A shortcut to choosing the right software.

Once you know the type of software you need, it usually comes down to which from multiple competitors you should choose. For example if you need a CMS, should you choose Joomla, Drupal, or Wordpress? If you need e-commerce, should you choose osCommerce, Zen Cart, or Magento?

So here's what I do. In the Google search toolbar, type "magento vs" and let autocomplete give you a list of competitors. These are listed in order of popularity; so as you can see, Zen Cart is Magento's biggest competitor. Then type "zen cart vs" to see Zen Cart's competitors, #1 which is osCommerce, which automatically demotes Magento (since it's not Zen's biggest competitor). Now type "oscommerce vs" and you'll see that Zen Cart is osCommerce's biggest competitor.

What does this tell you? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it tells you that in terms of the search queries people perform, Zen & osCommerce are the most popular e-commerce solutions. Popularity is a good measure of the value of software, especially when it's open-source, because (1) value usually (I know, I know) attracts popularity, and (2) the more popular a product, the more development attention it gets.

So this is my shortcut to narrowing your comparison of multiple products down to two, and then from there you'll have to do a thorough comparison of the two. Again, the shortcut is (using the Google search toolbar)

1. "[random product] vs"
2. "[1st result] vs"
3. "[above's 1st result] vs"

I know this will piss people off, so comment & we'll discuss :)