ColdFusion Developers

UK ColdFusion & Lucee specialist

Your ColdFusion application still works. Does anyone still know how?

I'm Rob Wellard. I keep inherited CFML applications running, secure and supportable — for the UK companies that depend on them and can't find anyone who speaks the language.

Book a health & EOL audit Something's broken right now

20 years in CFML Adobe ColdFusion & Lucee 4-node load-balanced estate run daily Based in West Sussex, working UK-wide

If you're here, it's probably one of these

Almost nobody chooses ColdFusion today. They inherit it — and it keeps earning money quietly until something forces the issue.

The developer leftNobody in the building understands the codebase, and it's been "fine" for years right up until it wasn't.
It failed a security reviewAn audit, a client questionnaire or an insurer flagged an unsupported ColdFusion version and now it's urgent.
It's downAn outage, a failed deployment, or an upgrade that went badly, and no one available knows CFML.
A migration stalledSomeone started moving it to Lucee or off CFML entirely, and it's been half-finished for months.

Three ways to work together

Most people start with the audit, because it's the only one that tells you what you're actually dealing with before you commit budget to it.

Start here

ColdFusion Health & EOL Audit

£1,450 fixed price

A written report on where your estate actually stands. Two weeks, no commitment beyond the report.

  • Exact version and its support status
  • Known vulnerabilities, ranked by real exposure
  • Server and application configuration risk
  • Code health and undocumented dependencies
  • A prioritised, costed plan you can hand to any developer
  • 45-minute call to walk through it

The report is yours whatever you do next. If the right answer is to leave it alone, I'll say so.

Unplanned

Emergency CFML support

£125 per hour

Outages, failed deployments, upgrades that went wrong. Two-hour minimum, out of hours included.

  • No retainer required
  • Applies outside 9–6 and to anything under 48 hours' notice
  • Straight into diagnosis — send the version and the error

Ongoing

Retained support

from £900 per month

Having a ColdFusion person on call again, who already knows your estate when something goes wrong.

  • A block of hours each month
  • Guaranteed response time
  • Rollover capped at one month
  • Cheaper and more sustainable than a contractor you'll lose again

Most "ColdFusion experience" is one app on one server

Yours probably isn't. Inherited estates are rarely a single tidy application — they're several sites, shared code, a database nobody wants to touch, and a deployment process that lives in one person's head.

Day to day I run a live production estate of four load-balanced Lucee/ColdBox backends serving multiple public sites: deployment, reload strategy, caching, failover and performance. That's operating ColdFusion at scale rather than just writing it, and it's the part most inherited estates actually need help with.

I take a small number of clients at a time, and I'll tell you when something isn't worth doing — including when the answer is to spend nothing.

What I work with

Adobe ColdFusionLuceeCFML ColdBoxCommandBoxMS SQL Server IISTomcatnginx Load balancingVMwareCloudflare .NETJavaScriptjQuery

Rates, in public

You shouldn't have to book a call to find out roughly what something costs.

All figures exclude VAT. UK-wide, remote, with on-site by arrangement.
EngagementPriceTerms
Health & EOL Audit£1,450Fixed price, two weeks, report plus walkthrough call
Retained support — Standard£900 / month8 hours, next-business-day response, 3-month minimum
Retained support — Priority£1,700 / month16 hours, same-day response, out-of-hours included
Scheduled project work£85 / hourBooked a week ahead, billed in 30-minute increments
Emergency / unplanned£125 / hourTwo-hour minimum, out of hours and short notice
Full days£550 / dayBlocks of three days or more

Questions people actually ask

Our ColdFusion developer has left. What are our options?

Three, broadly: find someone who knows CFML, migrate off it, or leave it alone and accept the risk.

Most people can't choose between those without knowing what state the application is actually in — which is what the audit is for. It tells you what version you're on, what's unpatched, and what each option would realistically cost.

How much does a ColdFusion developer cost in the UK?

Where contract ColdFusion roles are advertised at all — and very few are — UK day rates sit around £450. The scarcity cuts both ways: rates have held up while the number of available developers has fallen.

Specialist part-time support is usually charged hourly rather than daily. My rates are on this page rather than behind a form.

Is ColdFusion end of life?

The platform isn't. Adobe still ships new ColdFusion versions, and Lucee is open source and actively developed.

What does reach end of life is each individual version. Adobe publishes a support end date per release, and once yours passes it, you stop getting security patches. Plenty of inherited estates are running well past that point without anyone having noticed — that's usually what the audit turns up first.

Should we migrate from Adobe ColdFusion to Lucee?

Often, but not always. Lucee is open source, so it removes Adobe licence costs, and most CFML runs on it with modest changes.

It gets complicated where an application leans on Adobe-specific features. The honest answer depends on your codebase — which is exactly the sort of thing the audit is meant to settle rather than guess at.

Can you take on an application you didn't build?

That's almost all of this work. Inherited, undocumented, written by someone who left years ago — that's the normal starting point, not a problem.

Do you work with agencies and other developers?

Yes. A good share of this work comes through agencies who have a client with a CFML application and nobody in-house who can touch it. Happy to work white-label under your name.

How much of your time can we have?

I work with a small number of clients at a time, on a part-time basis. That suits companies who need real expertise a few hours a week rather than a full-time hire they'd struggle to find anyway.

If you need someone full-time on site five days a week, I'm not the right fit and I'll tell you early.

If your CF app is unsupported, that's worth a conversation before it's urgent

Send me the ColdFusion version and the error, or just describe the situation. I'll tell you what I think before you commit to anything.

rob@coldfusiondevelopers.co.uk

I'll usually come back to you the same day. If it's an outage, say so in the subject line.