Comparison with KonaKart (and other Java-based Open Source solutions)

[Michael Wechner]

Hi

I am currently evaluating Java-based Open Source eCommerce solutions,
whereas it seems that there is only OFBiz and KonaKart, whereas KonaKart
is not really Open Source (at least the core isn't) and since I very
much appreciate the ASF, I would like to embrace OFBiz.

But in order to make a neutral/objective statement to my colleagues, I
wanted to ask how you see this comparison and if there
exists any pointers (I searched via Google, but didn't really find
anything useful) and if there are other alternatives?

First of all I have to say that installation from SVN trunk was very
fine and I got OFBiz up and running very quickly (on Mac OS X Snow
Leopard), but then some questions popped up:

1) How do I generate a WAR file such that I can deploy it within my own
Tomcat?

2) Where can I configure to use my own DB (instead Apache Derby) and
what do I need to do
to populate the initial data (instead ant run-install)?

3) How can I change the Look/Feel of the Frontend?

4) How can I implement custom code, such as for example price reducing
depending on number of shopped items?

5) How can I integrate OFBiz with my content management system (e.g
display the shopping cart) inside the pages which are generated by the CMS?

6) What about Scalability and Performance (how many products, users, etc.)?

7) What about Backwards compatibility and upgradeability of OFBiz?

I will keep continue searching for answers and will keep you posted on
my progress, but would
appreciate any feedback if you have any pointers at hand.

Thanks

Michael

[Michal Cukierman]

1) I think that tomcat is embedded into ofbiz you can change Tomcat ports
and use prox/ajp
2) You have to change entityengine.xml under /ofbiz/framework/entity/config
(already predefined db connections)
3) CSS :) ?
4) no idea, change the codebase?
5) I would like to know
6) you can claster database and tomcat. performance is great (eats a lot of
RAM but after all it's scalable)
7) I would like to know



2010/5/6 Michael Wechner <[hidden email]>

>
>
> 3) How can I change the Look/Feel of the Frontend?

[BJ Freeman]

the biggest difference is ofbiz is MRP or ERP application that also has
a shopping cart, as an additional module. the Ecommerce module depends
on the rest of ofbiz to operate.
I am not familar with KonaKart .
1)it has its own embedded tomcat. I run both. there is documentation of
this if you follow the documentation link on the front page.
2)there is a tech setup doc availble through the documentation link on
the front page.
3)same as #2
4) you can create a new theme, when you in the documentation do a search
on visual themes.
5) that depends on the CMS system you use. it take some customization.
6) though we attempt to do backward compatibility there is just some
changes to have backward compatibility.

if you see ofbiz as only an Ecommerce solution, you will find it takes
more work than any other ecommerce solution.
If you looking for a high powered Automated Ecommerce solution that give
you freedom of not having to process order manually and you have
accounting as well then ofbiz is the solution.


=========================
BJ Freeman
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation <http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=93>
Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>

Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist

Chat  Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Linkedin
<http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro>


Michael Wechner sent the following on 5/6/2010 6:42 AM:

> Hi
>
> I am currently evaluating Java-based Open Source eCommerce solutions,
> whereas it seems that there is only OFBiz and KonaKart, whereas KonaKart
> is not really Open Source (at least the core isn't) and since I very
> much appreciate the ASF, I would like to embrace OFBiz.
>
> But in order to make a neutral/objective statement to my colleagues, I
> wanted to ask how you see this comparison and if there
> exists any pointers (I searched via Google, but didn't really find
> anything useful) and if there are other alternatives?
>
> First of all I have to say that installation from SVN trunk was very
> fine and I got OFBiz up and running very quickly (on Mac OS X Snow
> Leopard), but then some questions popped up:
>
> 1) How do I generate a WAR file such that I can deploy it within my own
> Tomcat?
>
> 2) Where can I configure to use my own DB (instead Apache Derby) and
> what do I need to do
> to populate the initial data (instead ant run-install)?
>
> 3) How can I change the Look/Feel of the Frontend?
>
> 4) How can I implement custom code, such as for example price reducing
> depending on number of shopped items?
>
> 5) How can I integrate OFBiz with my content management system (e.g
> display the shopping cart) inside the pages which are generated by the CMS?
>
> 6) What about Scalability and Performance (how many products, users, etc.)?
>
> 7) What about Backwards compatibility and upgradeability of OFBiz?
>
> I will keep continue searching for answers and will keep you posted on
> my progress, but would
> appreciate any feedback if you have any pointers at hand.
>
> Thanks
>
> Michael
>
>
>

[BJ Freeman]

oops
6)I only have 100,000 products and a some customers, however I would say
that the limit is you storage avalible. with a 3ghz cpu, and 4 gigs of
memory where you not using the swap file gives you the best performance.
7)though we attempt to do backward compatibility there is just some
 changes that are too complicated to have backward compatibility.

