1C-Bitrix is the brainchild of 1C and the Bitrix company. The purpose of creating a joint venture is to develop web areas and develop innovative Internet solutions. Professional content management systems from 1C-Bitrix are in demand among a wide variety of audiences. All offered products are regularly developed and modernized, becoming more advanced and meeting the growing requirements of users.
Technologies do not stand still; they are constantly moving forward. In the IT field, developers special attention They focus on creating products with great functionality and the simplest possible interface. “1C-Bitrix: Site Management” is a system that is widely used for managing web projects of absolutely any subject and focus:
Bright features of 1C-Bitrix
The functionality of this control system is truly enormous. In order for specialists and ordinary people who plan to work with CMS to be better oriented, the development company offers special training programs. We will not dwell on the standard functions of 1C-Bitrix, but will focus only on those that appeared relatively recently, but have already won fans.
Composite site is a technology for which a patent has been received. With its help, the site's response speed increases hundreds of times! The declared capabilities were confirmed during an independent test. As you know, the response speed of a website is one of the most significant characteristics of its operation, which also affects the perception of a web resource by search robots. This indicator is also important in promotion. A slow website can make the visitor irritable, and he will leave it without waiting for it to load. Composite site technology is the connecting link thanks to which a modern dynamic site with program code can function as quickly as a static HTML page. Instant loading is achieved by displaying cached copies of web resource pages. In places where any changes have occurred, updated data appears.
Managing the load on servers - your online store can withstand any flow of customers. Given the growth of the online trading market, it is logical that competition will also increase. Quality service to your customers will help you take a leading position in your industry. People who purchase goods in online stores, as a rule, simply do not have extra time to make offline purchases, so it is easier for them to go online and add the selected items to the cart. An influx of visitors can lead to server failures. Such a malfunction entails very unpleasant consequences: firstly, you will lose those potential clients who were on the site at that moment, and secondly, they may give negative feedback about your web project. The module developed by 1C-Bitrik specialists makes working with servers easier. With its help, you can, even without special technological skills, assess the load on the server, identify the cause of low performance, connect new servers or intelligently distribute the load between existing ones.
Online store order management is another service created specifically for those involved in online sales. The module will facilitate the process of order management, increase the efficiency of the back office, significantly reduce the volume of routine processes, and improve the quality of customer service. Expanding the list of available functions makes the process more logical and efficient, working with customer requests is more flexible, and routine difficulties in taking into account orders disappear.
Present and future
Today, 1C-Bitrix software products can be called the optimal solution for small and medium-sized businesses. Without investing significant funds, companies get the opportunity to operate high-tech Internet projects. They become part of the corporate culture. Special software products help optimize the company’s work and establish business processes. In this case we are talking about Bitrix24.
Maximum attention is also paid to “1C-Bitrix: Site Management” - a product that helps to comprehensively and effectively solve problems of managing web projects of any complexity. In its work, 1C-Bitrix is guided by the following principles:
- Reasonability of expenses and efforts
- Costs = results
- Safety
- Manufacturability
- Reliability
- Possibility of website development with low maintenance costs
In the coming years, the Bitrix team plans to focus on three key areas:
- Development of the software product “1C-Bitrix: Site Management”.
- Launching scientific research to develop completely new technologies that increase the profitability of web projects.
- Providing professional services in the field of design and programming of Internet systems.
Websites that were developed using 1C-Bitrix: Site Management (http://Host_Name/technologies/bitrix.html) are characterized by high performance. Their owners do not need to invest significant funds in supporting the project and its development. If necessary, the functionality can be expanded by connecting additional modules.
There are articles about the shortcomings of Bitrix that were written by programmers. The disadvantages described in them are indifferent to the average user, because he is not going to program anything. But the very presence of such articles and negative reviews from some programmers (even if 2/3 of them are incomprehensible to the average person) increases fears of making the wrong choice, questions about the pros and cons of Bitrix become even more relevant. In this article I will list the disadvantages that are faced not by programmers, but by real users.
