The project that I'm currently working on is using a 3rd party content management system. It provides all the features you'd expect in a CMS and all the marketing material provided makes everything seem easy enough. As we get deeper into the implementation more and more of the warts of the CMS are presenting themselves. The system seems very capable for managing basic websites, however, is lacking in several areas when it comes to managing a large website such as the one we're using it on.
It seems like everytime we use a 3rd party component or software packages to help speed up our development efforts it winds up making everything more painful. An exorbitant amount of time is spent hacking away with the software trying to get it to work the way we need. It provides some basic features that are useful, however, is lacking in many very important areas which brings the development to a grinding halt as workarounds, hacks, and pure nastiness is considered so that the solution can be delivered.
These experiences always bring me back to one question. Is using 3rd party software really worth it? In the amount of time it takes to learn, customize, and hack away at the 3rd party software we could have built a custom solution to do exactly what we needed. It would have provided us with all the functionality we needed, would have allowed us to add new features and functionality as needed, and made the experience of working on the project much more pleasant.
Do I just have bad luck with 3rd party software or is this something others are seeing and feeling as well?