portal entry

You need to present to and convince the decision makers to use Coldfusion/Lucee. Everyone preaches to the choir of developers but we are usually hired by someone who has been told what platform is being used. Market to the big 3 C folks through a barrage of who is using CF and why they should too. Fast to market with new sites and changes, a stable and robust platform, lots of senior level people who can oversee and train the next generation of developers... Etc. These high level folks just want the job done right with little risk of failure. They need reasons why they should set aside what other marketing efforts have convinced them that the other solution choices are superior. Build a list of who is using CF, old apps still running flawlessly, new apps with all of the toys. Offer a challenge of from specs building of Coldfusion vs any other platform to show that CF is just as good and maybe better while saving time and money to get a web product to market/live. Give them a new comfort level through proof. Just my two cents on the subject.  

Comment by Jerry Borsh

One of the biggest drawbacks of Adobe Coldfusion is cost.  I would love for Adobe to produce a free version of Coldfusion. I am also very confused by container licensing.  If I want to containerize my application, do I need to pay a license for every container?

Comment by Tyler Clendenin

As someone that has recently left ACF after using it for nearly 20 years its on its way to the morgue for us. It was already desirable for us but product decisions made has forced us away from it. The primary issue we have with ACF is the highly restrictive licensing. I find Adobe's core limitations per license to be quite absurd. To give you an example how bad their licensing is, lets look at another another product we use (SQL Server) which also has very expensive restrictive licensing. Going back 10 years ago SQL Server 2008 Standard gave you 4 cores and today they have came all the way up to 24 cores with the same license. So their licensing is scaling with technology. Coldfusion Ent. is still the same 8 cores its always been since moving to cores instead of sockets. Over a decade of innovation and the same old license. Today when we want to purchase a powerful server to run our applications ACF costs more than triple the costs of the hardware itself, when 15 years ago it was about 40% of its cost. They been using this to prop up revenue numbers by raising taxes (costs) on the residents left instead giving us a low tax environment that attracts new residents (customers). This is the sure way to kill the product and send the loyalest users fleeing. We moved over to Lucee and so far we are happy with the experience. It was never about open source for us, we have always been willing to pay, as long as the cost was justified and was smart for business.

Comment by MediaDR

mediadr, you make the assertion that SQL Server Standard 2017 "gives you" 24 cores and 2008 "gave you 4". Let's be clear: those are LIMITS on the number of cores that CAN be used. CF HAS no such LIMITS on cores. And SQL Server is (and has for some time) been licensed as "2-core packs" (<a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017-pricing#ft2" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017-pricing#ft2</a>) with 2017 Standard's retail price being $3,717 (per 2 cores).  CF also has pricing based on number of cores and with different numbers for Std vs Ent. And there have been just as many blog posts and forum discussions over the years from those who felt SQL Server was too expensive for many cores, for vm's, for cloud deployments, etc. I know you say you're "willing to pay" but just don't like CF's pricing, like many don't like SQL Server's pricing. And just as they (SQL Server shops) can look to free and open source alternatives, clearly many still choose to pay for it. And even open source projects often have paid support, whose annual costs often FAR exceed the cost of a CF license (which is in fact perpetual, other than the AWS AMI). Yes, yes, Adobe offers pricey support plans also. As Yoda might say, "Buy or buy not. To each their own". Again, my main point here was to press about your analogy with SQL Server. If you (or anyone) would feel I've misrepresented something, I'm open to correction of course.

Comment by Charlie Arehart

I made that suggestion in the CF Alive book too. And to be fair Adobe does have the free developer license for CF and free educational license too (for students learning CF, not for University IT dept). And if you want free CFML then use Lucee. It is pretty compatible with ACF. On container licensing I agree with your point about it being confusing. I have brought this up with Kishore (CF product manager) and wrote about it in the book. Currently yes you have to pay for a licence for each container. Even if it only exists for an hour. There is a pay per minute license solution for ACF on AWS. But not everyone using Amazon for cloud hosting. If you have licensing issues with ACF for cloud or SaaS apps and you dont have a critical need for particular ACF features such as the new security and performance features of CF 2018 or the API manager then Lucee is the obvious alternative as it is free to license.

