Hello,

i'm totally new to SilverStripe and consider to try out SilverStripe for a future project, so i better ask the experts before i start, if SilverStripe meets my requirements. Is it recommendable to build something like a customer database with invoice processing with SilverStripe?

My aim is, that in the future up to 10 users are able to work online, enter customers, print invoices and so on. We talk only about a couple of hundret customers per branche with membership fees consisting of individual parts. The accounting system will have to take care about dunning, different key dates and contract durations and a contract can be suspendet or adapted in special situations, so i need flexible access to the data and need to work with my own database model.

Each user should be able to login at the same time with different login data and should only see his own data respectively the customers he entered. The user web interface should be the same for all users. There should be an easy way to add or edit customers respectively their contracts, write invoices with an invoice template, change text modules of the invoices with an build in editor.

At this point i think it is interesting for me, how much SilverStripe can simplify the development of some tasks, e.g. ...

- easy managing of different users with its own databases(client capabilities)
- easy creating of formulars
- easy searching the database, edit a customer within the before created formulars and save the data back to the database
- easy data transfer from one page to another(tasks are sometimes divided into several succeeding steps for practical reasons, like in an online-store when you buy an item and go to the checkout)
- easy validating of user input
- easy mechanism to catch things like accidentally closing the browser and prevent data loss, detection of double login, and so on
- support of a secure database schema like InnoDB and transactions
- easy printing or creation of PDF
- easy export to excel(xls would be OK)
- easy wrapping a simple layout over all the pages

And what would you think are the system requirements for such an envirenment? Should a cheap vServer with 2 GB RAM and 1 CPU Core provide sufficient power for this project?

I also looked at PHP Frameworks like CakePHP, but at the moment i'm not sure what is better: SilverStripe or a pure PHP Framework?

Best regards,
CrazySyntax

Yes, it is suitable.

But that is a very complex system you have there. SilverStripe can simplify a lot of it, with its Member class and Form Scaffolding etc.

I would build first with a something like CakePHP, Laravel, or SilverStripe, as a prototype and re-asses your options later. You may find these are more than adequate, chances are they'll be more than enough.

FYI SilverStripe is a framework like Cake or Laravel but has an awesome CMS component which makes life a lot easier when building sites. That is why I like it.

Your server sounds fine, but depending on the size of the datasets the users are editing and how many are editing simultaneously it may not. You'll have to find that out later.

Its a complex question, which can't be given a definitive answer.

And lastly for whats better "SilverStripe or a pure PHP Framework", in terms of server performance none, just use pure PHP and raw PDO. Any framework will add bloat to a project. In terms on speed of development, SilverStripe FTW.