License cost is the main problem
You need to understand the purpose of the tool. Just look at the cost of a “Small Business” or “Business” license to make it clear that Bitrix is not suitable for every individual entrepreneur. First of all, the price.
If you have 10 products, Bitrix will do. If you have 100 thousand products, this will also work. But if you are sure that the store can be ordered on fl.ru for 10 thousand rubles. or assemble it yourself with the mouse in Nethouse, then Bitrix is not your choice. Even a ready-made solution will not be comfortable for you in terms of cost, not to mention individual development.
If you buy a small number of goods on Chinese/Korean sites, and then sell on Avito, VKontakte and Instagram, you are unlikely to need a store where the CMS license alone will cost 36/73 thousand rubles. Add here the annual renewal of updates, which allows you to receive new features and bug fixes in Bitrix (the first year of updates is included in the license price). The update costs another 20% of the license price. These are unnecessary expenses. You don’t have to buy updates; this will not affect the operation of the site, although their availability is desirable.
As you understand, it’s not so much a matter of price, but rather the feasibility of investing in an expensive website. For small shops there are many simpler and cheaper solutions. It’s another matter if you are planning to increase your assortment, turnover, or open a retail store that will have a single database with an online store. Then half measures when developing a website can become a problem in the future and it is better to immediately lay down a reserve.
The fairly significant price is the first disadvantage of Bitrix, which prevents many small/beginning entrepreneurs and individuals from using it.
Not everything is as simple as they tell you
It must be said that when talking about simplicity, you are not being misled or even embellishing reality too much. It is simply impossible to foresee everything and, from experience, I will say: the client will always find something to surprise in his specific situation. And since everyone’s situations are different, you have to add Bitrix to suit them. Furniture does not fit perfectly into every room, let alone complex information systems.
Let's write down the disadvantages of 1C-Bitrix as the discrepancy with your expectations in the ease of integration with 1C and configuration. In justification, I can say that this applies not only to Bitrix, but to any CMS. Bitrix, perhaps even to a lesser extent.
Big and shaggy
Bitrix has many features that you will never use. You can go to the admin panel of the Business editorial office and be afraid that you will never learn to fly this spaceship. There's too much of everything there. But there is no need to be afraid. Windows also has a lot of different things that you don’t use and don’t even know about. And also in your smartphone. There is no way without this. Any mass product that covers most of the typical tasks of stores from small to large will be crammed with functionality.
But, if you do everything correctly, the “extra” things won’t bother you. Modules can be easily disabled, and you don’t have to go into “unnecessary” settings sections. Not everyone understands what is disabled and how, not everyone knows how to remove unnecessary fields in the admin panel so that they do not get in the way. Even developers, although expensive and time consuming, do not set up the admin panel for their clients so that it is convenient for them to work, make fewer clicks, and get less confused.
Just know that you can disable something, hide something so as not to get in the way, or block access somewhere at the user rights level. It will immediately become easier, clearer, more convenient and not so scary.
In much the same way, you can remove all unnecessary things in the Bitrix admin panel. Just without the tape.
It turns out that there are many features that are difficult to understand - this is a drawback that frightens the average user.
A good developer will add hints to the fields in the information blocks, create a manual for the main actions, provide a link to training materials and videos, record his own videos on typical operations, and disable/hide/close access to unnecessary features. Well, if you decided to do it on your own, then you need not to be lazy and read the training materials.
Crooked golden hands
There are many specialists on freelance exchanges who are ready to take on any job. Since CMS 1C-Bitrix is very popular, even those who do not know how to work with it and do not like it do not refuse to work with it. Order something from these guys - the right way get problems.
At first they will do it crookedly, and when the customer says: “somehow my site is slow and difficult to search,” they will answer: “what did you want, you have a site on Bitrix.”
Hence the problem - the difficulty of choosing competent, responsible developers, among all those who are ready to take your money and put together something on their knees.
