A Quick Review of the 7 Best ASP.NET Content Management Systems

Thanks for this nice comparison...Personally I like DotNetNuke..You have amazingly carried out the pros and cons of others also so that it becomes easy for the customers to select the one for them.

Nice selection. I think about giving Orchard a try.

There is much greater choice of quality free CMSs in PHP than ASP.NET. The best ASP.NET CMSs DotNetNuke and Kentico have free options but with limitations. The rest lags behind in functionality. There is no real ASP.NET counterpart to big three: Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress

What about firebird - http://www.firebirdcms.com/default.aspx? Any review of it?

I haven't had much success with sitefinity, used it for few months and now I use Orchard.
The community is very friendly and helpful.

I am an asp.net developer and have tried several content management systems built on it. recently I started learning PHP so I can focus on Drupal. I am pretty amazed with it after studying it for some time.

DotNetNuke rules! The best CMS I have ever tried!

After trying Sitefinity, DotNetNuke and Kentico and decided that we cannot justify thousands of dollars in license fees (look at their prices for unlimited number of site instances) we settled for a lesser known ASP.NET CMS called MonoX: http://monox.mono-software.com. It is totally free, uses standard Web parts framework and has a lot of neat social networking modules.

orchard vs. dotnetnuke (free)? which one to choose? I would like to create blog with some editorial features, members should be able to submit articles for a review and editor (me) would then approve them or deny. There would be need for profile pages with possibilites for users to upload their avatars. Uploading images for posts should also be possible. And AddToAny or similar integration.

If you are considering orchard and dotnetnuke, I'd say dotnetnuke. Orchard is tsill in beta and I don't think it has that features. with dotnetnuke you are on the great path.

You haven't mentioned Sitecore. In our understanding Sitecore is the leading CMS. Please comment if I am wrong.
Also, Ektron CMS is not in the list.
Does that mean they are not in top 7.

Another question:
If there are free CMS in the market in PHP world like Joomla/Drupal, and has many free addons like Magento, Wordpress, Virtuemart to create a full fledged CMS website with shop and blog, etc. why people still are paying 10000+ for .NET CMS to get the same benefit with more development cost, etc.?
If I choose .NET, I pay for CMS, see if shop system is included or not, blog, etc. and all is paid + developer pays.

If would be great to hear from you about it.

Sitecore and Ektron are both great CMSs. The problem with Top XX lists is they can always be criticized in a way "why this item isn't included, it should be here".

Regarding your second question, I'm not aware of any completely free .NET content management system that could offer the functionality and flexibility of Drupal or Joomla. Kentico and DotNetNuke could do the job, but their free versions have too much limitations. The main reason why so many people choose .NET CMSs, with all the costs that usually go with that choice, are often existing .NET intranets and or existing employed .NET developers and programmers. Another important aspect for corporations is support, if you want to have quality and always available support, willing to solve your requests promptly, you'll have to pay for it no matter which platform you choose.

if you didn't seen- check it out on CodePlex http://compositec1.codeplex.com/

more info here http://docs.composite.net/C1/Getting-started.aspx

in short: free, open source, .net 4, xslt, linq, XML or SQL based.

Hello,

Thanks for this useful discussion.

Has anyone looked at Kooboo CMS? It is built on top of ASP.NET MVC. Are there any reviews about it? I found it on Google today, but never heard anything about it before.

Appreciate your feedback.

Regards
Bilal

Design wise, Orchard is much better designed than Dotnetnuke.

Jaenovation ASP.NET All in one CMS solution allows your more than CMS features such as marketing and campaign modules, order management modules, blog, forum, announcement management, scheduler much more..
There are cloud and standard version.

if you didn't seen- check it out on www.jaenovationcms.com

asp.net 4, linq, entity framework, cloud asp.net cms, XML or SQL based.

I worked with DotNetNiuke for about two years. And while I was able to delever interactive and multifunctional websites, I got frustrated with the difficulty to customize them.

Skinning a DotNetNuke site is pretty hard because lot's of code and markup gets injected in the content pages.

Also extending a DotNetNuke site with custom functionality is hard, because all functionality has to be integrated through modules. Programming a module is not the easiest thing to do.

That's why I moved to Umbraco. In Umbraco one has full control over the html markup. This is very important, SEO-wise.

Another big advantage of Umbraco over DotNetNuke to me, is that the backoffice for content administrators is very clean and simple. As an administrator, one has also very granular control over what content administrators can access and use in the backoffice.

What DotNetNuke is lacking in that sense, is a simplified backoffice for content administrators. My experience with customers, whas that it's very hard to explain them the content management in DotNetNuke, because as administrators they have access to the full administrative backoffice in DotNetNuke, which is very overwhelming.

To conclude this, projects that needs to get up and running fast, and where there is little need for customisation I could recommend DotNetNuke.

Projects however where customization and control of the html markup and code is very important, I would definitly recommend Umbraco.

I like Atomic CMS which is very good content management system for small websites.
http://atomiccms.com/

SageFrame :

SageFrame is an open source web development framework developed on the top ASP.NET 3.5 with service pack 1 (sp1) technology, provided by SageFrame. The SageFrame is a Leading web content management framework for Microsoft asp.net.

