it's problems but it's SOLID easy and the staff at sitemagix are GREAT. I would recomend it to any one, Just my 2 cents.

-John

[liquid]

Looks pretty decent, I deffinetely would agree with zen being a solid company. Have you had a chance to get any feedback from your clients, what are they saying about it? how was the install and integration process?

[bashprompt18]

Originally posted by tekneeks
Looks pretty decent, I deffinetely would agree with zen being a solid company. Have you had a chance to get any feedback from your clients, what are they saying about it? how was the install and integration process?

Yes I have gotten Feed back, people have had issues with
there pop blockers and site zen, I have customers with like
three pop up blocker running so they think they have disabled it
and well there are more and then it will not work, I don't think
that is the fault of the product and they are looking into a
way to deal with it better. Customers have found it easy to
use when they site down and look at the instructions infront
of them, I have had a customer that had problems but when
he spent the time to look at what was infront of him he was
cruzing!

There has been some feed back on the templates, customers
having a hard time finding a template in there that fits there
needs, but they are allways working on new templates and I
have gotten 6 new templates today and they are taking feedback
on what other templates are needed and they are not done
adding them.

The install is nice and easy you get an admin screen so you
can go in and activate or deactivate customers and see who
is using it, you can also set the config to Auto activate customers
and it uses system accounts so customers can just use there cpanel account to login to it.

I hope this helps you out, I love it and look forward to more
templates and updates and the comming Cpanel Intergration.

-John

[LP-Trel]

Their "Full" version is a very steep USD$10 per user. That is out of the budget of most hosts I know of seeing as even the H-Sphere control panel itself has a USD$4 per user license.

It shows promise but, until their pricing comes down I'll pass.

[bashprompt18]

Originally posted by LP-Trel
Their "Full" version is a very steep USD$10 per user. That is out of the budget of most hosts I know of seeing as even the H-Sphere control panel itself has a USD$4 per user license.

It shows promise but, until their pricing comes down I'll pass.

Well now let's look at it. With the sphere product you have paid good money in the first place I think the price is right on for what you have to pay for there product. Also if you look at many of the other site builders site zen is a vary fair price and they DON'T have to pay the $10.00 they can still use the basic zen and build there site no problem, just the full zen let's them do more, but
if you have found a Product that does what you want and is stable and in a price range you like more, I am happy for you
and good luck with it.

-John

[LP-Trel]

Originally posted by bashprompt18
Well now let's look at it. With the sphere product you have paid good money in the first place I think the price is right on for what you have to pay for there product. Also if you look at many of the other site builders site zen is a vary fair price and they DON'T have to pay the $10.00 they can still use the basic zen and build there site no problem, just the full zen let's them do more, but
if you have found a Product that does what you want and is stable and in a price range you like more, I am happy for you
and good luck with it.

-John

I've yet to find a decent site builder because:

1) Too expensive for what it is. Its a value add service, not the primary service of the company and it should be priced accordingly.

2) Too few features when completely browser compatible. It is either no features or IE only. With 45% of my visitors using IE and that % is dropping, how am I going to tell my customers to use something I wouldn't touch myself?

3) Inflexible design. I should be able to install it on my website and have it completely seperate from the control panel AND have it integrated.

Oh well guess I'm just too picky.

[bashprompt18]

Originally posted by LP-Trel
I've yet to find a decent site builder because:

1) Too expensive for what it is. Its a value add service, not the primary service of the company and it should be priced accordingly.

2) Too few features when completely browser compatible. It is either no features or IE only. With 45% of my visitors using IE and that % is dropping, how am I going to tell my customers to use something I wouldn't touch myself?

3) Inflexible design. I should be able to install it on my website and have it completely seperate from the control panel AND have it integrated.

Oh well guess I'm just too picky.

I understand what you are talking about and well if you are paying for a product it must be able to use it. As I understand it is very Hard if not close to impossable to add support for EVERY Browser but who knows something may change in that area,
and I must say it's also a good Marketing tool to have a site builder as well.

Wish you luck in your venture.

[demostorm]

Sitezen is a solid product and probably the only other sitebuilder out there I would consider using besides Soholaunch. It beats Soholaunch in templates (by miles for now) and has a definite edge on the editor (however I fine certain parts of the editor too complex for newbies). Where Soholaunch has it beat is in features, pricing and branding. I have three major concerns with Sitezen and I expect they will eventually be resolved (as I expect Soholaunch to resolve my issues with it).

The first I have raised with them in regards to ecommerce and they have indicated doing something with Oscommerce (which I think is a mistake) . So for better or worse Soholaunch is the only affordable sitebuilder out there that actually has addressed the (to me) obvious necessity of ecommerce (beyond using paypal's cart which is no solution).