In order not to fall into the clutches of such shots, I can advise you to watch with caution if the studio works on something other than Bitrix. If a private specialist takes any orders, he is unlikely to be an expert in any CMS and I would not recommend trusting him with a site on Bitrix. While a studio may have different specialists for different systems, one person can almost never boast of excellent knowledge of several CMSs.
Lots of negative reviews
A CMS is not only program code and functionality - it is a set of characteristics, like a puzzle, which consists of many parts. The success of the project depends on every piece. All puzzle pieces made with a rating of 3 are better than one piece made with a 5, and the rest with a 2 or none at all.
It has always amazed me how, even being a brilliant programmer, you can confidently declare that “Bitrix is shit” and convey this erroneous truth to everyone who is ready to listen and to those who are not. How can you not understand that from your bell tower you can’t see the whole picture?
A programmer may not like several pieces of the puzzle in the Bitrix picture: architecture, “shit code,” documentation. It's like disliking a person just because he has a sweater with reindeer on it.
A sweater with deer and the deer itself is a big difference that not everyone understands.
Professionals usually do not attach labels, especially to market leading products (and Bitrix is the leader). Pros understand that there are tools for different tasks, and that even a very high bell tower does not provide a 360-degree view.
Seeing only part of themselves and criticizing the entire product is usually typical of “young specialists” whose halo over their heads has not yet been trimmed with personal experience.
It’s unusual to code shit - Bitrix is bad. You need to read the documentation to understand the product - Bitrix is crap. You need to buy a license - Bitrix sucks and Sax. There is no favorite feature that is in Joomla - well, you understand... At the same time, logic outside the boundaries of one’s own interests is completely excluded. Any arguments that are hidden behind blinders and therefore not visible cannot be taken into account.
Typical conversation with Bitrix haters. You ask: “You don’t think that large stores, such as Evroset.ru, Sopato.ru, Eldorado.ru, chose cms at random without conducting at least some assessment of the available offers?” They say: “Bitrix just has excellent marketing, which has fooled everyone’s heads.” That is, they actually claim that other specialists made a choice without understanding the advantages and disadvantages, but only by looking at advertising brochures.
For some reason, the “smartest” do not think that other specialists, and clients too, see the existing shortcomings, but are chosen not according to one criterion, but according to a complex. They look at how suitable Bitrix is for their project, how many tasks it covers, what risks it reduces.
I have come across situations when such a smart guy came to the company. He scolded Bitrix, praised ModX/Drupal/favorite framework. I reworked the project, transferred it from Bitrix to another cms. When migrating, I forgot about SEO requirements and didn’t bother with migrating old materials, users, and “other little things.” And then, a year later, when the company management realized that the genius turned out to be too original, they again spent money on developing a site on Bitrix, and the new developer already had to take into account both the first site on Bitrix and the second on ModX. It is clear that this affects the price of the work paid by the customer.
Don't listen when they tell you that Bitrix is bad.
Those who are “bombed” write a lot, everywhere they can reach. 20 thousand Bitrix partners, among whom almost all major Runet studios work silently, making websites and online stores only on 1C-Bitrix. Do you think they are masochists? After all, there are alternatives, including among commercial CMS. Look at the percentage of sites on Bitrix in RuNet among commercial CMS.
Thus, another disadvantage is that there is a lot of negativity on the Internet and little constructiveness. This makes it difficult for customers to make the right choice. In addition, there are many old reviews on the Internet that are no longer relevant.
Weigh the facts and think for yourself
To make it easier for you to communicate with experts, consultants and other professionals who criticize 1C-Bitrix, I will show you the direction of thought that you need to follow.
The next time a studio or private developer tells you “Bitrix is crap.” Just know that people make mistakes. At a minimum, Bitrix does not know how to cook or is inclined to make incorrect generalizations, or at maximum it is deliberately misleading.
You need to think something like this:
- The site is slow - Bitrix is not to blame.
- It’s inconvenient to work with the site - Bitrix is not to blame.
- It's not looking well - it's not your fault.
- It's stupid and buggy - it's not my fault.
- Database errors - not to blame.
If your site has problems, it means that the developers cannot solve them. And 1c-bitrix has nothing to do with it.
