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Data Becker CMS overview

November 14, 2009 by vito

I've just come through another interesting German CMS which is Data Becker http://www.databecker.de this time , downloaded and set up English and German trial versions (which were suprisingly big - 183 and 208 Mb correspondingly) and made some quick tests.

Here are some outcomes:

1. All pages layout is broken in IE6 and Safari, all pictures are missing. Seems that Data Becker, as being a proprietary and not widely spread CMS, does not have enough testing by its community and support by its developer, just like it was expected. As all the cross-browser bugs are one of the most difficult to fix, and IE6/7's and Safari are one of the most difficult browsers to fix for, we won't expect for any changes and fixes from its developers soon.

2. All fonts are too small in Opera, for the same reasons as in point 1.

3. All pages HTML is not valid, for the same reasons as in point 1.

4. Site is loading a bit slow what is a bit strange as the site is relatively small.

5. Data Becker is .exe installer at the http://www.todate.com/download.php by some unknown reason, it won't work on Unix hostings. However it uses Apache, so it isn't works with IIS.

6. Data Becker is using its own modified Apache http server which seem to fit good only for local testing not production sites.

7. Data Becker's database is multiple MDB (Access) files which are seem to not ensure enough performance for production sites.

8. Templates and modules of Data Becker are having internal format which is hard to edit and change and isn't compatible with any other format, for the same reasons as in point 1.

9. All site-wide operations on Data Becker are to be done through its Windows-based application used as admin panel. So if some moderators and co-moderators are needed, they are needed to have Windows and this application what may be unsafe.

11. In common, Data Becker isn't go far from Marlida, it is not much of a CMS in the common sense, it's more like a closed, proprietary medium-size collection of templates with the own web server and a Windows desktop tool to set these up easily. Templates and modules are made to be hard to modify from the very beginning to ensure nobody just Data Becker's developers would be able to do it. Its web server is internal for some unknown reason and its db is slow and unreliable and it is harldy to be used for production sites, it is just quick to deploy for testing and setting up initial site layout, but the site itself is meant to be developed further with other, more powerful and flexible systems.