My question is do you think the WIX platform could be used to create a website similar to Booking.com if done right? In terms of creating functionalities, options, log ins, invoices etc. A supplier side to create content as well as the consumer side. Also if it’s possible to create a website like this through WIX, would the WIX servers be able to handle a website like this with being confident there won’t be issues?
I hope someone can help me with this, as Wix themselves sent me to this forum to ask.
Best Wishes,
George
Hey
I believe that anything is possible to create using Wix and Wix Code but you will also need to connect that Wix Code project to other external systems for sending out emails like SendGrid (now Twilio), Zapier to handle incoming and outgoing integrations to other systems. You may also need an external system to create the PDF invoices in a manner you like.
The biggest thing might be to make all the APIs to act as a channel manager to hotel systems like Booking.com do for their partners and that is a huge project.
I code a lot of large Wix Code systems but this one is larger than anything I have ever created. I would think it would take a team of three developers more than three years to create a platform like booking.com if all features must be included.
But it is possible and the larger the team you get the faster it will get. Regarding the traffic volume that won’t be a problem for Wix, maybe for the packages they offer but I believe that they would do anything in their power to support a project that this in anyway possible.
Although I usually agree with Andreas on subjects, here we differ completely: don´t even think about doing this in Wix, it will be an accident waiting to happen. I will try to explain:
- no ACID-compliance. Wix uses MongDb as its database and thus lacks the stability guarantee you need for a high-volume DB that needs to be consistent and, in case of failure, be able to repair the database from a log. Also, MongoDB knows of no transactions, a thing you need when doing this kind of jobs. And, the booking.com system has sooooo many relations (pricing per room, per day, per amount of people, discounts, rates types etc, it will be pretty difficult to come up with a good db setup for fast relational queries, let alone for non-sql db´s like MongoDb.
- because Wix uses JavaScript in combination with MongoDb, they only numeric entity you have is a Number with JavaScript´s (and other languages) horrible floating point handling. You will not be able to guarantee invoices/bookings that add up when the volume is high.
- Wix does not support multi-language sites: menu-system is 1-language only, so you will have to revert to buttons, so you loose the hamburger-menu on mobile and you will have to develop your own menu-system which is horribly hard (like submenus that pop-up). Also, the date-picker is English only and there is no Time picker. Many standard apps are hard-coded English “Oops something went wrong”, “Good vibes coming your way”, “Page … of …”, etc
- Wix DB (MongoDb) know no auto-increment data type. You will be UNABLE to guarantee incremental reservation numbers and on high volume you run the big risk of creating the same reservation number for 2 different bookings. etc.
- the Booking.com interface for hotel owners (with all the colored indicators for availability, clickable, editable inline is impossible to achieve in Wix. You will have to revert to an external scheduler (if you can find one that does exactly that or develop it ourself) and run that in the dreaded html-window (which looks horrible on mobile because it is non-responsive)
To wrap it up; Wix has made some design decisions (MongoDb/Javascript) that already dictate that it cannot be used for huge systems like this. Just go to quora.com and seacrh on MongoDb and “financial system” etc. You will see exactly the same critique as I gave above: don´t do it!
If you want to do a booking.com clone, go relational and develop front ends yourself using html/CSS etc
Wix Code was not designed for this, so don´t even try, you will regret the decision. Wix is a very good environment for small, non business critical projects. But it is not meant to do what you need.
Hey Andreas and Giri,
Thank you so much for your responses, i do appreciate it.
I understand what both of you are saying, i think it’d be best for me to not even start to try it on Wix.
Is there a way we can chat in a messenger on here?
Hey
Regarding the database issues that Giri brings to the table he is absolutely right and I am obviously wrong. We usually agree on all but here we disagree but Giri has more research in his bag so I would listen to his answer. Even if you could to the consumer frontend in Wix probably and the hotels backend in some other but the calendar availability things I do believe will be doable in Wix very very soon…
So Wix should think about changing from MongoDB then if it can’t handle traffic @idang because if you are right about this Wix Data Collections will break for many projects
He Andreas, glad you didn´t take it personal (which it wasn´t, I just tried to state facts). Yes, if Wix could just give us the possibility to choose another database (or, mix in another db), oh boy, would we have a killer. Yesterday I looked at the NPM for mySQL and I started drooling: transactions, table/row locking, auto increment columns, everything you need for ACID-compliant apps. But the work: you will loose ALL data binding (in forms, repeaters, dynamic pages, etc), so you would have to develop this yourself, meaning rewriting a huge part of Wix Code.
If only, if only Wix could somehow give us this option … (but afraid it´s not going to happen).
So if Wix could add the virtual Data Collections I have asked for you could tell the system that your mySQL tables should be available as virtual Data Collections and then mama mia?
@george I haven´t had much luck with the chat app lately, I don´t know if it is working. But, if I can help you, email me. I´m on that Google email service and just glue my to names together.