There are some amazingly generous and helpful software comparison sites on the web that don't get thanked enough for the service that they provide to the web community. These are the open and free "grid comparison" sites. (Coining "grid sites" here and now).
Three that we've used more than once are: "OpenSourceCMS", "ForumMatrix" and "WikiMatrix". I'll say thanks here, in my way, with this quick mention and links to these three. If you have others that you like, please write to me and let me know. Maybe we'll do a comparison of grid sites. (pepper@w3pg.com)
What these sites do is build a database of comparable features for a type of web software. The three mentioned respectively compare the engines for content management systems ("CMS"), web forums (also called "BBS" or "bulletin boards") and wiki engines.
The sheer numbers of different software systems for these crucial web functions is daunting when it comes to selecting the appropriate platform for a particular task or a particular client. It's difficult to just find them all and sort them out on the simple matters such as "do they actually work" and "are they still viable and supported". If or when you start getting into comparing the specific features of each system to the others the task goes from daunting to crushing.
These grid sites create a workable grid of comparable features and then, in the wiki way, invite knowledgeable "maintainers" to enter a column of objective information for their software system that expressly responds to each feature listed in the grid. Most of the features listed are binary yes-or-no, have-it or don't-have-it questions. Of the remaining features the maintainer is forced to answer with straight facts uncolored by promotional zeal. Questions such as "what language is the system written in" leave little room for filigree.
For a visitor to these grid sites the data is presented in an actual grid. The sites all have informative support material to help the visitor learn what the compared features are and what they will mean both in use on a website and in comparing the features one to another. The visitor is permitted to select the software systems that they wish to compare and then is shown an actual grid of systems and their features. The grids all use easy to understand icons to indicate the yes, no or other status of the systems for each feature. Usually a green icon means that it has the feature and a red one means it does not.
Gray areas are supported too, though. Not everything is a flat true-or-false situation. One common situation is that these software systems support "plugin" extensions to their essential feature set. So the answer to if a feature is supported or not may be "yes" or "no" or "by plugin" -- which sometimes is better than a straight "yes". There are many other situations where the grid site support of more than just yes or no is crucially helpful.
So "thanks" to these terrific grid comparison sites. They are a wonderful invention, amazingly helpful and a very generous service to the web community.
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