DotNetNuke vs Kentico vs Umbraco - Most Popular ASP.NET CMSs Compared Side by Side
Tue, 11/16/2010 - 14:43 in
DotNetNuke, Kentico, and Umbraco are all among the top .NET CMS options available. But even after you have reviewed each one of them independently, it can be difficult to gain a truly comparative insight into what each product has to offer. By arranging all 3 products into one feature-based table, it becomes easier to analyze similarities and highlight any beneficial features.
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There are a lot of high quality CMS options available using the .NET framework. Three of the most popular are DotNetNuke, Kentico, and Umbraco. While it is easy to search for individual reviews, finding direct comparisons can be difficult. In order to find out which CMS best fits your needs, it is important to be able to directly compare your options. If you already have a good idea of which CMS is right for you, but are having trouble making a final decision, then a direct comparison is often exactly what you need. Here is a head to head comparison of DotNetNuke, Kentico, and Umbraco.
Suggested additional reading: Top 7 ASP.NET CMS Options
| Latest Versions (11/10) | DotNetNuke v5.5 | Kentico v5.5 | Umbraco v4.5.2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Available Product Options | Community Edition: a free open-source version. Lacks some of the advanced features. Professional Edition: Verified and tested version. License fee applicable. Advanced features. Unlimited technical support Enterprise Edition: Most expensive option. Same features as Pro Edition but also includes Content Staging feature. |
The Free Edition is very hard to find on the main site, but there is one. However, it is quite limited and will place Kentico links and logos on your site. A 30-day Trial version of licensed version is available. Basic package: starts at $1999. Variable prices that depend on license required (website, small business etc), additional services, and level of license. |
Free Version: Completely open-source. No license fee is applicable. Pro Version: $1150 with tools but no support. $2200 with standard support and tools. $4300 for premium support and tools. |
| Templates | While there are some free skins, there is also numerous websites selling a large amount of commercial DotNetNuke skins. There are more templates available for DNN than for its Kentico and Umbraco rivals. | Very few commercially available templates. The Kentico DevNet marketplace only has 33 available at the present time. It appears that most people custom-make their own skins or hire developers to do so. | There are very few themes specifically designed for Umbraco because of its unstructured approach to website design. However, because the install is completely clean, many people are using templates from other CMSs and simply uploading the HTML and CSS files. |
| Content Management Flexibility | Easy to optimize web page functionality. Content can be edited through a standard web browser. Ability to allow non-technical content contributors to work on content without IT support. | Includes custom document types, fields, and content/design separation. | You have the ability to either use it as-is or modify it in any way you want. This means that you get unlimited levels, categories, and types of content |
| Content Editing Functions | Telerik RadEditor Enhanced Rich Text Editor is included as standard. Allows image resizing, spell checking, cleaning up Word doc and includes HTML templates. Ribbon Bar Control Panel allows user to edit pages and add new modules. |
Includes the Kentico CMS desk which allows users to manage modules and site structure. Built-in WYSIWYG editor similar to Word permits advanced formatting, linking, and insertion of images/Flash movies. |
Umbraco has a Microsoft Word style editor that includes integration with your desktop Word so that you can edit and create content when offline. |
| Permissions | Administrators can define and assign roles for different user groups such as registered users, subscribers, content providers, affiliates, and media. They can then grant access and editing rights for each group. Rights can be assigned to an entire site, a single page, or to an individual module on a specific page. | Kentico supports both Windows Authentication and Forms Authentication. You can import user information from an external database. Module based user permissions can also be granted for specific documents or sections of website. Permissions (Authorization) is not just limited predefined settings. | You can create as many different user types as you want and assign them permissions. You could use an external program like PowerShell to assist with setting permissions. |
| E-commerce Solutions | The main shopping cart option is the DotNetNuke Store Module, which integrates with Authorize.net and PayPal. The free Nevoweb.com NB_Store module is also becoming very popular. | The Kentico ecommerce module allows you to build on-line stores and sell products over the internet. The module integrates with PayPal, Authorize.net, and lets you offer customer credit (loyalty schemes etc). | Umbraco has a few open-source e-commerce apps and modules available. The commercial app UCommerce appears to be popular and Tea Commerce is a new open source that has a lot of potential. |
| SEO | With DNN you can create and manage a website that is SEO friendly without adding any modules. But there are also many modules available that will help to enhance SEO - such as the Pretty URL’s module. | You can find several SEO related settings including: Google Sitemap and 301 redirections. You also get search friendly URLs and Custom URL and there are additional modules that will greatly improve SEO. | Because you can control everything, it is possible to create SEO friendly pages. Out of the box, the primary SEO aspect is the URL's and Page titles. With no interference from pre-defined features you have full control over all SEO components. |
