This is probably the most controversial dimension to consider, but also one of the most important ones to pay attention to when dealing with new technologies. While it is absolutely true that popularity does not equate to technical merit, it can be assumed that:
- More people using a particular tool will be able to provide better integration help.
- Solutions to problems will be easier to find.
- If the codebase is open source, the project will be more likely to have fixes and features added to it.
In another way of describing the problem, can you afford to risk weeks/months/years of integration work on a tool that is unproven or on track to be abandoned in the next couple of years? If you are a really big shop with massive budgets ...
