Discover the basics of ColdFusion Web hosting, ColdFusion applications, uses and benefits. Also find a list of useful resources, books, links to authoritative Web sites and communities dealing with the ColdFusion scripting language.

What is ColdFusion?

ColdFusion is Allaire Corporation's (owned by Macromedia) commercial database application development tool that allows databases to have a world wide web interface, so a database can be queried and updated using a Web browser.

Using tag-based scripting and built-in services, web application developers can harness the power of the Java platform without the complexity. The latest edition of ColdFusion is ColdFusion MX - which is significantly different to its predecessors - built on a Java-powered web application server called J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition).

ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is the tag-based server-scripting language for rapid Web development. Processed entirely on the server, CFML is easy to learn, yet powerful enough to handle demanding Web application logic. The filename extension for ColdFusion is .cfm.

CFML uses a Web syntax that closely resembles HTML and XML. Advanced developers can extend and customize CFML through custom tags, reusable components and user-defined function, and take advantage of structured exception handling and integration with Java, C, C++, COM, CORBA and EJB.

ColdFusion MX is designed for developers building dynamic Web sites and Internet applications. Easy to use visual tools, scalable, quick to learn, minimal project development time, intuitive server scripting environment. ColdFusion integrates well with Macromedia's other Web development tools: Dreamweaver MX, Fireworks MX, Flash MX.

ColdFusion MX supports most major databases: MS SQL, MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase, Informix. Web Servers: IIS, Apache, Sun ONE and others. Operating Systems: Windows, Solaris, Linux and more.

ColdFusion Servers ColdFusion is available for purchase at the Macromedia Web site. ColdFusion MX is available in one of two different versions - Standard and Enterprise. You can find out more at Macromedia ColdFusion.

ColdFusion Web hosting
Due to the costs of purchasing licenses and hosting on Windows servers (for the most part), ColdFusion hosting is typically less prevalent and more expensive in the Web hosting industry. Most ColdFusion hosting plans run on Windows 2000/NT/2003 servers, although some Web hosts offer ColdFusion on Linux operating systems.

As with other hosting plans, ColdFusion hosting plans differ in their features - some have more database support, ecommerce features, mailing accounts and other unique features