DotNetNuke 5.4 and WordPress 3.0

Comparison

The vast array of competing Content Management Systems (CMS) in existence today can be make choosing the right solution for your project a difficult task. This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of two of the most popular products, namely DotNetNuke (DNN) and WordPress, to aid you in the early stages of your planning.

DotNetNuke  is an open source, ASP.Net based framework designed for quickly developing dynamic websites and web applications. The project was initiated by Shaun Walker, who derived the initial code for DNN from the 'IBuySpy Portal' sample application released by Microsoft in 2002. Early version were released by his company, Perpetual Motion Incorporated, and a vibrant development community soon sprang up around the system, with a wide variety of enhancements being added. As development activity continued February 2003 saw the project officially renamed from IBuySpy Workshop to DotNetNuke, while in 2006 the DotNetNuke corporation was formed to ensure  further development conformed to the early ideals. The latest version of the DNN product line, 5.4, was released in April 2010.

DNN has achieved stunning market penetration since its first release, with the free community edition alone being used in at least 600,000 websites world-wide. Some of the better known users of the framework include Fiat and Pier One Imports. In addition to the community distribution there are also better supported and more stable 'Professional' and 'Elite' editions of the framework available. These ensure that end-users can always turn to a respected authority on DNN if they run into any problems. As such, it's unsurprising that the October 2009 open source CMS market share report  conducted by the Water&Stone digital marketing agency concluded that DotNetNuke was the leading ASP.Net based content management system.

Fiat - A DotNetNuke User

WordPress today is widely acknowledged as the most commonly used CMS in the world, which may account somewhat for the large number of attackers attempting to exploit it. As of June 2010 Secunia has issued 39 security advisories  for the WordPress 2.x software, of which all but 8 have been patched. June also saw the release of version 3, code-named “Thelonious”, which can hopefully quash some of the vulnerabilities for good. With this in mind WordPress is well placed to be the go-to solution for blogs and other simple websites.

2010 - The New Default WordPress Theme

Underlying Technology: Both applications are based on open source code, which means they can be freely expanded on by your own development team. The main difference between the two is that WordPress is written in PHP, while DotNetNuke is written in Visual Basic .Net. With LAMP technology stacks being used widely across the web, especially within shared hosting environments, it is likely that WordPress would be easier and cheaper to set up. Windows based servers tend to be more expensive, however DotNetNuke's ability to interface with Windows NTLM based authentication as well as Active Directory makes it an ideal choice for use in domain-based systems such as intranet websites.

Features: The two products initially served fundamentally different purposes, and have been designed as such. WordPress was created to be an extremely simple blogging system, while DotNetNuke was intended to handle more complicated web applications. This is reflected in the features of the two systems. DotNetNuke comes with some functionality like mass uploading and resizing of images built in which WordPress supports only through third party add-ons. Similarly DNN offers prototyping, templating / macro languages and zip archives built into the distribution whereas WordPress often has no answer at all for these features. WordPress is slowly adding in some of this functionality over time, however. For example version 2.9 of WordPress added the previously missing undo functionality, and Thelonious offers the multi-site ability long supported by DotNetNuke but missing from WordPress.

When considering a potentially large scale website WordPress's lack of features becomes even more of an issue. Performance management options like database replication and load balancing are fundamental parts of DNN, while WordPress does not consider them at all. This could lead to businesses which expects their traffic to take off finding themselves held back by WordPress. Similarly the lack of in-line administration and content scheduling can make WordPress more complicated to administer when used for a large scale project, whereas DotNetNuke's built in reporting and document management systems can make the system administrator's life considerably easier. With these points in mind, it is important to stress that WordPress can be easier for a single person to install and administer than DNN.

Customization and Third Party Extensions:
Both DNN and WordPress are based on open source code, and as such have thriving communities of third-party developers. Snow Covered  is DotNetNuke's official market place, offering a wide variety of additional functionality both free and paid-for. A useful example might be the module which allows DNN to integrate with Crystal Reports. WordPress also has an official extensions directory hosted on its main website, although the plugins tend to be slightly less business orientated. Paid for extensions are not included in the WordPress directory, which can make finding some content more difficult. However WordPress's popularity means that there are more people are creating extensions for it than for DotNetNuke.

Snow Covered - The DotNetNuke Marketplace

Form is, of course, almost as important as function. That's why both DotNetNuke and WordPress allow themes, which can change the look and feel of an entire installation. Also called 'templates' or 'skins', a good theme can provide the attractive visual style which is vital to user retention. WordPress has a directory of themes on its main website, containing around 1,200 free templates. In addition there are large quantities of freelancers who will happily design a theme to your specifications. Snow Covered also serves as a marketplace for DNN themes, and it is arguable that its superior classification system makes it slightly easier to find templates. In both cases the centralization of themes can be a boon to business users who don't want to go searching for the ideal template.

Security: As previously mentioned, WordPress has been plagued by security issues throughout its life.  DotNetNuke 5.x has had only 7 Secunia vulnerability advisories  to WordPress 2.x's 39, all of which have currently been resolved. DNN has security and authentication principles firmly at the center of its development ethos, with audit trails, NTML and Kerberos authentication being readily available. Session management and SSL logins are also better supported in DNN than WordPress. As such DotNetNuke is likely the best option from a security standpoint.

Support: Both WordPress and DNN have built a large community of developers around their products. These communities can provide a reasonable amount of support, from technical documentation to discussion forums. However, in business-critical situations, this can sometimes not be enough. Recognizing this, the DotNetNuke corporation offers 'Professional' and 'Elite' versions of their framework, which allow on-line and phone-based technical support. These versions are also formally tested and quality controlled, something which most open source projects like WordPress cannot claim.


Where DNN does fall down slightly is in the ease of updates. WordPress has an extremely impressive one-click upgrade path for most of its core functionality and even add-ons, which DotNetNuke's manually applied updates just cannot match.

In conclusion then, WordPress and DotNetNuke are both viable options for creating a new website, be it business or personal. WordPress is a light-weight framework, which is perhaps more suited to small scale blogs and websites. The security issues and lack of some important features perhaps limit its application for large scale business orientated websites, although the one-click upgrade path is extremely useful. DotNetNuke by comparison can be slightly more difficult and expensive to set up initially. However it makes up for it through solid integration with Windows authentication methods, as well as performance management features like database replication and load balancing which are sadly absent from WordPress. The decisive factor is likely the officially verified 'Professional' and 'Elite' versions of DNN, which offer dedicated support for business critical applications.