Symphony.

I am quoting for a job which will start by migrating a site from Ruby On Rails to Symphony. The reason for the migration is simply that I don't speak Rails and I want to take the functionality forward. I have no doubt that Rails is perfect for the job, as is Symphony, but I need to convince the client that Symphony is a viable replacement.

I have no problem waxing lyrical about the benefits of Symphony as a technology or as a dedicated open source community. The only gap in my pitch is that I clearly can't claim that the Symphony community is as large as the Rails community, and the client needs to know what happens if I fall under a bus.

Has anyone faced similar questions and come up with answers to reassure clients in similar situations? I guess what I'd like to be able to do is to show him a directory of Symphony developers (so that he can see local ones) and to be able to give him a guide price for what it would cost to replace me.

I know we are a relatively small community, does anyone know how fast we're growing or have any other stats to support this migration.

For what its worth, I am shouting Symphony from the rooftops to anyone who might be vaguely interested. Tomorrow I am freelancing in an agency (who loved my Symphony demo) and hope to be working with their lead developer on their first Symphony project. Bring it on.

We've had similar questions from the client, but it's often Wordpress/CMSMS to Symphony, not Rails, so it's much easier to describe the benefits. As a agency too, the client doesn't really have to consider what happens if we all fall under a bus, they just know the site will be supported.

I used to remember a page that had growth statistics on it, but I can't seem to find anywhere, perhaps Allen or Craig could help there.

You could show the forum users in your country, especially those that have showcase sites (although be careful not to lose your own neck in doing so!)

Best of luck with your freelancing gig at the agency :)

Thanks Brendo. The agency went for it so I'm in the process of building them their first Symphony site. An extranet for their largest client.

Can anyone add to Brendo's comments or direct me to any figures?

I also have trouble convincing clients to use symphony over wordpress, since 99% of all freelancers use wordpress, clients assume this is the holy grail.

I know i can make a website with wordpress, but i can do it in symphony with a smile on my face and no headache. I feel much more confident in symphony since you are in complete control of what you're doing not being dependent on pre written php hooks and obscure plugins.

More and more clients want dynamic websites with a fully integrated cms. I've seen people achieving that with wordpress (i sometimes wonder how they do it), but i believe symphony is the perfect cms for websites with content that go beyond 'just a weblog'

In my perception wordpress is pretty good for blog / news sites. But with symphony you can start your project from the bottom up and sculp a clean custom and user friendly cms. Wordpress works well out of the box, but it's not fully personalised so it's less user friendly cause there are lot's of functions that can't be left out and can be confusing.

When you have a well customized symphony cms you should'nt even need instructions cause it's that intuitive.

Despite of these advantages i still had clients going for a save wordpress develop over the less known symphony (to my frustration) To be honest, i almost can't be bothered to make a website in WP cause it's so much more of a hassle then symphony

I'd like to hear some depeloper's perceptions on this subject, some good arguments for using symphony over Wordpress or other cms's that i can use to persuade potential clients.

Sugggestions welcome :)

There is some chat in Is Symphony ready Commercially? (almost two years old now, but shows how far we've come in that time), also in Symphony's performance. There are almost 10,000 registered members, 61 of whom have released at least one extension. There's also a list of Symphony specialists. There used to be a "Community Statistics" page on the website previous to this one, but I think it has long since passed. It visualised the members list by recency, trajectory and geography.

Thanks for the data, had a quick view but will look in to it soon.

I think symphony has come a long way indeed, and i am amazed by all the contribution and extensions comming out recently, so i think it's just a matter of time before symphony get's picked up and get the recognition it deserves.

Good job guys!

Thanks for your comments and links guys. A collation of that material should be plenty to convince him.