=========================
BJ Freeman
http://bjfreeman.elance.com
Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation <http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=93>
Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>

Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist

Chat  Y! messenger: bjfr33man
Linkedin
<http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro>


BJ Freeman sent the following on 5/6/2010 9:04 AM:

> the biggest difference is ofbiz is MRP or ERP application that also has
> a shopping cart, as an additional module. the Ecommerce module depends
> on the rest of ofbiz to operate.
> I am not familar with KonaKart .
> 1)it has its own embedded tomcat. I run both. there is documentation of
> this if you follow the documentation link on the front page.
> 2)there is a tech setup doc availble through the documentation link on
> the front page.
> 3)same as #2
> 4) you can create a new theme, when you in the documentation do a search
> on visual themes.
> 5) that depends on the CMS system you use. it take some customization.
> 6) though we attempt to do backward compatibility there is just some
> changes to have backward compatibility.
>
> if you see ofbiz as only an Ecommerce solution, you will find it takes
> more work than any other ecommerce solution.
> If you looking for a high powered Automated Ecommerce solution that give
> you freedom of not having to process order manually and you have
> accounting as well then ofbiz is the solution.
>
>
> =========================
> BJ Freeman
> http://bjfreeman.elance.com
> Strategic Power Office with Supplier Automation <http://www.businessesnetwork.com/automation/viewforum.php?f=93>
> Specialtymarket.com <http://www.specialtymarket.com/>
>
> Systems Integrator-- Glad to Assist
>
> Chat  Y! messenger: bjfr33man
> Linkedin
> <http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=1237480&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro>
>
>
> Michael Wechner sent the following on 5/6/2010 6:42 AM:
>> Hi
>>
>> I am currently evaluating Java-based Open Source eCommerce solutions,
>> whereas it seems that there is only OFBiz and KonaKart, whereas KonaKart
>> is not really Open Source (at least the core isn't) and since I very
>> much appreciate the ASF, I would like to embrace OFBiz.
>>
>> But in order to make a neutral/objective statement to my colleagues, I
>> wanted to ask how you see this comparison and if there
>> exists any pointers (I searched via Google, but didn't really find
>> anything useful) and if there are other alternatives?
>>
>> First of all I have to say that installation from SVN trunk was very
>> fine and I got OFBiz up and running very quickly (on Mac OS X Snow
>> Leopard), but then some questions popped up:
>>
>> 1) How do I generate a WAR file such that I can deploy it within my own
>> Tomcat?
>>
>> 2) Where can I configure to use my own DB (instead Apache Derby) and
>> what do I need to do
>> to populate the initial data (instead ant run-install)?
>>
>> 3) How can I change the Look/Feel of the Frontend?
>>
>> 4) How can I implement custom code, such as for example price reducing
>> depending on number of shopped items?
>>
>> 5) How can I integrate OFBiz with my content management system (e.g
>> display the shopping cart) inside the pages which are generated by the CMS?
>>
>> 6) What about Scalability and Performance (how many products, users, etc.)?
>>
>> 7) What about Backwards compatibility and upgradeability of OFBiz?
>>
>> I will keep continue searching for answers and will keep you posted on
>> my progress, but would
>> appreciate any feedback if you have any pointers at hand.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

[Ruth Hoffman-2]