| Multimedia | Standard core framework includes modules for creating interactive social media sites. The UI makes editing multimedia files a simple process. There are some good third-party add-ons also available. | With the WYSIWYG editor, adding and editing multimedia files is relatively simple. You can also create multiple Media Libraries and upload docs, images and music files. | You can manage your audio and visual aspects via the Media section. |
| Photo Galleries | The two main photo gallery modules are “DNN Photo Gallery” and “Simple Gallery”. Many other modules are available on the DotNetNuke marketplace. | There is an Image Gallery module included where you can upload and display images. Uploads can be done through browser or by using batch file import module. | Photo galleries can be managed by using Runway Gallery package. |
| Event Calendars | DNN has an event calendar and registration module that will serve as an event calendar. | A basic event calendar is included as a standard module and can be combined with the Booking System to allow for event registration. | There are several event calendars that can be added. Popular options are PDCalendar and Ismail's Umbraco Events Calendar |
| Document Management | Administrators can upload files directly from their computers. Uploaded files are instantly available for use on the site. They are also listed in a module that controls documents and file downloads. There are several popular third-party document management modules including: Document Exchange 5.2, Issue Management Tool, and i2 Class Management. | Within the core, the main way to manage documents is through the media library module but you can also store files in the content tree as a CMS.File. | The main document management tool is through the media section. It may require you to alter the user type that gets access depending on your needs. |
| Blog and Forum Packages | The DNN Blog module is actually a compilation of modules that come together to form a single blog. The two primary forum module options are the free “DotNetNuke Forum” and its commercial counterpart, “Active Forums”. |
The Blogs module is fully customizable and is part of the standard modules that are included. The included forum module allows you to create both pre-defined forums and ad-hoc forums. |
There are available blog and forum packages. One of the main complaints against Umbraco was lack of decent forum support. But with the development of the uForum and YAF (Yet Another Forum) modules this been fixed. |
| Multi-Lingual Support | DNN 5.5 has been upgraded to include full multi-language localization support. Users have the ability to manage content in primary language. DNN Translator utility will then synchronize and update multi-lingual content. | Kentico allows you to organize multi-lingual content. You can switch between different languages - both in an editing interface and on the live site. | Umbraco provides support for multi-language capabilities and ships with 15 languages. You can also add additional languages if required. |
| Standards Compliance | DNN core is XTML 1.0 compliant and all the core modules go through compliance testing. However, there are still few modules which aren't fully compliant. | All code rendered by Kentico is compliant with XHTML 1.0 specs. It also fixes XHTML incompatibilities that were the results of the ASP.NET 2.0 engine. | Umbraco is completely web standards compliant, however because of the amount of developmental flexibility there may be occasions when standards compliance will have to be performed manually. |
| Module Availability | DNN comes with some free modules and there are more than 8,000 3rd party add-ons at the DotNetNuke Store. Some are free, many are commercial. | Kentico comes with quite a lot of in-built modules from Blogs, Forums and Groups, to Analytics, Geo-mapping, and Content Rating. You can build your own apps and modules plus find more resources at Kentico’s DevNet site. | Umbraco has been designed with developers in mind. For this reason it does not come with the same simple ready-to-use modules as the other platforms. There are open-source plug-ins and advices available at the our.umbraco.org website. |
| Community Support | DNN now comes under the umbrella of the DotNetNuke Corporation, which also controls DotNetNuke Store. There are more than 800,000 registered DNN members, many of which are active in the DNN-related forums. DNN seems to have a very solid commercial community, especially in regards to modules and skins. |
The general Kentico community seems to still be growing and maturing as whole. In the forums, it seems like a handful of people are doing most of the assisting. Kentico has a stable commercial community but it does not yet possess the same widespread support as either DNN or Umbraco. |
The Umbraco community as a whole is still growing rapidly, as it has done for the last few years. Commercial community support is on the rise and with the growing popularity of the our.umbraco.org website Umbraco finally has the centralized community support it needed. |
| Available Documentation and Technical Support | DotNetNuke has lots of available online documentation. This includes free downloadable tutorials and videos. There are also informational books and related resources available to purchase. Pro and Enterprise users have access to unlimited technical support and the DNN Support Network. Can also upgrade to Elite Support. |
Kentico has enough documentation to get you going, but if you have specific questions then the forum will probably be where you end up. Free edition users only have access to the support forums. License holders have access to technical support via email or phone. |
