Hi Jeff et al,
Search criteria......sure
First, I have been using Whois.Cart for quite a while and really like it. In fact, I will continue to use it on a smaller site that does not require the added features we needed.
For our environment, we were really wanting an add-on item or the ability to do one time fees for certain services. As an example, we have quite a bit of "logo" work to do and it was getting hard to keep track of a billing system for web site clients and 'all others'. We also wanted the ability to keep the interface as simple as possible. The most important aspect of our criteria was cost.
I will hand it to ModernBill (MB) because they were the top runner and we had to choose between MB and DRAMS. In the end, I wished for ala carte (ohh, i wish i had that!), bandwidth billing (though we don't think that is an issue at the moment), or Free domains but we had to give way to the almighty dollar. For 10dollars less per month, we lease the license from DRAMS. So, in the end, it really boiled down to price over features (with exception of the template system).
I would add that we did quite a bit of reading on the MB, WhoisCart, DRAMS, and DA forum before choosing. We demo'd the MB and DRAMS client for about a week before choosing. We concurred that MB is a "heavy" application. It has much more than we need and the interface for the user is pretty intense. We have simple users so we needed a simple interface (a plus for whoisCart). DRAMS is not super simple but it was our opinion that it was easier to navigate than MB. We also found that DRAMS had enough flexibility to change the layout to blend into our site better. For what it is worth, we have a license for ClientExec but after an hour with it, I was ready to throw my computer from the roof. Not only was it too hard to navigate or accomplish simple configuration (packages and the sort), it was too stinkin slow for the short fuse attached to my patience factor. We experienced in our demo sessions that MB was a bit slow in doing things also...and we read that most people blame the application, not the network for that performance. As for the interface, honestly I was a bit intimidated by the MB admin interface. I am sure it gets easier as you get used to the application but my first impression was "holy dog poop!". My colleague said, no way! He was a bit intimidated too.
Do I have any negatives about DRAMS? Sure...but they are working hard to make improvements, just as any client is with their respective billing software company. I would say that I liked that they provided an entire website template solution. Although we had worked for a few weeks developing our web site and thought we would have to scrap it to integrate DRAMS, we found it easier to integrate our site concept around DRAMS (with a few mods to our design). In any case, we are pretty happy with the new layout and the site seems to be flowing ok now...
If I had any one gripe with DRAMS is their templates. After working with a simple WhoisCart template system, DRAMS was initially a nightmare. IMO, the template system is very confusing but once I got it all figured out and traced (documented), we were able to make changes a lot more quickly. Also, plugging in our own mySQL queries has been easy enough.
I am sure I have left a few pertinent details out and I spared you the detailed, in length discussions we had with cost analysis for 3,6,9,12,24 month operations
ohhh, i will add that we did decide to lease for a few months before purchasing "just in case" we decide it is not going to work for us...in which we would most likely choose MB or just wait for the future release of WhoisCart Silverstar