Comment by Michaela Light

MediaDR Thanks for sharing your ACF licensing frustrations in detail. I think this has been a software industry-wide trend - at least at Adobe, Microsoft and Oracle. And probably at other companies too. It is one of the drivers for open source alternatives such as Lucee. Together with the move to cloud auto spin up of new containers on demand, which is much easier to deal with from a licensing point of view (see my comment on that below). +1 for what Charlie clarifies on SQL Server licensing and support plans costs.

Comment by Michaela Light

Jerry Thanks for the great ideas on promoting CF better! You would be very welcome in the CF Alive Inner Circle group where we discuss and act on these kind of ideas https://www.facebook.com/groups/CFAliveInnerCircle/ Absolutely! I have been talking to C level folks about CF. I hope my book will help as there are a number of mis-perceptions about CF in the ones I have talked with. If you use it right, ColdFusion is the most modern, secure and state-of-the-art web development ecosystem. Bar none.

Comment by Michaela Light

Charlie, you left out that SQL Server has a Server + CAL option, where ACF does not. You are not forced into a core option until you need to move on to enterprise (the max core limit you mentioned). By that time, business is probably good so you can afford to move there, which goes to what I said about making business sense. Microsoft gives 10 years of support on that license, ACF gives 5. Anyway, I think you get my point. CF is no longer a product you can go out and purchase a nice new machine and use it on, without major costs. In 2035 it will probably cost like $1M to run AFC on a good 2 socket machine. No issue there right?

Comment by MediaDR

I was addressing what you raised. I didn't plan to get into all the ins and outs of sql licensing - - and changes over the years. Also, I was not discussing sql enterprise but standard  like you. Anyway, yes, cf costs money, and on par with enterprise solutions. That will not likely change soon. Heck, the price for 2018 was raised, so it is what it is. Complaints about it have never changed things, so the continued harang about it always surprises me. Pay or go open source with Lucee.

Comment by Charlie Arehart

Hi Michaela, Excellent article! Just a note: Instead of "Shasta Consulting" linking to shastaconsulting.com, "South of Shasta Consulting" should probably link to southofshasta.com (I'm referring to the link to Nolan Erck's site, in his quote). Thanks!, -Aaron

Comment by Aaron Neff

Probably not a bad idea for Adobe to give away the product and sell a support at a reasonable rate. Rank support by tier so top dogs get an immediate rush of all hands support for system down and scale back the response time and size by the amount of money paid for the agreement. The free version co be community support with a hefty charge for Ala Cart from Adobe. Another option would be Lucee and building a solid support/ development group for that to increase confidence in it for the C folks. They need a solid dedicated support contract backed by results. We just need a solid platform with the toys to allow innovation. I'm just not ready to order flowers for the cf funeral yet.

Comment by Jerry Borsh

<p>In my opinion here is what Adobe should do to fix licensing woes. First eliminate Standard vs Enterprise. Standard is just a bottleneck version of Enterprise, and artificial bottlenecks are just silly. Enterprise becomes the only version of ColdFusion.</p><p>In its place, comes 3 different editions to meet the needs of the community:</p><p>ColdFusion Server ($14,995 est.) 2 sockets, no core limit (similar to MySQL)<br/>ColdFusion VM ($799 est.) 2 cores, buyable in packs<br/>ColdFusion Cloud (the market rate set on major cloud providers)</p><p>Finally it needs to remove the fine print in the EULA, like the limited the number of websites you can host, and set a reasonable number companies infrastructure you can host on a license making it more friendly for service providers. There shouldn’t be all the strings attached to a license’s use case.</p>