Umbraco is consistently adding new documentation ranging from instructional and installation/setup guides to general reference and recommended reading lists. For manufacturer’s technical support you will have to be a Pro member (with standard support package). |
| Learning Curve and Ease of Use | DNN is designed to be user-friendly. The UI and modules can be easily understood by non-technical users. With DNN it is possible to have a site up and running in a few days, less if you possess some programming knowledge. There is still plenty of flexibility available to keep more advanced users interested. | Kentico has a very small learning curve, especially with the new UI that was introduced in version 5. With each release Kentico keeps getting easier to use. It is proving to be a worthy competitor with its combination of novice-friendly practical interface and enough advanced solutions for developers. | Umbraco can be mastered in a relatively short space of time but for this to happen you may need to possess some knowledge of .NET, HTML, and CSS. Because it is designed for developers and designers in mind, it is not really an out-of-the-box solution for CMS beginners. |
| Current Industry Status | DotNetNuke is still widely considered the leading Web Content Management Platform for Microsoft .NET. The driving force behind more than 600,000 web sites worldwide, it's most recent release is version 5.5. DNN tends to be a favorite with developers who possess .NET experience. DNN appears to be concentrating more on paid versions of their product at the present time. | Kentico is definitely still in its growth phase. It released a much improved version 5 in December 2009 and most recently released version 5.5 in May of 2010. Things seem to be looking up as they have consistently added employees over the last 5 years. The community continues to grow and is benefiting from having a single location for all of the support, forums, and marketplace activities (DevNet). | Downloads of the Umbraco CMS have grown significantly in the last two years and Microsoft has recently included Umbraco in the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. Umbraco’s ability to handle expansion and progression has earned it an increasingly devoted and committed fan base. |
| Final Product Conclusion | DNN has been a leader in the .NET CMS community for years and there is no reason that they should not continue to be one of the best. While they have experienced some speed bumps over the last few years, they still have a strong community to fall back on when needed. The latest upgrade v5.5 appears to have added some very important and welcomed new features to DNN and could see them regaining their place as the leading WCMS. | Kentico made a huge jump into the spotlight with the release of version 5. They have leveraged this notoriety to dramatically increase their user base. If they continue to focus on creating an easy-to-use, function-friendly CMS, then they will be a great choice for years to come. | Umbraco admits to not providing a complete “out of the box” solution but because Umbraco is completely open source it attracts very dedicated developers, and a lot of these share their experiences and source code frequently. This also includes packages of complete websites and modules. The commitment from the Umbraco community is helping to move them to the top tier of the CMS pack. |
Good analysis! SuperSimpleWebshop and uCommerce
Good analysis! I would like to point out that, for Umbraco, the commerce platforms to watch are not SuperSimpleWebshop and uCommerce. Also, the community is pretty much the best I've ever seen! I wish there were so many helpful and fast responses in other communities, keep getting amazed about Umbraco's!
Commerce 4 Umbraco seems to have been dead
Ahem. "are not" should obviously be: ARE.
FYI: Commerce 4 Umbraco seems to have been dead in the water for 2 years now and I've never even heard about "E-commerce extension".
dotnetnuke has been xhtml compliant
dotnetnuke has been xhtml compliant since 5.0, and all core dotnetnuke modules go through xhtml testing and have done for a few years - you can see their xhtml compliance status at http://www.dotnetnuke.com/AppGallery/tabid/2004/Development/Downloads/Pr...
DotNetNuke corporation
you never mentioned that dotnetnuke now has a company (the DotNetNuke corporation) behind it - I believe they're up to over 40 staff now adding a ton of enhancements and fixing bugs
Kentico Permissions
Hi, this is great comparison. I would only correct the information about Kentico permissions:
You're not limited to those three basic roles. In fact, Kentico has an advanced permission system that allows you to define new roles and grant them with access rights for particular modules. You can also configure permissions to particular sections or pages and inherit the permissions to underlying documents. These permissions can be applied both for content editors and site visitors, so you can use it to display personalized content in your member-only site area.
Thanks!
Thank you all for your comments and valuable remarks. The post is rechecked for accuracy and problematic parts are corrected.
Roko Nastic
Editor
Composite C1
It would be nice to also see Composite C1 in this matrix. It's new in the open source arena, but seem to have the muscle to make this list.
OS?
Umbraco "completely open source"?
Acording to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbraco the backend UI is licensed under "Umbraco License" which is not open source.
At http://umbraco.org/products/license the wording is pretty muddy - here is states '[license] covers files in the distribution, except the umbraco.dll and files in the /umbraco folder.'. What license is in effect for those (pretty important) exceptions is nowhere to be found.
Are you sure this is actual 100% open source or is it just a snake oil label?