The second is in regards to pricing not because the product base costs too much but because they have sought to divide editor functions into two different products. A) I don't know that I would pay $30 more (as they suggest from the enduser) for a few more editing functions. Features like a store, photo album or what we would normally associate with add on modules definitely but not to get functionality out of an online editor purposelessly left out. If I bought an offline editor, say Dreamweaver, and then found that I had to pay extra to for it to edit certain elements of a web page I'd feel tricked into a kind of trojan profit machine and I'd be reasonably upset especially with my host if I bought through them B) I haven's seen anyone describe how that upgrade works. If I buy a license for a customer and he leaves or discontinues service what then becomes of the license?

Third, If I am reading correctly (and if not please let me know) they are still insisting on their logo in areas the user will see. Cobranding is fine for many applications but I just don't think most host want core functions on their sites advertising to other hosts who they use or to their customers that the application is available through other sources and yes end users will easily find the Sitezen home page through a search and Sitemagix will end up referring customers to other hosts. No one could argue with a small copyright notice on templates or the control areas but having a logo for Sitezen (IF this is still the case) only serves Sitezen's needs and goes counter to the hosts desire to differentiate themselves and be seen as the solution provider.

I expect we will see many threads in the future about Sitezen and Soholaunch. I know Soholaunch is not done yet and I am sure neither is Sitezen. Good time to begin looking at both.

[bithost(NET)]

I cannot even access the SiteZen demo builder because it is not compatible with Mac web browsers.

C'mon guys, if Drag-and-Drop can do it, so can the rest of ya'.

Ticking another one off the old list...

Bailey

[Daviey]

Originally posted by bithost(NET)
I cannot even access the SiteZen demo builder because it is not compatible with Mac web browsers.

C'mon guys, if Drag-and-Drop can do it, so can the rest of ya'.

Ticking another one off the old list...

Bailey

Not to knock your choice of OS, but how many of your clients would lack of Mac support really affect? FWIW, I think they do explain this in their FAQ. Besides, one chooses a Mac to be different, not compatible, right

[Techark]

Kind of limiting that they do not support Firefox with all the security problems IE has.

[demostorm]

Originally posted by bithost(NET)
C'mon guys, if Drag-and-Drop can do it, so can the rest of ya'.

Ticking another one off the old list...

Bailey

Would have been interesting if a reputable company was behind that product wouldn't it have? I've suggested to them that now since their name is mud they might consider licensing that software to Soholaunch or someone else (With Sitezen's editor don't think they would go for it). For some strange reason they weren't very big on the idea. They are still under the illusion that they can make it on their own without market experience or a good reputation.

Even offered to be a go between for them. Turned it down flat even though linking with a good company would almost guarantee some success even if it meant giving up some profit which they probably won't see that much of now anyway. Can't sell any licenses at their last high price and can't get enough sales volume to sustain them.

Anyway I can tell you that Soholaunch is doing some work toward Mac compatibility. I don't think they are their yet but by the time D&D figures out how badly they shot themselves in the foot Sitezen or Soholaunch will be ready with Mozilla/Firefox for Mac and Windows

[Daviey]

Originally posted by Techark
Kind of limiting that they do not support Firefox with all the security problems IE has.

I think it is precisely the security in Firefox which limits the features needed for the editor SiteZen uses. If you are looking to be profitable as soon as possible, using IE's well established features and overwhelming user base would be the way to go. Firefox compatiblity can come second and not substantially hurt income. Also, most of us that use Firefox have IE on hand, either for testing site designs or just using those sites that refuse to work in Firefox. It's not like the sites created with SiteZen will be browser specific. I just don't see this as a significant barrier.

I have to say, I do like this product. It has a good feel to it, logical steps and an already great template selection. The pricing is affordable and the developers seem to have a solid plan. I'm glad to see more choices entering this market.

David

[magixman]

I hope that I am not violating the rules by responding to this thread to clarify a point/question regarding the pricing on siteZen. I realize these threads are for hosts to discuss vendors and products so I will limit my comments to clarification of factual issues.

demostorm asked what happens if a customer leaves after paying the siteZen upgrade fee. The answer is that you will not be charged. You are only charged for clients that you actually have on your server. After all if one client leaves, another will hopefully fill their place and there is no sense in charging twice.

One other point that was speculated on by Daviey was whether it was the “security in Firefox which limits the features needed for the editor in siteZen”. This is not the case at all. It is simply that the W3C have not seen fit to include (as of yet) features that allow editing of html online. IE has had extensions for some time to address this and Firefox has added some of the extensions but not enough to allow a fully WYSWYG interface. We (and probably all online site builder companies) hope this situation will change in the near future.

[bashprompt18]

Originally posted by Techark
Kind of limiting that they do not support Firefox with all the security problems IE has.

Well maybe it's time to Bug the Mozilla people at add the
extensions. As I unserstand it that is what is missing
I use I.E. and Mozilla myself and I think if you have a
windows PC you have I.E. Heck on my Linux Workstation
I have corssover office and run I.E. on it for the required
things. So one site builder has support for mozilla but
I am sure it's missing some functions and it's not as good
as it could be if they had not had to do this work around,
and if this work around doesn't restric it in anyway then
I guess it's time to find out what they did (Sam) so we
can have this option.

-John