Category: Software

After working with the DotNetNuke Content Management System (CMS) for over two years on my personal and several other websites, I finally made the decision to move to something a little less daunting.

Do not get me wrong, DNN is a very powerful system, but with the power comes complexity.

I needed something that did not require as much time to work with, so I started to look into WordPress.

I also realize, that the two systems are entirely different, and have two different audiences in mind.

DotNetNuke can be managed by one person, but that one person needs to be aware of several different underlying architectural environments. Having a programming background is also very desirable when tweaking in needed.

WordPress on the other hand, seems to be geared more for the casual user. Once set up, management of the software appears to be far easier than DotNetNuke.

In the following, I will attempt to do some illustrations in regards to the pros and cons DotNetNuke and WordPress.

By no means is this list comprehensive, but is based on over two years of working with DotNetNuke, and new installation of WordPress, as my new website environment. (I did run a WordPress.com (Free) site for approximately same amount of time… and I have a couple alter ego sites on WordPress…)

DotNetNuke

Pros

• Free/Open Source
• Very Powerful and Scalable
• Supports many Microsoft development languages
• SEO Friendly (w/Plug-Ins)

Cons

• Complex
• Windows Only
• Requires Hosting Server
• Simple Back-ups can be done w/Additional “Paid” Software
  – Depending on your Hosting company, Database backups may require additional purchased software.

DotNetNuke it is definitely geared towards an environment where there is someone or some folks that are willing to administer an environment where multiple technologies may be involved.

DotNetNuke is infinitely expandable with the various programming languages that are available to create modules and enhancements within this Content Management System (CMS).

When looking at the DotNetNuke homepage, you can see that many large corporations throughout the world use this CMS for their websites.

There is also a large development and support environment available for those that wish to use DotNetNuke, including SnowCovered.com, DNNCreative.com and the forums on the Main DotNetNuke website.

One of the things that I found very depressing about the DotNetNuke environment, was that every time I wanted to have additional functionality and something, it is it was either a great deal of work, or I had to pay for it.

I always felt that I was getting “Nickel and Dimed” for everything I wanted to do, including documentation and training.

A prime example of this would be the DotNetNuke blog module. Based in this day and age of blogs seems to be the quintessential format for all many websites.

WordPress.com (Free)

Pros

• Free/Open Source
• Very Powerful
• No Hosted Needed
• SEO Friendly

Cons

• Limited Enhancement options
• No Google Analytics
• No Google AdSense
• Might be Block by Firewalls

WordPress.com by far is the simplest of these three options presented, but what do you want?

There is no need to find a host, installation is nearly instantaneous, with a few clicks you can have your theme for your website, and you’re off and running.

With the free hosting version of WordPress, there is no advertising “things” that must be placed on your website, which I find very interesting, because I wonder how WordPress pays for itself.

Another Post, another time….

WordPress (Self Hosted)

Pros

• Free/Open Source
• Very Powerful
• Google AdSense & Analytics
• Very Powerful and Scalable
• Multiple Platforms ( Wintel & Linux)
• Very Low Hosting Fees
• SEO Friendly (w/Plug-Ins)
• Basic Back-up of the MySQL can be done with Free Plug-ins

Cons

• Need a Hosting Server (Hosting Fees)

Because WordPress is open source, there are no cost associated with the base software, which does lower costs as one looks around at various hosting options.

I did research one vendor, that does have very low price, but what I found out was, the Advertised price was based upon an upfront one year obligation of hosting.

Once again the law of averages, for the hidden truth.

The ULTIMATE hosting environment would be comprised of Linux as a server operating system, Apache as your Web server, and MySQL doing the database backend, and the ability to use PHP scripts/language. Also known as, LAMP (or Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)…

There are thousands of Hosting Vendors that could fit this description… that is beyond scope of this post to really get into that issue…

Many of these Vendors also offer one-button installation of WordPress which for those that do not enjoy the fun of installation, one can just click… sit back and wait…

I did not do this so I cannot comment on the validity of these installs, but if there were an issue there would be far more complaints than what I was able to see in various forums.

Install – WordPress

I did a fair amount of reading to make sure, that I was moving in the right direction of a WordPress install..

I did my necessary backups of my DotNetNuke website…

I even converted many of the aspx pages to HTML, and then integrated them to my temporary WordPress.com blog site.

My WordPress.com site was my secondary backup, and served as my template for my new website.

Having been a Wintel System Administrator for 10+ years, I knew I needed to back up everything…

Several times over…

I confirmed with my hosting company, CrystalTech.com, that my hosting environment was able to accommodate WordPress…

I also confirmed the default structure of my hosting environment.

This was going to be a “Bare metal” / “Fresh” install.

I downloaded and unzipped the official WordPress installation package, and uploaded it to my webspace, and ran the installation script.

The installation ran extremely quickly… I was VERY surprised!

I was able to launch my website install the database etc. etc. etc. without issue…

Now it was time to customize.

Note – Another thing that struck me, was the fact that the administrator interface for WordPress is far easier to understand, then what one would face with DotNetNuke.

I am not going to get to each and every detail of the various ‘things’ that one can add to their web press environment, but needless to say there are thousands of different combinations that one could create to fit their personal taste.

Conclusion

WordPress (Self Hosted), in my opinion, is the most flexible of the three environments presented, but this is dependent on how much you want to be involved financially or through development.

For a Single User with some General knowledge, but not willing to deal with the test technical aspects, WordPress.com (Free), would be your best bet.

For a User with some Advance knowledge, but not willing to deal with the test technical aspects, WordPress (Self Hosted), might be a consideration, but be aware, the technical aspect, might become addicting…

For accompany willing to invest the time and finances, DotNetNuke can be an excellent platform to build from, they can easily grow as your requirements do.

Additional References

Because I installed into a mixed environment, Microsoft IIS (WinTel) and MySQL (Linux), I was confronted with several unique issues with my host that were easily resolved with numerous pre-published documents.

As part of my website reconfiguration plan, I set up on a aseymour.com, with a HTML page, that included a metadata redirect to my WordPress.com site, so I was never really “down”, my content was always available.

But in doing so, I choose to install into a sub-directory of my main website…

At first, when one went to aseymour.com, there would be a quick redirect page, then to the new Main.

I had to get around this pause…

The Crystal Tech support folks were able to point me to the following document, which also used to redirect but at a domain level, which I hope to use, later as I look into Drupla and Joomla.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory