ColdFusion is a commercial rapid application development platform and web application server invented by Jeremy and JJ Allaire in 1995. It quickly became a full platform and scripting language allowing for development of rich Internet applications (RIA), and has since been acquired and sold by Adobe Systems.

ColdFusion application server and software enables developers to rapidly build, deploy, and maintain robust Internet applications, allowing developers to condense complex business logic into fewer lines of code.

ColdFusion is a commercial server-side platform and scripting language that can be comparable to PHP or ASP. The difference is that it is a commercial, stand-alone application server that does not come standard on Windows or on Linux and must be purchased separately and installed on the web server. It is a very powerful scripting language and development platform allowing a great deal to be done with little code. ColdFusion has gained significant popularity over the years and is here to stay.