So, it turns out there are no downsides? There are, but most of them are a problem for developers; they hardly affect you as an ordinary user. Bitrix is just a tool that not everyone knows how to work with.
Brief conclusion
So, the disadvantages and cons of Bitrix.
Expensive
- Significant license price.
- There is an annual paid update.
- The cost of work/services in studios and private specialists is on average higher.
For the average user (not a programmer), the main problem with Bitrix is the price: for a license, for renewal, for the work of more expensive specialists.
The price of a license alone reliably cuts off small budgets up to 100 thousand rubles. Do the math for yourself. If the license for the “Business” editorial office costs 73 tr. then another 50 hours of work/consultations at the quite divine price of 500 rubles per hour, which is exactly about this amount. And if you have an individual store development, then you won’t get away with 50 hours.
Featured
- There are a lot of features that need to be dealt with, some of them will never be useful.
- The interface looks visually complicated if you don’t customize it and disable/hide unnecessary things.
- You need to read the user manual.
There may be difficulties with integration with 1C
Or maybe not. This is not a matter of Bitrix, rather, on the contrary, if you had difficulties in Bitrix to make it work with 1SKY, then in other CMS these difficulties would be even greater. Therefore, no matter what CMS you have, there may be difficulties.
I wrote this point down as a disadvantage, because ordinary users expect integration “by magic” from Bitrix. These expectations do not always come true and it is possible to integrate “out of the box”. There is disappointment, a feeling that you have made a mistake. Here you need to understand - miracles do not happen. It is not enough to simply buy a license; there will be other expenses and budget and time should be allocated for this.
Lots of unskilled personnel
There is a demand for development and modification on Bitrix and, of course, there is also an offer from the relevant specialists. But not everything they can do is high quality. I know a studio that tweets about its dislike for Bitrix, but at the same time makes projects using it. You can sympathize with the clients of this studio.
That's all the disadvantages. Let me remind you that we are talking about the disadvantages, for ordinary users - not programmers.
Success stories
Customer success stories - a description of the process of product implementation in well-known companies: the tasks set by the customer, development stages, feedback from developers and clients, implementation results, plans for project development.
Active lifestyle United Elements Group
Customer: United Elements GroupExecutor:
Number of employees: 300
Industry: Air conditioning, ventilation and heating
Experience in implementing the corporate portal "1C-Bitrix"
Company
United Elements Group was created in August 1993 and until March 2004 operated under the trademark "Petrospek". Today it is one of the leading companies in the wholesale sale and service of high-quality air conditioning, ventilation and heating equipment in Russia and the CIS countries.
Situation
The company considers an internal portal for an organization of more than 300 people and with offices in different cities a necessity. Only this tool, according to Olga Zavalevskaya, HR director, allows you to solve several problems at once: promptly inform employees online and receive quick feedback from them feedback, provide the team with the opportunity to access a variety of useful documents, as well as increase the loyalty of specialists and their motivation.
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Developer
The Dialogue Information Technologies group of companies is a leader in the field of integrated automation of enterprises in the North-West of Russia. Many years of experience in implementing projects of varying complexity - from the supply of packaged products to automation of the activities of large industrial enterprises - allows Dialogue IT to successfully work with companies of any size.
Web-studio “NetPr1me”, which became the developer of the project, is a division of “IT Dialogue”, providing a full range of services for the development, maintenance and development of corporate business solutions.
Reasons for choosing a software product
After analyzing existing systems on the market, representatives of the developer company and United Elements Group decided to implement the software product. The main reasons for choice, according to Mikhail Belyaev, head of the web studio “NetPr1me”, became the simplicity and ease of working with the portal, the speed of implementation and the abundance of various tools that ensure internal communications.
Ready functionality
United Elements Group plans to actively use simple, familiar and therefore effective tools for the user - social networks, instant messages, search, forums and blogs. And more than 500 ready-made components for constantly encountered tasks enable employees to start working with the portal almost instantly, gradually increasing its functionality as they get used to it.
