This question has troubled many directory masters. Well, here’s my honest opinion and description. PHPLD is a more used script then eSyndicat. The free and the pro version. Weirdly, PHPLD is a bit lower in features then eSyndicat BUT it’s the easiest script that I ever modified. So that’s one point for PHPLD. eSyndicat has alot of interesting features that phpld doesn’t have, but a considerable part of the features that lack in PHPLD can be installed freely (their awesome forum, has all mods in it). I especially like the editor signup and news section in eSyndicat, wich is not available as mod in PHPLD (yet). So a point for eSyndicat. Another thing is that you can find more specialists & designers in PHPLD then in eSyndicat. That’s the main reason I don’t use eSyndicat. It was almost impossible for me to find someone to code my eSyndicat template at a reasonable price. It has also come to the Price. A price for a single domain license without linkback in PHPLD is 75$, while its 49$ on eSyndicat. But if you want to linkback to PHPLD, you will pay 50% of the eSyndicat license for a copy. It’s difficult to say wich is better when it comes to price. Someone (under username Greg-J), mentioned that if needed in bulk, eSyndicat is cheaper since for 149$ you get unlimited domain licenses. In breath value-for-price just depends on how you want to use it etc. In breath, what can I say. If you’re a starter, and you don’t need the pro version of eSyndicat, it’s much too complicated for you and you won’t find budget specialists. However, with PHPLD, you can start a directory in minutes giving it a nice look and an adecvate number of categories. If you want to test the limits of the possibilities of a directory, I recommend eSyndicat (sorry David), but PHPLD can be easily modified to your needs too. Both scripts are great, both rule the market, and the most important - Google likes them both. Original source : AdsBlog
Good little article, but it will still leave you in the decisive question."which one" I made a choice 2 hours ago and purchase the PHPLD 3 but I could have gone with Esyndicat too, perhaps next time as I will be building more directories. I purchase the PHPLD3 due to the fact that I was using the Free version, I figure I could help a little. I have use the esyndicat free aswell before and it's just as nice. Esyndicat Pro 2 looks promising. Flip your coin on this two. I've now purchase 5 directory scripts. softbizscripts (not good) WSN Links (good, but i dont care much for the layout) Moset Tree (very good, but you'll be modifying your ass off, finding fix, etc..$99) Esyndicat (Free ver. very good) PHPLD (Free ver. Very good) Haven't installed the ver.3 yet. My next might be Esyndicat pro2 and Will upgrade on PHPLD3 The two scripts are very good and it is just a matter of choice,wants and needs.
I might actually buy esyndicate this xmas its only 125$ for unlimited anyways. But www is it easy to code the templates for the same cause i like to make custom templates and do not want too much trickyness involved.
Greetings, Nice article, Rezo Real objective opinion with no personal preference to any script You can read this on our site: We do offer free migration. If you send your dump to our tech guys they will migrate your data. Besides, we are making something special for our customers, let it be secret now Actually our templates are as easy to cusomize as any other ones based on Smarty. The only problem I see is the great set of features. Most of features are enabled/disabled via admin panel and when you modify your templates it's some harder to keep this functionality. But if you build a directory with less functionality you can just remove that code and that's all. In our next version templates we will comment template blocks. So it would be much easier for other webmasters to customize templates. Anyway, you can always ask for help with customization in our support forums. You can turn to WTM (our moderator) and he can make customization works for you. Besides, our team offers template customization services. Template integration costs about $100-$150 and IMO it's quite fair price for several working hours. eSyndiCat is a constantly improving software and I think many webmasters can try to take this niche as well.
@ Simon Gooffin oh i didnt know that you are maker of that script, but from various sites i have seen using esy. there is no dropdown menu that pops up for categories when you try to submit. Plus editing is no big deal for me i have spent hours(days) to customize my directories all by myself with no help from any forums or anyone else. So, was wondering how hard it is to customize templates on esy. ? And free upgrades are for life ? Will that policy ever change?
Hi, about dropdown. You can see in some cases in admin panel we use tree component like in explorer. So we already implemented this tree for front end as well as it seems to be more convenient way to choose a category for submission. Of course it is AJAX tree Just image this dropdown if you have 2000 categories for example You can check our free version templates system. It's similar to pro but our pro version has much more features. Hmm, usually our tech guys help a lot in the forums. I'm sorry if not. The upgrades are FREE also. Paid once you do not have to pay anymore. It's possible that policy will be changed but for our new customers only. Existing customers stay with that policy for ages