I'm doing a PHP course (for beginners) which involves creating your own CMS and it got me wondering whether it would be okay to use my own CMS for clients who only need basic functionality such as updating text, adding pages, etc. I know with more complicated stuff there might be security issues, but if it's only simple actions, well, what do you think? I'm thinking I could develop it more over time as I learn more about PHP and security, etc - it would be good to learn from. I would still use Drupal/Wordpress where appropriate.

 

I'm asking about this as while I'm currently trying to get work as a freelance, general web designer, long term I'd like to specialise more in back end development.

Since you're not yet an expert in PHP I'd say no, you are responsible for their security and so forth, CMS systems exist for a reason, the abstract away all these complexities that I highly doubt your corse will cover in any great detail.

 

Building your own CMS is great for a bit of fun, but leave it at that IMO.

 

If I were to develop my own CMS I would be looking at Node + Express rather than PHP to be honest. Not that PHP isn't capable, but that Node's popularity is skyrocketing, especially with the larger projects.

 

If you really enjoy back-end why dont you outsource the design and front-end, that way you get more time to focus on your speciality, I still think it would be good to do a few years working as a backend dev at a good agency or somewhere to get some experience working with more advanced backend developers before doing freelance.
Best career move for me was ditching freelance and working for a company, might be slightly less money but I've learnt a lot faster, and if I choose to go freelance in the future my experience will put me way ahead of where I was at initially.

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by rbrtsmith

Absolutely. If your system is secure and scalable. Keep in mind that many clients starts out with just wanting "basic functionality" but they often change the list of requirements along the way.

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by Nillervision

Absolutely. If your system is secure and scalable. Keep in mind that many clients starts out with just wanting "basic functionality" but they often change the list of requirements along the way.

 

Pretty dangerous advice, how will a beginner know if their CMS is secure? The last thing you want is to be directly responsible for a client's website being compromised, you could be liable for all sorts of nasties.

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by rbrtsmith

 

Pretty dangerous advice, how will a beginner know if their CMS is secure? The last thing you want is to be directly responsible for a client's website being compromised, you could be liable for all sorts of nasties.

I asuming that when you have the knowledge to build a CMS you would know how to:

• Sanitize inputs,
• Use prepared statements
• Rename your class files with the php extension (to prevent downloads)
• Encrypt User Passwords

If so I would imagine that a costum made CMS is less vulnerable to attacks than WP or Drupal as hackes wouldn't know the system structure

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by Nillervision

The OP wrote that this tutorial was for beginners, it's very likely that they will not be covering security in enough detail. Personally that's not a risk I'd be willing to take. Good for learning yes, but for real clients, dangerous.

You also have to be wary of XXS attacks, then there's the database setup and .htaccess setup as well.

 

A well made custom CMS would be less vulnerable like you said, but as a beginner you it's likely that it will be much more vulnerable. It's a LOT easier to secure a WordPress site than your own as a beginner.

Edited December 7, 201510 yr by rbrtsmith

The OP wrote that this tutorial was for beginners, it's very likely that they will not be covering security in enough detail. Personally that's not a risk I'd be willing to take. Good for learning yes, but for real clients, dangerous.

You also have to be wary of XXS attacks, then there's the database setup and .htaccess setup as well.

 

A well made custom CMS would be less vulnerable like you said, but as a beginner you it's likely that it will be much more vulnerable. It's a LOT easier to secure a WordPress site than your own as a beginner.

True. But when you are at the point where you offer back end/full-stack sevices to clients you should at least know basic security. No matter if you are using your own CMS or not. (which I should have stated in my first answer)

In my opinion it depends on the quality of CMS you can create (security etc) and the type of client you're making a site for.

 

If your uncle wants a blog to talk about gardening - sure, use your own CMS, what's the worst that could happen? I would say the same for any basic business card style site - just a couple of info pages and a contact form sort of thing. The odds of somebody wanting to go to the trouble of breaking into such a site are slim; and even if they did, it's not really a big deal if there are backups available.

 

Any site holding any sort of details you wouldn't want compromised - even a list of subscriber email addresses - I would say it would be a bad idea to use your own until you were confident enough in your abilities.

True. But when you are at the point where you offer back end/full-stack sevices to clients you should at least know basic security. No matter if you are using your own CMS or not. (which I should have stated in my first answer)

 

Agreed, then I'd argue you might wanna work in the industry for a while building up experience before offering back-end services as a freelancer - if you're going down the route of custom CMS solution at least.

Yes, why not

I know your not at the level yet of frameworks, but I would happily ship a product made from Laravel to clients.

I'd say go for it, but never bite off more than you can chew. Everyone needs to start somewhere, for me it started while collaborating on projects with a PHP developer and 'got curious'.

 

As @@Nillervision pointed out the 'basics' of any course in PHP will need to cover SQL, sanitizing and logins. Outside of this it's exploration, learning new things and clever little bits, thinking outside the box.

 

I would agree that scratch built can offer a level of security that frameworks can't, only you know how it works under the hood and this is a level of security in it's own right.

 

Start small matey, make a static html site with a CMS controlled gallery, add image order, last modified and the like, learn to write an image cropper which compresses and make a thumnail, learn how to create pretty paths in htaccess ... all this is progression and will increase your knowledge and skills as a developer.

Well it's good but only practice if you want to do some professional work than use built in CMS.

Well it's good but only practice if you want to do some professional work than use built in CMS.

 

 

Makes no sense what you're saying, sometimes a custom CMS is better than a open source CMS or commercial. It all get's down to what the site needs are.

So, answering to OPs question. Yes, it's ok, though make sure you want to keep that customer around forever(because nobody is going to touch your CMS or it will cost the client a lot of money) and if it decreases development time. 90% of cases, going with a already existing CMS is better.

 

 

 

Have you ever posted something that actually adds to a thread?

 

Neither does yours

 

Read what I wrote again. And then you may see why your response makes no sense.

 

 

I've understood what you we're saying, I was just pointing out that a PM might work better than bashing the spammer on a thread with a different topic