As I've posted elsewhere, it comes down to this... Let's say it took you a month to implement your desired goal once you make your choice. If you use this system for 5 years, then that's 59 to 1 ratio of time used vs. time to set up.
So what's important for the long term is not which product can most quickly get a demonstrable interface up, it is which platform has the flexibility you need, the robustness that is required to make any amount of functionalty worth having, and the broad and deep architecture to continue to grow over time without getting 'brittle' and requiring a step back and punt rewrite.
CQC, by far, has the most extensive underlying architecture out there and it will be able to continue to grow rapidly over time while remaining solid, and as any of our customers can attest it is a rock solid platform. And, since we are really addressing the commercial market, the flexibility is there to achieve what you want to achieve. And nothing else can touch it in terms of a network distributed platform, something that becomes more important as you look to the whole home, and to the future.
And, very importantly, instead of the extra cost and complexity of two or three separate automation products, you get one price, and one tightly integrated package. In the end, the cost, complexity, and stability issues of integrating multiple systems is far less desirable than having it all under one roof, all fundamentally designed to work as a system, and they will likely in the end even out any gains from having more canned interfaces.
So I would just stress that what you are looking to create here is the antithesis of quick and dirty, it's something that you'll depend on every day, and every day for years. So the decision should be made in that light.
If you look at what it supports out of the box, in terms of major chunks:
1. Fully network distributed platform, which can completely distribute the load of back and front end around the network, and which you can use and manage from anywhere in the network. This is also a key aspect of allowing for remote development and management.
2. User based security, which is server based so it can't be hacked on the client side
3. Zero configuration web server for small device and remote access
4. Full bore automation backend, with in-depth documentation
5. Media management of changers, media servers, and on-disk content, fully networked and driver based, allowing browisng and playback from anywhere in the network. Look how quickly we've integrated the Escient, J.River, DVD Profiler, and myHTPC repositories, all of which can be browsed generically via the same interface tools.
6. Support for CE.Net clients for portable clients, using the same interface development tools.
7. Support for Rad-IO for low cost multi-touch pad systems.
8. Completely open ended interface design system that lets you make it look the way you want. And it supports and object oriented command system that allows you to create unique, custom dynamic interfaces without programming.
9. Built in macro and driver development tools, also fully distributed, which are a key aspect of maintaining a stable and robust system.
10. Networked, xAP compatible event system, so event triggers can propogate throughout the network.
11. Extensive XML based integration protocol to allow third parties to integrate with CQC.
12. Scheduled and triggered events
13. Extensive two way driver architecture that supports serial, socket, and USB devices, with two separate driver development languages to meet the needs of the device.
14. Remote serial port server that allows us to connect to your serial devices and write drivers or diagnose problems remotely.
15. Extensive diagnostic tools. Ask our customers how quickly we tend to diagnose and fix (or tell them how to fix) problems using the tools we have.
And none of that is done via third party code. It's all our own, between 600 and 700 thousand lines of proprietary code, that we control the quality of. That's really the biggest reason for CQC's extreme stability, and that's why it's been able to grow so rapidly and will continue to do so without becoming brittle and unstable. We built the platform first, then built the product on top of it.
