Hi, I don’t know if anyone else here has experience with server-side link-management software, but I thought I’d give it a shot.
Problem: I’m not rich, and I’m having trouble finding software that does everything I need and isn’t a bear to configure. My requirements are:
-generally Yahoo-style (like most are)
-users can suggest links and categories to be approved by a moderator
-text description of the links
-flexible layout of produced pages
-a link checker
-referenced categories (sub-categories that show up in two places, that is)
-not a massive pain to install/configure/manage (I’ve got the talent, but not the time or patience)
-and (this is the hard one): writes out static HTML from a database, rather than generating pages on the fly. That’s essentially a must, due to the potential of huge MySQL Conuery loads and just speed of operation (I don’t expect or want lots of realtime updates, so it makes more sense to just serve HTML).
Unlike with bulletin board software, of which there are several very good (and free) choices, I’ve only come up with a few free/near free options:
The best bet seems to be Links 2.0; free for personal use and if absolutely necessary I think I can come up with the cash for the paid version. Problem is mainly the threat of money, and that it doesn’t use a MySQL database for the backend… does it scale well with thousands of links, or is it going to choke eventually. Worse, their $500 SQL based version (if I could ever afford that) doesn’t seem to do static HTML, which is a no-no.
Other options are:
Cascade, but that seems to be hard to set up, and apparently the MySQL version (which I would want to use) is broken with the current beta, which isn’t under rapid development. It also might not scale well.
MyThreads-Links, but that doesn’t seem to write out HTML.
phpmyannu, except everything’s in French…
and ssLinks, which is highly recommended but seems to be dead (though I got a copy of it), and also doesn’t seem to write out HTML.
…anyway, that’s what I’ve got. Am I missing any inexpensive options here, and/or does anybody have any suggestions based on their own experience?