The technology behind Roadfly and a key ingredient to our success is the use and support of open source software like Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP.
Forum Software
Current: vBulletin 4 (currently in beta testing) http://vBulletin.com
Current: forumlib
forumlib is proprietary software written and maintained by Alan Riley. forumlib has been Roadfly’s primary forum engine since 2000.
Legacy: from 1997 – 2000 our forums were powered by a heavily modified version of Matt’s Script WWWBoard. A perl based cgi script which wrote and manipulated html files to form a threaded message board system. Pre-2000 WWWBoard was probably the most popular forum software available on the Internet. http://www.scriptarchive.com/wwwboard.html
Content Management Software
We currently rely on WordPress to power the content side of Roadfly. The home page, car review articles, this page you’re reading, and much more is powered by WordPress.
Membership Management
Membership management uses a proprietary system developed by Roadfly to provide ease of use of a singular login across all of the different software which powers the Roadfly.com site. The Roadfly membership management software will be phased out in favor of the vBulletin membership system with deep integration with WordPress.
Car and Parts Classifieds System
Our current classifieds system is two different pieces of software. One piece of software powers the used car classifieds and another piece of software powers the used auto parts listings. The car classifieds system is proprietary and was written and developed by Roadfly. The used auto parts system is powered by X-Zero Classifieds which was designed by them to closely mimic the look and feel of Craigslist.org. X-Zero Classifieds can be found at http://www.xzeroscripts.com
Email Service
Roadfly corporate email and email provided as a benefit to Roadfly Inner Circle Members is powered by Google Apps hosted GMail.
Other Systems
There are many other systems which help power Roadfly. Everything from blog systems, photo management systems, file hosting services provided to Inner Circle members and more.
Hosting and Network Providers for Roadfly.com
Since 2002 Roadfly.com has been hosted on a full rack of servers which we own and operate in a leased environment from TAG. TAG leases rack space in Equinix’s Dulles facility to Roadfly.com. Equinix is considered to be one of the top 3 providers of secure data centers in the world hosting and providing secure dependable connectivity to the world’s fortune 500 companies as well as small businesses like TAG and Roadfly.com.
In 2009 Roadfly began to migrate our hosting to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Switching to AWS benefits both Roadfly and our users. AWS provides best of class connectivity, redundancy and availability. By using AWS we no longer need to own our own servers which preserves our cash flow. Additionally there is no longer a need to physically visit a data center. Our goal is to have Roadfly.com 100% hosted in the cloud by the end of 2010.