Hi Michael:
I've spent many hours comparing OFBiz to all sorts of other software
packages and here are some observations I've made.  Please see inline:
Michael Wechner wrote:
> Hi
>
> I am currently evaluating Java-based Open Source eCommerce solutions,
> whereas it seems that there is only OFBiz and KonaKart, whereas
> KonaKart is not really Open Source (at least the core isn't) and since
> I very much appreciate the ASF, I would like to embrace OFBiz.
>
You can't go wrong with the ASF licensing model. That is what keeps me
coming back. As a business person, I believe that this aspect of OFBiz
should not be underestimated!
> But in order to make a neutral/objective statement to my colleagues, I
> wanted to ask how you see this comparison and if there
> exists any pointers (I searched via Google, but didn't really find
> anything useful) and if there are other alternatives?
>
> First of all I have to say that installation from SVN trunk was very
> fine and I got OFBiz up and running very quickly (on Mac OS X Snow
> Leopard), but then some questions popped up:
>
I develop and have deployed on a MAC. Don't you just love it ;-)  In all
fairness, I've also worked with OFBiz on Windows, RedHat and (Sun)
Solaris systems and, as the Java "promise" implies,  it is definitely
operating system agnostic.
> 1) How do I generate a WAR file such that I can deploy it within my
> own Tomcat?
>
You do not need to generate WAR file(s) as the Tomcat engine and
Catalina servlet container are embedded in the project. All Java code is
deployed as Jar files and put on the CLASSPATH by OFBiz at startup time.
> 2) Where can I configure to use my own DB (instead Apache Derby) and
> what do I need to do
> to populate the initial data (instead ant run-install)?
>
Here is one of the neatest things about OFBiz. You can point the OFBiz
Entity Engine to any number of databases  just by changing a few lines
in the  ~framework/entity/config/entityengine.xml.

To install your own data, there are several tools that come with the
project. Check out the "WebTools"  especially the "Entity XML Tools"
(http://localhost:8443/webtools/control/main), the "Data File Tools" or,
if you want, you can load the database off-line using your own data
loading scripts. (This can get tricky as there are lots of field key
dependencies built into the OFBiz data model. So, if you are loading
OFBiz data model data, you will need to know something about the
relationships database tables have with one another.)
> 3) How can I change the Look/Feel of the Frontend?
Well, the good news is that you can change anything you want. Most of
the eCommerce front-end is generated through Freemarker template files
merged with data that is dynamically processed using Groovy scripts.
Much of the ERP backend application UI is generated using OFBiz
"widgets". Widgets are XML Documents that describe various HTML elements
and common web page structures such as Forms, menus, menu trees etc.
Widgets are suppose to make building OFBiz web pages easier since they
may be set up to automatically query the database without the screen's
author needing to know how to write query language statements. Of
course, the screen author needs to know which database table and field
to use...and then there is the XML to deal with. But, you have a choice.
Lots of choices!

Another consideration here is the application of "themes". Themes remove
some of the CSS and Javascript from widgets and Freemarker templates and
allow these screen building blocks to be applied at runtime. The
eCommerce web application has been partially "themed". Personally, I
have mixed feelings about this...but that is another story.
>
> 4) How can I implement custom code, such as for example price reducing
> depending on number of shopped items?
>
For this specific example, you don't need to implement any custom code.
The shopping cart promotional rules engine may be configured to handle
this situation.

To implement custom code, if you mean one or more OFBiz Events, Services
and/or utilities, then there are several online tutorials that give you
some idea how to do this. This is not hard to do. See the Wiki for more
information.
> 5) How can I integrate OFBiz with my content management system (e.g
> display the shopping cart) inside the pages which are generated by the
> CMS?
>
Can't answer that. I use the OFBiz content management features to do all
that.
> 6) What about Scalability and Performance (how many products, users,
> etc.)?
> 7) What about Backwards compatibility and upgradeability of OFBiz?
Compatibility and upgrade paths are a tough question to answer because
there are so many parts that make up OFBiz. The good news is that you
have full access to all the code, so if there is a compatibility issue,
it can be tracked down.
>
> I will keep continue searching for answers and will keep you posted on
> my progress, but would
> appreciate any feedback if you have any pointers at hand.
>
Good luck!
> Thanks
>
> Michael
Regards,
Ruth Hofman
[hidden email]
>
>
>

[rvanderwerf]

We started out with OFBiz(I even made a Cybersource tax calc module if anyone wants it) but ended up going with Softslate because:
1) we only needed e-commerce/frontend cart not all the ERP stuff
2) less complicated admin interface - (nobody in my org was a fan of the ofbiz admin interface)
3) ready support organization for help/consulting (I know there are ofbiz consultants, but they are way more expensive than just getting support direct from Softslate/Konakart)
4) better documentation
5) chose softslate over konakart because $500 purchase gets you all the source, really a nominal free. Source is pretty straightforward and clean too. Kona has hooks and APIs but sometimes we need to really alter stuff for clients beyond the norm, and that source is not available.
6) simple drop-in war for our existing app server environment instead of running a parallel server just for Ofbiz.