Comment by MediaDR

Blog doesn't seem to respect whitespace when you edit a post.... In my opinion here is what Adobe should do to fix licensing woes. First eliminate Standard vs Enterprise. Standard is just a bottleneck version of Enterprise, and artificial bottlenecks are just silly. Enterprise becomes the only version of ColdFusion. In its place, comes 3 different editions to meet the needs of the community: ColdFusion Server ($14,995 est.) 2 sockets, no core limit (similar to MySQL) ColdFusion VM ($799 est.) 2 cores, buyable in packs ColdFusion Cloud (the market rate set on major cloud providers) Finally it needs to remove the fine print in the EULA, like the limited the number of websites you can host, and set a reasonable number companies infrastructure you can host on a license making it more friendly for service providers. There shouldn’t be all the strings attached to a license’s use case.

Comment by MediaDR

I think The free version co be community support with a hefty charge for Ala Cart from Adobe.

Comment by mukulc35400646

The free version co be community support with a hefty charge for Ala Cart from Adobe.

Comment by mukulc35400646

What about CFML Slack channel and other mediums? Have you tried those?

Comment by Michaela Light

Perhaps we miss the mark by marketing around the CF is Dead scheme. If we found out Elvis was still alive, that would be newsworthy only for a season. The number of people involved in that old debate that still will act on it is fewer and fewer. What we need is CF Story. People want to be part of something that is happening, not something that isn't dead. No one doubts that Elon Musk is alive. Many times people thought he was going to fail, yet he keeps on achieving even as he fails. He has a story! There is a path forward, but Adobe has chosen a path that they feel is successful. Yes, I would have them expand the path to my niche passions, so would we all. Yet, we are not limited by their course choices. In fact, you mentioned Ortus and Adobe helps sponsor their annual conference. The more we are doing with the platform, the chances are the more Adobe will do to get behind us. Oh, and Adobe ColdFusion and Lucee are desirable. Many people using them love it. There are two things that need to happen to grow the community. Tell the story that expresses the vitality of CFML Learn what story that motivates the community outside CFML  

Comment by john@sosensible

Sorry if this is a bit of a necro, but my first thought to help make CF more desirable again would be to actually have it in the menu of the Adobe website.  I don't see it linked though  any of the menu headers ie: Creativity & Design, Marketing & Commerce, PDF & E-signatures or Business Solutions and I couldn't find it in the quick links provided on the site. Where is the link to <a href="https://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-family.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-family.html</a> other then via a text search? It seems like Adobe is content to let CF spread by word of mouth among their Fortune 500 companies. I don't know how they hope to keep people programming in it or wanting to learn it without putting in some effort. What I do know is the focus on only their enterprise customers has lead the company I work for to decide to go in another direction as soon as they are able.

Comment by SirJames

James, there are many, many Adobe products not listed on their front pages or main navigational menus. They do clearly focus on promoting the products in the creative/design space. If something doesn’t fit that, it doesn’t get that front page promotion. It is what it is. Neither we nor the CF team can force or persuade the powers that be to change that,  so it seems pointless for people to keep complaining about it, as if it’s some missing key that Adobe is oblivious to.As this post mostly discusses, all we really can do is promote it however we may  without relying on anything more than what the cf team does do. And it would be unfair to assert they do nothing, even if we could wish they would do more.

Comment by Charlie Arehart

I think the Marketing effort should be that it is the best Web language out there and it is written in Java and can be incorporated easily into Java run organization. Compete directly with the microsoft mentality. CF blows ASP away for ease of use and rapid deployment. Java Coldfusion and Oracle and Javascript. All you need period. Java written specialty programs can be surrounded by a Coldfusion website platform. Easy to make Java calls.

Comment by jbradleymarx

That all seems to make sence and is a good starting point or something similar. Cloud usage for smaller developers could be key. Setup and ready to run. It used to be and still may be hard to get the local coldfusion working on the developer machine. I haven't installed 2018 yet.. Soon

Comment by jbradleymarx

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Comment by Miguel Fernandez

Hello all I am always happy to see comments and such a great energy around this topic. One thing I've noticed is that Adobe works on this very hard lately. DevWeek is an awesome example.

Comment by Michaela Light