Sometimes you or your clients will have a specific vision for their project that just can’t be satisfied by an out-of-the-box tool. Perhaps you have some special function for your site or product that makes it unique, your workflow needs to be focused to a specific audience, or that you would like the confidence that changing your platform in the future will be feasible. In these instances a custom solution will be your best course of action as they will afford you the freedom to create web applications that are tailored to your needs.
Some examples of popular custom open-source platforms include:
CakePHP
A solid framework made popular by allowing for rapid creation of sites with a great codebase to get you started. Creating custom modules is a snap.
Zend Framework
Another framework that prides itself on the design of its structure. Zend provides most basic tools necessary for web-applications right out of the box.
Code Igniter
Much like its competitors, Code Igniter strives to provide tools for common tasks you normally fulfill when creating a new site from scratch.
Rails
much like the other web frameworks, Rails seeks to remove all redundant tasks you might perform and instead allows you to concentrate on the unique sides of your project. You typically use Ruby to code with Rails.
Django
This webframework is very similar in aim as Ruby on Rails, and is built on Python.