Simplicity and ease of operation
An adaptive interface that “remembers” the preferences of each specialist who works with it every day allows you to spend a minimum of time and effort on posting and updating the necessary information.
Updating news feeds, publishing materials in corporate publications, replenishing photo galleries and entering information into the employee database is easier, faster and more correct.
Implementation speed
A ready-made portal with a pre-configured structure and services that can be brought into line with the company’s characteristics and requirements in the shortest possible time is an ideal solution for such a large and dynamic organization as United Elements Group, aimed at implementing several extremely pressing tasks at once.
Progress and results of development
After the presentation, the company deployed a test version of the portal to determine the functionality, then the development process began in full swing, lasting about two weeks. And a month later, immediately after filling the resource with the necessary content, it was put into action.
Welcome to the United Elements Group team!
The most striking and effective tool, according to the unanimous opinion of employees, was the President's blog.
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The change in the standard portal design carried out by United Elements Group did not happen by chance, according to employees. The launch of the intranet portal coincided with the process of internal restructuring and a change in corporate identity. “It was important for us to “fix” the new logo, new corporate colors in people’s minds and make the resource more “personalized.” Therefore, we abandoned the standard design and changed it to a corporate one,” says Victoria.
Employee profile
“Another interesting implementation step was the transfer of the corporate publication United Times and the newspaper Uniting the Best to the portal,” says Mikhail Belyaev. “This has accelerated the formation of an internal information space that unites newcomers and “old-timers” of the team and has a positive impact on the coverage of major events in the life of the company,” he believes.
Project development
“Since the process of developing the portal is quite active, we plan to “connect” everyone to the portal with the possibility of authorization during the first half of 2010. We will definitely include video blogs, instant messaging, forums and polls. We are very pleased that users themselves ask to expand the functionality,” says Victoria Panchenko, answering a question about the project’s development plans.
Life of the company
By the end of 2009, United Elements Group plans to launch the following sections:
- "Faces of the company." Here, employees will talk about how they came to the company, what it taught them, and how working in their current position influenced their professional growth.
- "Hot news" - main news The week will be highlighted in color, which will draw attention to the most relevant topics.
- At the beginning of the new year, the company intends to:
- Make the portal look like modern electronic media using the “Interview”, “Photo Report” sections and the release of analytical articles.
- Integrate the resource with Outlook to export the employee database.
- Give your web project even more life by posting photos of employees and main events from the life of the company in a photo gallery.
It should be noted that 1C Bitrix, a commercial CMS, is in first place in Russia. The engine's great functionality is convenient for creating and editing corporate websites, but it also has plenty of disadvantages.
So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of 1C Bitrix?
Advantages of 1C Bitrix
- I am quite easy to handle when administering. It is enough to download new materials, and the necessary functionality for your project has already been obtained.
- Regularly update security resources. Which is perhaps one of the main advantages. Protection is at the proper level, but not always up to par. Although, of course, security plays a big role for online store owners.
- The first year of using the CMS, technical support is free and prompt. However, after this period, you can expect a response for a long time, sometimes more than a day.
- It is possible to integrate common types of databases (DBs).
- One of the reasons for the popularity of 1C Bitrix among corporate organizations is "1C: Enterprise".
Hi all. This is my first post on Habré. So I’ll introduce myself formally. Web developer. Experience 3.5 years. IN present moment- an accomplished bitrixoid. I do everything - supporting large projects, in-house development, consulting on marketing issues, reviewing the capabilities of new versions, nuances of website integration with 1C on the other side, writing modules for the marketplace, implementing business processes in the “Corporate Portal”. And many others. Within a separate CMS. Whether fortunately or unfortunately (this article will discuss this) - it is impossible to remain without work. The market is more than half filled with products from 1C-Bitrix.
The article will discuss the pros and cons of this monopoly. I personally have no doubt that there are trends for this monopoly.
I deliberately did not start my post with the phrase “this is not another post about the advantages and disadvantages.” Let this be another post. I'm not good at bike building. So the post will use ready-made ideas and ready-made solutions. Everything is like in Bitrix.
