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So I've been asked to create an shop for a photographer. I have a lot of experience working with online shops using various different frameworks (Rails, Django etc) but I've never really built a database for Photos nor really dealt with applications that rely so heavily on their images enough to have them inserted into a database potentially.

I have a few questions that I would like to ask the community; Should I use a CMS like wordpress or Joomla or would it just be better to stick with a MEAN stack or Rails app? I don't know much Php but it wouldn't be hard to learn enough to build something so simple if I absolutely have to; it seems to me that a CMS would be an easy way to streamline the backend of this particular app.

Also my other question is about storing the photos in databases versus just storing them as files on a server. Is there any advantage to storing the images in a BLOB, just having the hard copies on the server or using an API through something like instagram? Ideally, i'd like to have a real-time search bar (thinking reactjs) would a BLOB make this simpler or complicate things further. we are talking about 10-15 terabytes of photos potentially.

Anyways, hopefully some one can give me a general idea of what I should be looking for.

Abeltensor
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  • Just so you know, Stack Overflow isn't the place to have freewheeling conversations about broad topics. This site is meant for asking specific programming questions, for which specific answers can be provided. Please consult the Stack Overflow [help file](http://stackoverflow.com/help) for information on what topics are considered suitable for this site. – MarsAtomic Aug 04 '16 at 13:46
  • I know what stack overflow is meant for. This is a programming question and its not as broad as it seems at first; in particular the 2nd question is about a specific scenario which I am unable to find an appropriate answer for. – Abeltensor Aug 04 '16 at 20:43
  • Sorry, but you really need to read that help file. – MarsAtomic Aug 04 '16 at 20:50

2 Answers2

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Storing images directly in the database is probably not the most efficient way to store images. It is probably better to store file names and perhaps the paths to the files in the database rather than the image files and then store the image filess normally in the file system.

There are already some pretty good ready made solutions for a photography shop e.g. the Joomla CMS with free or paid version of Event Gallery.

Community
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Neil Robertson
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Look into using a CMS, like wordpress and using their plugin called woo-commerce which allows you to run an online e-commerce site in no time. To style it just buy a quick theme from themeforest. You could have a shop set up in no time, and depending on who you host with, they would handle the database side of things.

Or you could use Ruby on Rails and use the Spree gem which easily allows you to set up a e-commerce site in your rails app, And use AWS to store you images.

Another gem in the rails world is called Solidus, and there is a tutorial on how to use this to create an online e-commerce platform, heres a link.

Gurmukh Singh
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