Criticisms Of ColdFusion

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According to Wikipedia, these are the common criticisms

* ColdFusion is expensive, especially compared to its competitors, which are almost always free. Even Microsoft-based scripting solutions such as ASP.NET are technically free if you own a PC or server running some version of Windows. It can be argued that the rapid deployment of ColdFusion applications negates the cost of the server, since most applications can be built at manpower savings that significantly make up for the cost of the server. Nevertheless, the initial cost of a project remains relatively high.
* Many scripting languages such as PHP, Ruby, Perl and Python are open-source. While the language of CFML itself is well-documented, ColdFusion's server code is not readily viewable or modifiable. Applications built using ColdFusion are viewable and modifiable unless they were deployed as a binary CAR file (similar to a JAR file).
* CFML syntax is much different from traditional programming languages, which use a C-style syntax. Although CFSCRIPT offers this alternative, ColdFusion code is often written in CFML. CFML is certainly not alone in using tag-based syntax. JSP and .NET are examples of other scripting languages which feature tags.
* ColdFusion is slow. Because ColdFusion is another layer of abstraction above an already slow J2EE server, ColdFusion is slower than almost all competing solutions. While the initial loading of a ColdFusion page may be slower than a competing scripting language, ColdFusion does cache pages and offers caches of database queries, which can greatly enhance performance.
* ColdFusion libraries and extensions are few and rarely free. This criticism is somewhat negated by ColdFusion interoperability with Java, specifically JSP tag libraries, but is now generally seen as inaccurate among the ColdFusion development community, as there are many open source libraries available, such as those on CFLib and CFOpen.
* ColdFusion lacks features present in other scripting languages. A significant omission from ColdFusion's tag library, for example, is the ability to manipulate common image formats. Another of note is a client IMAP tag. Missing features are often available as extensions, with the caveat on extensions as above.
* ColdFusion lacks advanced object-oriented features such as multiple inheritance. ColdFusion supports single inheritance only, and makes little distinction between instance and class (virtual and static) properties and methods. ColdFusion doesn't offer constructor syntax per se, but rather forces an object factory pattern to return object instances. A common idiom is to use init to indicate a method which is the contructor for each component. Methods are implicitly virtual if they reference the THIS scope. There are several techniques available to provide mixin functionality.

With this criticism, I hope that the developers of ColdFusion will try to resolve as to attract more users. And just as the first criticism, I wish they will create a free version of this programming software.