So why don’t people like Bitrix? And who doesn't love him?
As I see it, there are two main groups.
1. Managers and customers who are far from the development itself, but have already gained a lot of knowledge in website development. And having their own opinion.
2. Developers are supporters of “kosher” and “ideal” development. On frameworks or written by yourself.
First group. Managers and customers.
I quite often work with people who order Bitrix because it has a huge number of advantages in website management. These people understand what they pay money for and why they buy Bitrix, and not use a free CMS or one that is cheaper. So I don’t need to give arguments, make a list of advantages and disadvantages. They know everything themselves.
Unfortunately, this group also includes many people who do not like to read. That is, you need to make a website. Ok, we'll do it now. And what will we do it with? Let's look at the market. Bitrix is bought - ok, we take it, we’ll figure it out further. Well, or we’ll hire a specialist who will sort it out for our money.
The approach may be correct. At least the Bitrix developer in this case is always in the black and, as already written above, will not be left without work. But - here you need to understand that the popularity of the system always implies a large number of people for whom the site is a design + engine. And who don’t care or care about anything other than this. These are sales managers who in many studios mediocre are acting project managers, and in some places technical directors. Unfortunately, in practice there have been such cases.
I’m not saying that a competent person won’t order Bitrix. But I’m saying that the target sales audience is those who understand website development in about the same way as graduates of the “PHP in 24 hours” courses. This is a sad fact, but as for me, this is an elementary price to pay for popularity. Not directly related to the system itself.
A huge number of failures in my practice are based on the following stereotypes:
1. Integration with 1C is free and standard
. On this topic, you can read at least this article, which describes the risks very well. The article already describes the problems experimental studio. And there’s no need to talk about studios where development is just taking its first steps.As a result, what we have in practice is a store design of 20-30 pages. With sophisticated filters, beautiful sections that drop out of the menu, everything switches, squeezes and jumps out. The client says “I want”, a contract is drawn up, the matter is transferred to the development department.
And then the manager’s epic phrase sounds:
“There is an order here, but the client also has a database in 1C for 100,500 products, but in Bitrix this is standard, right? It just won’t accept the site without integration. And you said that this is standard...”
Ok, let's look at the base. You haven't done the design yet, have you?
- We have already approved it, the layout designer is now working
- Okay, what is the state of the base, does the structure match?
- We don’t know, the 1C programmer is on vacation now... But what difference does it make, then if there’s anything, we’ll fix it. The main thing for us is to integrate.
“Okay, integrating like this is really difficult for me, especially since it’s standard,” I scoff to myself, and not expecting anything good, I begin an endless correspondence with the 1C proger. Anyone who has ever dealt with the issues of integrating something with 1C should understand me. In 90% of cases there is no need to talk about any structure. The properties of the products are entered into text fields, often with errors, the nesting of products is zero, and so on, and so on... But we have the site design approved, with usability and a clause on 1C included in the technical specifications. And this is also good if 1C-nick is interested in delivering the site as much as we are. And if this is just a person on a bet, then all these non-standard tasks of ours will be like a stop signal for a hare... He will answer, “Guys, you just don’t have experience in integrating with 1C, what are we talking about? What improvements?”, as in the case of the 1C programmer from the above article.
For those who are already planning to offer solutions and possible ways out of the situation, I will say - relax. The failure has already taken place. Further development turns into an endless series of crutches. Nothing good will ever come of it. Or beautiful design will go down the drain, or there will be no standard integration and someone will have to manually fill in the missing properties, and manually translate the structure into a form that is understandable for the site. Or there will be integration through some CSV files. And in this case, the developer has only one concern - to deliver the site faster than the jambs with the base will get on it.
What's the problem? In incompetence. And in the absence of the habit of thinking. We need to make websites, not think. So we do as we know: Usability - Design - Layout - Development. What could be simpler? Alas, there are nuances and they need to be understood.
