29/11: Free CMS in ASP.NET
Recently I was looking for a free CMS in ASP.NET. I came across 3 valuable candidates which I tested ... These are:
- AxCMS
- Umbraco
- DotNetNuke 4.X
I tested other products as well but they didn't seem to meet the minimum requirements I was looking for. So here are my 2 cents on those 3 systems.
AxCMS was the first one I tested. Setup went pretty smooth and I got it up and running in no time. Once I started working with it, I noticed that AxCMS offered great flexibility and high level functionality out-of-the-box. But the advanced features come with a price. I, as a developer, quickly adopted the CMS but while I was playing around, I quickly started asking myself: "Will the average user find this suitable for his needs?". I tend to think the answer is no. Why? Well I guess the system is a bit to complex to use if you have no IT background. For the average professional webmaster, I would say this system is great!
The second one was Umbraco. I can be brief on this one. I like it, it's simple, easy to extend and setup went flawless. The only reason why I wouldn't use it at this point in time, is that it didn't seem mature enough e.g. some translations where very unclear for the end user. But I will keep track of Umbraco for sure and there is a big chance I will actually use it some time in the near future.
Last but not least DotNetNuke. Since it is on the ASP.NET website as a resource, I consider it a Microsoft "product". And I have to admit it, I'm a huge Microsoft fan :-). So you might think why didn't he use DotNetNuke in the first place. Well I deliberatly tried to avoid it, this time. I was seriously looking for an alternative for this and I hate to say I failed. It took me a while to get DotNetNuke up-and-running and some collegue's of me agree with me on this point. But once installed, I liked it's simplicity and ease of use and for me it was the best option for the moment. Extensions can easily be created with the use of user controls. So, are there no drawbacks at all? Sure... There are some things in the API which I consider an example of over-architecturing. Nearly everything is abstracted etc. This is certainly the case with navigation. While everything is beautifully globalized, creating multilanguage websiteq appears a hard thing to do out-of-the box and I didn't find many free resources on the internet to help you with this in an easy way. (I'm a belgian and as you may have heard some people around here speak different languages which makes multilanguage sites a must have thingy.)
So what's my conclusion? If the people who have to administer the website are IT-people use AxCMS for sure. If that is not the case then use DotNetNuke for the moment, but consider Umbraco as a great alternative with some opportunities for the future... This is if you require ASP.NET of course... ;-)
- AxCMS
- Umbraco
- DotNetNuke 4.X
I tested other products as well but they didn't seem to meet the minimum requirements I was looking for. So here are my 2 cents on those 3 systems.
AxCMS was the first one I tested. Setup went pretty smooth and I got it up and running in no time. Once I started working with it, I noticed that AxCMS offered great flexibility and high level functionality out-of-the-box. But the advanced features come with a price. I, as a developer, quickly adopted the CMS but while I was playing around, I quickly started asking myself: "Will the average user find this suitable for his needs?". I tend to think the answer is no. Why? Well I guess the system is a bit to complex to use if you have no IT background. For the average professional webmaster, I would say this system is great!
The second one was Umbraco. I can be brief on this one. I like it, it's simple, easy to extend and setup went flawless. The only reason why I wouldn't use it at this point in time, is that it didn't seem mature enough e.g. some translations where very unclear for the end user. But I will keep track of Umbraco for sure and there is a big chance I will actually use it some time in the near future.
Last but not least DotNetNuke. Since it is on the ASP.NET website as a resource, I consider it a Microsoft "product". And I have to admit it, I'm a huge Microsoft fan :-). So you might think why didn't he use DotNetNuke in the first place. Well I deliberatly tried to avoid it, this time. I was seriously looking for an alternative for this and I hate to say I failed. It took me a while to get DotNetNuke up-and-running and some collegue's of me agree with me on this point. But once installed, I liked it's simplicity and ease of use and for me it was the best option for the moment. Extensions can easily be created with the use of user controls. So, are there no drawbacks at all? Sure... There are some things in the API which I consider an example of over-architecturing. Nearly everything is abstracted etc. This is certainly the case with navigation. While everything is beautifully globalized, creating multilanguage websiteq appears a hard thing to do out-of-the box and I didn't find many free resources on the internet to help you with this in an easy way. (I'm a belgian and as you may have heard some people around here speak different languages which makes multilanguage sites a must have thingy.)
So what's my conclusion? If the people who have to administer the website are IT-people use AxCMS for sure. If that is not the case then use DotNetNuke for the moment, but consider Umbraco as a great alternative with some opportunities for the future... This is if you require ASP.NET of course... ;-)
