coldfusion Why isn't ColdFusion more popular?

[whitebread]

Why is it that most web hosts support ASP .NET and PHP, even Perl / Ruby on Rails / Python... but so few support ColdFusion?

[neufuse Veteran]

Why is it that most web hosts support ASP .NET and PHP, even Perl / Ruby on Rails / Python... but so few support ColdFusion?

use to be because of licesing fees.. you always had to pay more for CF support

[nowimnothing]

Developer momentum, I would assume. How many packages do you see developed using it (thinking blog packages, CMS systems, etc). If people aren't writing for it, why would they suport it?

I don't know how reliable these numbers are, but this site:

http://trends.builtwith.com/framework/Adobe-ColdFusion

Shows that only about 2% of sites use ColdFusion. Then you look at PHP (30% of sites) and ASP.NET (25% of sites)...

[sbauer]

Why is it that most web hosts support ASP .NET and PHP, even Perl / Ruby on Rails / Python... but so few support ColdFusion?

ColdFusion licensing starts around $1,500 for the standard version. That doesn't include the fees for an IDE or editor. Sure, the developer version is free, but when you move it to production you have to pay the licensing fee. For independent developers, it's hard to justify buying a framework for 1500 when there are other frameworks that are free.

[Lingwo]

Mainly licensing costs. I started out with Coldfusion and it got to the point that it was just too expensive for me to keep using it. Even though it is a nice language to use, licensing is just too expensive for a start up site. Even shared hosting is pretty pricey.

[Argi]

I'd agree on the costs, but not only the licenses but if you ever had a company build you a site in CF, if you want wanted to then change to a different company you'd be very limited as to who you could go with (as most won't touch CF). That usually meant paying an extra premium.