When a failure occurs, the disappointment in Bitrix is quite strong. “We were thinking, but then they slipped it to us.” Everyone gives a damn - from the customer to the developer (yes, there were cases when I myself thought that it would be easier to manually write all these non-standard integrations with these non-standard sites than to stuff my art into Bitrix).
This is the first (and IMHO the main) disadvantage of Bitrix. Pop and popularity, keeping pace with philistinism. Even in studios that have a full set of certificates and gold status, there will always be a manager who “sold the site for a lot of money” and considered his work done. And to rejoice, he let further development take its course, saying that it’s my job to keep track of the deadlines, and then you’ll figure it out for yourself, I voiced the tasks.
2. Other standard features
In the article, I specifically paid a lot of attention to the most popular failure when working with Bitrix - its insufficiently transparently described connection with 1C. It is clear to the developer that not everything is so simple. The manager and the customer will most often consider that communication is simple, free and does not take time. And it turns out that explaining all the complexity to them is not always easy. Due to the fact that they simply do not need to know too much.But from the same series there is a problem with standard capabilities, of which the system actually has very, very many. Standard modules, components rich in functionality... After all, all this is also most often covered with one stroke of usability. We drew the ordering process in one step in a pop-up and with additional options. fields - the client approved. The first question is why did you draw in one step, if in the standard Bitrix component placing an order takes three steps? Is this so important for the site? I don’t understand - will the client’s business go downhill if we save 10 hours of development and reduce risks by using standard functionality?
This again comes to the question of approach. Bitrix is not for customization. It itself is very custom, but this does not mean that you can assemble anything you want on it and assemble it quickly. It’s just that sometimes an idea that has arisen needs to be compared with existing functionality - and think, how important is it to do it this way and not that way? Most often, in standard features, the idea that arose in the minds of managers and usability specialists is implemented more thoughtfully and deeply. There are extremely rare cases when something epoch-making is invented for a store, without which it simply cannot exist and which must be completed manually. Even relatively expensive stores can be implemented using standard functionality, if you simply wisely look for compromises between unique ideas and existing capabilities. This is my conviction. But few people think about this at the stages of drawing up usability layouts.
And this is a consequence of the first disadvantage of Bitrix. Incompetence and lack of understanding of how to work with the system.
Standard Bitrix components are not intended for modification. And everyone who has at least once had to get into the code of a standard Bitrix component understands this. Bitrix ideologically is a set of components. A set of ready-made ideas from which you can assemble a finished website. And my conviction is that in 90% of cases these ideas will satisfy the client. They will satisfy him even more than a well-designed usability layout with a large sum for the work of a specialist.
Even if you create a large website with several dozen standard pages, everything revolves around the same components: catalog, news.list, iblock.element.add.form. As a last resort, you need to modify the catalog filters a little. But again - no more than 10% deviation from the standard functionality. When all development comes down to finishing only the template.php and result_modifier.php files. IMHO, if you really want to, you can teach this even to a layout designer who can only use two PHP constructs: foreach And if
3. Creating websites on Bitrix is easy (it’s difficult)
I specially combined two problems into one, because my legs continue to grow from the same first problem - misunderstanding. Bitrix is not a miracle with eight heads. This is also a system for website development. And the complexity of development on it does not exceed or exceed the complexity of development on any other suitable CMS. Only knowledge and consideration of the nuances of the system, and not the system itself, can reduce development costs. Both knowledge and consideration of nuances must be maintained by the entire team. Starting from the manager first.Alas, in my practice, only a small part of managers bothered to read at least the Content Manager course. Although it is, of course, not enough. But in my practice there were a sufficient number of people who, every time before creating a completely typical online store, asked “is it possible to implement THIS on Bitrix?” I think to myself, “Well, if THIS could not be implemented on Bitrix, then why would you even want to order development on it? Based on what considerations?” The thought, alas, is most often one: “Yes, we looked at what CMS are now popular and decided to order a website on it.”
Guys, you will save yourself a lot of nerves and money if you just read the description of the capabilities of standard components and try to work with them in visual editing mode. Maybe even by creating a small website in this way without layout. This really doesn’t require much effort, and will be more than useful in the future when ordering websites. The documentation on the system is very good.