Also have anyone using Umbraco actually taken the time to analyze the code quality? It definitely looks like it have been programmed by a couple of monkeys with no sense of quality and no code review in the process.
@Mark - I think the wikipedia
@Mark - I think the wikipedia content is outdated, Umbraco is now 100% MIT Open.
@Jay - I have simply not been
@Jay - I have simply not been able to track any verification of that down - is it EULA somewhere or do you have a link?
RE: Umbraco License
@Mark: Umbraco is 100% MIT. The link was an unfortunate leftover from the old site and we've updated the license on the website. The license in the distribution have always been correct though.
Sorry for any confusion.
missing a word in summary
The DNN summary starts out:
DNN has been a leader in the .NET CMS community for years and there is no reason that they should continue to be one of the best.
should that read "no reason that they should NOT continue to be one of the best."?
Corrected
Scott, thanks for pointing the error. Corrected now.
DotNetNuke PR Team Posting ?
This whole article reads like a PR effort.
The article has no author, its just appears out of thin air.
The comparisons are obviously not independant, nor is it based on any kind of method of comparison.
It's just the rant of somebody with a hardon for DotNetNuke.
So basically this is nothing more than advertisement for DotNetNuke.
They also forgot to mention the prices for DotNetNuke Professional, so here they are, via Snowcovered.com (the Dotnetnuke marketplace)
$2,499.00 DotNetNuke Professional Edition One Year Subscription
$5,499.00 DotNetNuke Professional Edition with Elite Support One Year Subscription
$5,000.00 DotNetNuke Enterprise Edition One Year Subscription
$8,000.00 DotNetNuke Enterprise Edition plus Elite Support One Year Subscription
objective comparison
@previous commenter, what makes you think this comparison favors DNN?
It looks pretty objective to me.
My vote
my vote would go to Umbraco, much more flexible and much more well architectured than
Vote
My vote go for DotNetNuke v5.5 without any doubt !
Including Sitecore in this comparison
It would be great adding to this comparison chart CMS SiteCore http://www.sitecore.net/
Not snake oil
I can say with 100% certainty that the code quality (and performance) has been outstanding. We've built probably a dozen sites using it. We were looking for years for an alternative to DNN since most of the code is written in VB (slow). Umbraco is completely written in C# so from a performance standpoint it's 10x faster.
Also, with the new implementation of .Net MVC and the Razor engine, the power to create apps and integrate with other systems is limitless. We've even used it over Drupal for several projects since we like it so much. That's saying a lot since we'd usually stay away from a Windows infrastructure if we can.
As far as the open source question, while not an Apache or MIT license, it is completely open source from our experience. What they're saying is you don't have the ability to change the .dll code, but from the standpoint of customizing the CMS and getting into the C# code there are no limitations.
Hope this helps.
Re: Not snake oil
"We were looking for years for an alternative to DNN since most of the code is written in VB (slow). Umbraco is completely written in C# so from a performance standpoint it's 10x faster"
This statement may be partly true but the suggestion that performance difference is caused by VB vs. C# is utter tripe. The languages are equally performant, and VB can even outperform C#, but as they both compile to .net intcode the difference is in how the code is written, not the code itself. DotNetNuke is slow simply because it is badly designed and badly written, and that could be done just as easily in C#.
DNN PR?
It's obvious your reading comprehension is lacking.
RE: Tripe
"I can say with 100% certainty that the code quality (and performance) has been outstanding. We've built probably a dozen sites using it. We were looking for years for an alternative to DNN since most of the code is written in VB (slow). Umbraco is completely written in C# so from a performance standpoint it's 10x faster."
This is the biggest fallacy and completely ignorant on the posters part.
You might want to do a little research on what IL is in the .NET world before posting such utter bologna and embarrassing yourself in the process.
DNN promotion
have start to read post, but see that some advantages of umbraco been hided, in other case disadvantages been detailed explained, which means for me that this is DNN promotion post.
thanks ;)
Thank you
Gawd, I almost choked here reading that crap about VB.net being slower than C#
And yes, the difference will only be seen in how the code is written, and what defaults are applied e.g. Option Strict Off/On etc.
aaaaargh ignorance!!!!!
DotNetNuke vs Kentico vs Umbraco - Best ASP.NET CMSs Compared
I hardly leave responses, but I looked at a few of the responses on this
page DotNetNuke vs Kentico vs Umbraco - Best ASP.NET CMSs Compared. I do have some questions for you if it's allright. Is it just me or do a few of the remarks look like they are left by brain dead individuals? :-P And, if you are posting at additional sites, I'd like to keep up with you. Would you make a list of the complete urls of all your social community pages like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?
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