If we had any use for all for the other stuff, Ofbiz would be more compelling for sure. It's a very big stick to wield for smaller e-commerce site. In our case a smaller tool for the job was a better fit - our only hard requirement really was a java-based solution.

Ryan


----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Wechner" <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Thursday, May 6, 2010 8:42:19 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Comparison with KonaKart (and other Java-based Open Source solutions)

Hi

I am currently evaluating Java-based Open Source eCommerce solutions,
whereas it seems that there is only OFBiz and KonaKart, whereas KonaKart
is not really Open Source (at least the core isn't) and since I very
much appreciate the ASF, I would like to embrace OFBiz.

But in order to make a neutral/objective statement to my colleagues, I
wanted to ask how you see this comparison and if there
exists any pointers (I searched via Google, but didn't really find
anything useful) and if there are other alternatives?

First of all I have to say that installation from SVN trunk was very
fine and I got OFBiz up and running very quickly (on Mac OS X Snow
Leopard), but then some questions popped up:

1) How do I generate a WAR file such that I can deploy it within my own
Tomcat?

2) Where can I configure to use my own DB (instead Apache Derby) and
what do I need to do
to populate the initial data (instead ant run-install)?

3) How can I change the Look/Feel of the Frontend?

4) How can I implement custom code, such as for example price reducing
depending on number of shopped items?

5) How can I integrate OFBiz with my content management system (e.g
display the shopping cart) inside the pages which are generated by the CMS?

6) What about Scalability and Performance (how many products, users, etc.)?

7) What about Backwards compatibility and upgradeability of OFBiz?

I will keep continue searching for answers and will keep you posted on
my progress, but would
appreciate any feedback if you have any pointers at hand.

Thanks

Michael



--

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[Shi Jinghai]

在 2010-05-06四的 15:42 +0200，Michael Wechner写道：

> 5) How can I integrate OFBiz with my content management system (e.g
> display the shopping cart) inside the pages which are generated by the CMS?
We have an RMI component can do this if your CMS is in java. See more:
http://langhua.org/portal/portal/default/OFBiz/OFBizRmiModulePortletWindow?windowstate=maximized

Regards,

Shi Jinghai/Beijing Langhua Ltd.

[Michael Wechner]

Ruth Hoffman wrote:

> Hi Michael:
> I've spent many hours comparing OFBiz to all sorts of other software
> packages and here are some observations I've made.  Please see inline:
> Michael Wechner wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I am currently evaluating Java-based Open Source eCommerce solutions,
>> whereas it seems that there is only OFBiz and KonaKart, whereas
>> KonaKart is not really Open Source (at least the core isn't) and
>> since I very much appreciate the ASF, I would like to embrace OFBiz.
>>
> You can't go wrong with the ASF licensing model. That is what keeps me
> coming back. As a business person, I believe that this aspect of OFBiz
> should not be underestimated!

agreed and this what is a quite a drawback re KonaKart, that the core is
not Open Source whereas to be fair the rest of the software seems also
to be licensed under the Apache License. According to KonaKart one does
not need the core which I currently cannot judge, but another important
thing to me is that the data really seems to be transparent and easy
migratable, and they claim that they support the osCommerce data model.


>>
>>
> You do not need to generate WAR file(s) as the Tomcat engine and
> Catalina servlet container are embedded in the project. All Java code
> is deployed as Jar files and put on the CLASSPATH by OFBiz at startup
> time.


that seems to me quite a drawback, because I would like to integrate it
tighter with the existing environment and it's also not clear to me how
this should work within a clustered environment, but maybe I just need
to understand it better in order to really understand what the
implications are.





>> 2) Where can I configure to use my own DB (instead Apache Derby) and
>> what do I need to do
>> to populate the initial data (instead ant run-install)?
>>
> Here is one of the neatest things about OFBiz. You can point the OFBiz
> Entity Engine to any number of databases  just by changing a few lines
> in the  ~framework/entity/config/entityengine.xml.

thanks for this pointer
>
> To install your own data, there are several tools that come with the
> project. Check out the "WebTools"  especially the "Entity XML Tools"
> (http://localhost:8443/webtools/control/main), the "Data File Tools"
> or, if you want, you can load the database off-line using your own
> data loading scripts. (This can get tricky as there are lots of field
> key dependencies built into the OFBiz data model. So, if you are
> loading OFBiz data model data, you will need to know something about
> the relationships database tables have with one another.)

thanks for pointing this out

>> 3) How can I change the Look/Feel of the Frontend?
> Well, the good news is that you can change anything you want. Most of
> the eCommerce front-end is generated through Freemarker template files
> merged with data that is dynamically processed using Groovy scripts.
> Much of the ERP backend application UI is generated using OFBiz
> "widgets". Widgets are XML Documents that describe various HTML
> elements and common web page structures such as Forms, menus, menu
> trees etc. Widgets are suppose to make building OFBiz web pages easier
> since they may be set up to automatically query the database without
> the screen's author needing to know how to write query language
> statements. Of course, the screen author needs to know which database
> table and field to use...and then there is the XML to deal with. But,
> you have a choice. Lots of choices!
>
> Another consideration here is the application of "themes". Themes
> remove some of the CSS and Javascript from widgets and Freemarker
> templates and allow these screen building blocks to be applied at
> runtime. The eCommerce web application has been partially "themed".
> Personally, I have mixed feelings about this...but that is another story.

thanks again for these notes. I will give the various choices a try and
see what fits best.

I would of course prefer XSLT ;-), but I assume that is currently not an
option

>>
>> 4) How can I implement custom code, such as for example price
>> reducing depending on number of shopped items?
>>
> For this specific example, you don't need to implement any custom
> code. The shopping cart promotional rules engine may be configured to
> handle this situation.
>
> To implement custom code, if you mean one or more OFBiz Events,
> Services and/or utilities, then there are several online tutorials
> that give you some idea how to do this. This is not hard to do. See
> the Wiki for more information.

thanks, will have a closer look at it



>> 5) How can I integrate OFBiz with my content management system (e.g
>> display the shopping cart) inside the pages which are generated by
>> the CMS?
>>
> Can't answer that. I use the OFBiz content management features to do
> all that.

That's a must have for me and I was hoping that OFBiz would provide some
SOAP interfaces or something similar



>> 6) What about Scalability and Performance (how many products, users,
>> etc.)?

do you have any experience re Scalability/Peformance?
As mentioned above what about setting up OFBiz within a clustered
environment?


>> 7) What about Backwards compatibility and upgradeability of OFBiz?
> Compatibility and upgrade paths are a tough question to answer because
> there are so many parts that make up OFBiz. The good news is that you
> have full access to all the code, so if there is a compatibility
> issue, it can be tracked down.

good and bad ;-) but from your answer I read that it is not always
backwards compatible, right?



>>
>> I will keep continue searching for answers and will keep you posted
>> on my progress, but would
>> appreciate any feedback if you have any pointers at hand.
>>
> Good luck!

Thanks again for all your answers

Michael



>> Thanks
>>
>> Michael
> Regards,
> Ruth Hofman
> [hidden email]
>>
>>
>>

[Michael Wechner]

Shi Jinghai wrote:
> 在 2010-05-06四的 15:42 +0200，Michael Wechner写道：
>
>  
>> 5) How can I integrate OFBiz with my content management system (e.g
>> display the shopping cart) inside the pages which are generated by the CMS?
>>    
> We have an RMI component can do this if your CMS is in java. See more:
> http://langhua.org/portal/portal/default/OFBiz/OFBizRmiModulePortletWindow?windowstate=maximized
>  

Thanks very much for this pointer.

Do you know if there are any SOAP interfaces or something similar?

Thanks

Michael


> Regards,
>
> Shi Jinghai/Beijing Langhua Ltd.
>
>  

[Jacques Le Roux]

From: "Michael Wechner" <[hidden email]>
> Ruth Hoffman wrote:
[snap]

>> Hi Michael:
>> You do not need to generate WAR file(s) as the Tomcat engine and
>> Catalina servlet container are embedded in the project. All Java code
>> is deployed as Jar files and put on the CLASSPATH by OFBiz at startup
>> time.
>
>
> that seems to me quite a drawback, because I would like to integrate it
> tighter with the existing environment and it's also not clear to me how
> this should work within a clustered environment, but maybe I just need
> to understand it better in order to really understand what the
> implications are.

https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBTECH/Run+OFBiz+under+outside+Application+Servers 
 
[snap]
Jacques