4. The site is very slow
A Bitrix website can be slow for many reasons. AND in none Of these cases, the system itself is not to blame. The fault may be in incorrectly selected hosting, in the developer who wrote his own components and did not bother to enable caching, or in an overly loaded layout. But the system itself is not to blame for the fact that the main page of your site takes 5 seconds to load. This is again a stereotype that managers and people who are far from development like to repeat. That Bitrix is hard and slow. Believe me, if everything is done correctly, the site on Bitrix will fly. The only question is to do everything correctly and understand what is right and what is wrong.Second group. Developers
The author of the article (that is, me) is the developer himself. I didn’t start with the “php in 24 hours” courses. For example, at some level I know assembler. There are a couple of commercial projects in Delphi, and I started learning the web from the very basics - Koterov’s textbook, articles on programming patterns in English. Wrote in Zend Framework, Yii. There is a framework that I wrote from scratch. Which also has projects that actually work. Sometimes in free time I write small programs in PHP for my own needs, starting with creating the index.php file in an empty folder. Just so you don't forget the basics.But - I never had the desire to say that development on Bitrix is WORSE or development on Bitrix is BETTER than development on anything else. People from the first group can afford this. But when developers say such nonsense...
As for me, such stereotypes among professionals are based on the eternal scourge of any developer - the desire for ideal. Any programmer is a complete perfectionist at heart and knows exactly what “ideal development” is. And everyone cherishes the dream of creating a framework on which you can write any website quickly and without a single problem. And everything that is not written by his beloved is, by definition, “shit code”, “nothing is undocumented”, “not structured”, “global variables throughout the code - what can we talk about at all?” etc.
Although in general, I sometimes agree with them when an order is received to finalize a project on Bitrix. This is how it happens, you open some template for displaying a product card, and there the breadcrumbs are displayed using five (!) sql queries to the database (direct, without any API), then of course you sigh heavily. You tell the client or manager - sorry, but improvements to your website will cost you more. The client will sigh, “Oh, this Bitrix...”
But what does he have to do with it? Both the client and Bitrix itself. It’s just that the developer, most likely, was from that same group - idealistic perfectionists, but did not want to study the system itself (or maybe he just didn’t have time) - so he wrote his own crutches. At the same time, most likely, cursing to himself at the system itself, at his unsuccessful career, that he should be designing hadron colliders, but here he is making improvements on shitty engines.
To be fair, I note that I myself look at the code of standard components with caution. There are a lot of interesting things to see there. But still, the standard components were written by programmers of a good level (at least higher than the one who output crumbs of sql queries). And - as I wrote above - well, ideologically, the standard component is a black box. He just has to do his job. It's not for modifications. This is the fault of the designer who creates the layouts for Bitrix. First of all, he must understand that modifying standard Bitrix components is a difficult task and fraught with risks. I want customization for the simplest task - sit down, draw what you want on a piece of paper. And then compare them with what you already have by playing with the components in the visual editor.
If the project deviates too much from the functionality of Bitrix itself, then sit down and think, is it really important for business to use this particular system, isn’t it more logical to order another? However, in both cases, we are not talking about development, we are talking about those people who sell/order websites.
And the developer, I repeat, does not need to turn up his nose and strive for perfection. It is enough to study the documentation and basic techniques. If a person is a pro, then he will simply accept the features of the structure, master the ideology and write good websites. If you are lazy, then there is nothing you can do to help.
You can get used to Bitrix just like any other system. This is my complete belief. And enjoying collecting sites on it is also not so difficult.
As an epilogue, I want to say that in any business, a competent approach and study of the subject is important. Just grab it like that fashion item, without studying what it is for and how to use it, in the hope that it will immediately bring mountains of gold, it will not work. Any project is work. And choosing a tool is just one of the stages of work. And far from the most important. What is more important is the ability to use this tool. I called the article “CMS from marketers. Pros and cons." I hope the article was able to roughly outline what I was talking about.
