Have you ever wished your website had a forum, a blog, a photo galley, or maybe even a shopping cart? And you were so excited to get that all set up until you realized you had no idea how to do it and quickly became so frustrated trying to find an easy solution you just gave up?
What if all you had to do was click one button? If only it were that easy you say? Seriously, it\'s now that easy - or so claims the team at Simple Scripts. We\'re putting their single-click script installation system to the test and comparing it against their competitors Fantastico and Installatron.
Simple Scripts VS. Fantastico VS. Installatron
Round 1 - Just How Simple is Simple Scripts?
A quick overview shows us that Simple Scripts has made a solid initial entry into the competition. It clearly has an edge over Fantastico and maintains a slight edge over Installatron in a few key areas. The first, and probably most important is in the ease of deployment for the end user. To install a feature you quite literally click one button. Simple Script Upgrade Page. For example we wanted to upgrade our Word Press blog to the latest stable build (2.6.1) so we went to our control panels Simple Script page saw that next to our Word Press icon there was an upgrade link. We clicked that and the next screen looked like the one here. Clicking on the upgrade button brought up a bar which showed us what was going on and in a few moments we were at the completion screen which included some really exciting notes. Simple Script Revert Version Page Notice the links to view your site and even go back to the old one if something went wrong. Maybe it\'s just us, but that seems really slick. I can\'t tell you the number of times I\'ve upgraded software to find that it\'s destroyed something and I\'ve been left with no way to revert the process. But the question remains, how did it do?
Selecting the link to view the site we noticed our custom image on the top was gone. I guess we\'ll have to replace that with each update - maybe we edited it improperly. It should be an easy fix but for fun we decided to revert back to the old site and see what would happen. Clicking the revert button gave us a list of backups we could use so we chose the most recent one and hit the Submit button. A few moments later and the blog was back to it\'s old state. Ultimately we really did want to upgrade so we went and performed the upgrade, quickly added our image back to the top and we\'re now fully updated. Pretty impressive.
With Fantastico and Installatron things aren\'t alwasy so quick and simple. Fantastico, for example, requires you to wait for the host to upgrade to the latest version which could take weeks. Installatron does a bit better but still could often leave you out of date for several days.
Round 2 - The Overview
The following chart shows a breakdown of the core differences between the three script installation systems. Notice that Simple Scripts has the best option in each category except for it\'s lack of support for DirectAdmin. Regardless we have to give it props for being the best all around package.
(A table with the feature comparison can be viewed on the author\'s original site)
Round 3 - Script Support
Each of the systems also comes with a host of ready to go scripts. In this category Installatron has a small lead with Fantastico coming in at a close second, but for most users Simple Script still has a solid initial offering covering all the key areas you\'ll be interested in. In our evaluation we couldn\'t find anything we really needed that wasn\'t available. Several of the extra scripts you\'ll find for Fantastico and Installatron are really specific and not overly useful to most people. It remains undecided though how all three will continue to support new scripts.
(A table with the scripts for each system can be viewed on the author\'s original site)
Conclusion - And The Verdict Is?
There\'s definitely a new competitor in town, and a very solid one at that. While Simple Script support is currently only found on a few web hosting services we\'ve been told negotiations are taking place and we\'re expecting to see its use expand significantly. When it comes down to it Simple Scripts really is a very simple, easy to use system and we expect it to be received very well by the web hosting community. If you\'d like to check out Simple Scripts you can visit their website at www.simplescripts.com. If you\'re currently a Bluehost user you already have access to Simple Scripts and really should give it a try.
What if all you had to do was click one button? If only it were that easy you say? Seriously, it\'s now that easy - or so claims the team at Simple Scripts. We\'re putting their single-click script installation system to the test and comparing it against their competitors Fantastico and Installatron.
Simple Scripts VS. Fantastico VS. Installatron
Round 1 - Just How Simple is Simple Scripts?
A quick overview shows us that Simple Scripts has made a solid initial entry into the competition. It clearly has an edge over Fantastico and maintains a slight edge over Installatron in a few key areas. The first, and probably most important is in the ease of deployment for the end user. To install a feature you quite literally click one button. Simple Script Upgrade Page. For example we wanted to upgrade our Word Press blog to the latest stable build (2.6.1) so we went to our control panels Simple Script page saw that next to our Word Press icon there was an upgrade link. We clicked that and the next screen looked like the one here. Clicking on the upgrade button brought up a bar which showed us what was going on and in a few moments we were at the completion screen which included some really exciting notes. Simple Script Revert Version Page Notice the links to view your site and even go back to the old one if something went wrong. Maybe it\'s just us, but that seems really slick. I can\'t tell you the number of times I\'ve upgraded software to find that it\'s destroyed something and I\'ve been left with no way to revert the process. But the question remains, how did it do?
Selecting the link to view the site we noticed our custom image on the top was gone. I guess we\'ll have to replace that with each update - maybe we edited it improperly. It should be an easy fix but for fun we decided to revert back to the old site and see what would happen. Clicking the revert button gave us a list of backups we could use so we chose the most recent one and hit the Submit button. A few moments later and the blog was back to it\'s old state. Ultimately we really did want to upgrade so we went and performed the upgrade, quickly added our image back to the top and we\'re now fully updated. Pretty impressive.
With Fantastico and Installatron things aren\'t alwasy so quick and simple. Fantastico, for example, requires you to wait for the host to upgrade to the latest version which could take weeks. Installatron does a bit better but still could often leave you out of date for several days.
Round 2 - The Overview
The following chart shows a breakdown of the core differences between the three script installation systems. Notice that Simple Scripts has the best option in each category except for it\'s lack of support for DirectAdmin. Regardless we have to give it props for being the best all around package.
(A table with the feature comparison can be viewed on the author\'s original site)
Round 3 - Script Support
Each of the systems also comes with a host of ready to go scripts. In this category Installatron has a small lead with Fantastico coming in at a close second, but for most users Simple Script still has a solid initial offering covering all the key areas you\'ll be interested in. In our evaluation we couldn\'t find anything we really needed that wasn\'t available. Several of the extra scripts you\'ll find for Fantastico and Installatron are really specific and not overly useful to most people. It remains undecided though how all three will continue to support new scripts.
(A table with the scripts for each system can be viewed on the author\'s original site)
Conclusion - And The Verdict Is?
There\'s definitely a new competitor in town, and a very solid one at that. While Simple Script support is currently only found on a few web hosting services we\'ve been told negotiations are taking place and we\'re expecting to see its use expand significantly. When it comes down to it Simple Scripts really is a very simple, easy to use system and we expect it to be received very well by the web hosting community. If you\'d like to check out Simple Scripts you can visit their website at www.simplescripts.com. If you\'re currently a Bluehost user you already have access to Simple Scripts and really should give it a try.
By: Ed Grier
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