The SageFrame is not only a framework with a set of classes but it also creates an abstraction layer in which the programmer is concerned only with the code. The programmer needs not to worry about HOW the result will be presented, but HOW to produce the information.

Users can now relax about various elements such as database, security (with multiple roles), file system, etc because all the elements are dealt with within the framework. Native support for internationalization, multiple sites, templates (based on CSS), integrated security and login with single sign-in, possibility to modify the templates of SageFrame and customize it according to your needs.

http://www.sageframe.com/

DNN is very very dynamic in terms of functionality, features and security. There's is nothing like it. However there are a few drawbacks that i felt while using it. But you guys should have given Sageframe a mention here.

The biggest drawback in my opinion is the response time of a DNN using sites. The code itself is very obsolete and you need to lock yourself and scour on each and every coding details before using DNN. One more is the URL dependency, if you need to change your domain name to another your old database will be of no use.

There are a lot of new promising CMS extension in Dot NET market and Sageframe, in my opinion, is the best of them. I've downloaded this component from codeplex and have been using it for quite a time now and am very much fascinated by the features it exhibits. Truly a masterpiece !!

Hi Nimesh, thank you for stopping by and for your comment.

Sageframe does look like an interesting content management system, we will explore it a bit more. Cheers!

Another good .NET CMS is http://www.auctori.com/
Check it out!

This post helped me a lot to know many options of CMS and try many of them. As I'm working with limitations now, with a shared host server, I guess the best way is to work with Orchard. Orchard won't supply all my necessities, cause I need a social networking with communities and everything else. Friends, followers, wall, comments, etc. And I need it in a very special way, so I need a framework where I can control the source code development. Anyway, if someone has a suggestion of module or app to work WITH Orchard, I'll be very thankful.

Thank you a lot,
Rubia

Hi, what do you think about mojoPortal? Any ideas?

Joomla/Drupal rules! :D its simple! :D

There is no real ASP.NET counterpart to big three: Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress

There's nothing more powerful than asp.net cms in this case i mean umbraco.
It's robust very fast and you can extend it in a way you never dreamt off.
Worked with all the "Big bosses" in PHP business: Typo, Joomla, ExpressionEngine, Drupal & Joomla.
None of thore gives me the freedom to create what i need to create for my clients without doing nasty hacks to the core.
In umbraco i split up my content and put it out so that's it being displayed the way it should be.
So nobody should tell that there's no counterpart to the php frameworks. That's absolutely bullshit.
If you worked that much and that deep we've done, than you know what's good for you and your clients.

DNN is SO easy .. WYSIWYG .. great modules .. super easy interface. You hardly need any website skills to make a DNN site look great

I recommend anyone looking for an ASP.NET CMS to try out Webnodes. It supports the semantic formats Microdata with schema.org and OData. See how Microsoft is using Webnodes in one of their own demos: Webnodes at MIX 2011

I work in Webnodes, so I'm not neutral, but we have had several partners that have switched from several of the systems mentioned here to our CMS.
Try it out, no license is required for local installations!

Ole

I have been working with DotNetNuke for a couple of big projects and honestly I don't like it. Very old style coding and since we needed very specific requirements we ended up building all the modules.
Then I found Webnodes and I was really amazed by its features. True CMS system and very easy for understand and extend.
I would recommend to try it.

r@zorC.net installs quickly and it is very simple. Love it for small sites that need CMS

The best rated CMS on Codeplex - http://www.composite.net/

http://www.codeplex.com/site/search?query=&sortBy=CurrentReleaseRating&tagName=%2cCMS%2c&licenses=|&refinedSearch=true

So far we used only mojo portal, though we tried many other CMS. we prefer mojoportal as it is coded in C#, which is our main language of programming.

I have created two pages in sitefinity cms3.7 but I am unable to find where the code perform . Please help me now I am new for sitefinity cms3.7

Thanks && Regards

Kaushal K Rathore

9179155817

I want to Integrate of existing ASP.net Project with CMS. Any body can plz help which one is the best for that pupose.

Just how can you not mention N2CMS when you talk about .net CMS systems? Any search on .net and cms is full with links to n2.

It's fully open source (not like in free scaled-down version of the real thing), supports both webforms and mvc versions of asp.net and is extremely developer-friendly. It's more of a cms framework.

And including DNN in anything with "best" in the same meaning? Have you seen any site bilt with dnn that is actually good looking and/or well built? Web standards and accessibility are not really primary concerns for those guys as much as I can remember.

Anyway, go check out N2CMS if you want a good .net cms to workwith.

Sitefinity is unrealitically expensive and limited, + closed source

Yes, I also used Free version of SageFrame. It got more beneficial features that can be handy for general users, site owners, developers and designers. The must prominent features seems uncountable even though the best I liked about SageFrame is its Open Source Framework and flexibile architecture. Also it got free eCommerce Module AspxCommerce which can be more useful to all online shopping enthusiast like me. Its surely too be mentioned over here.

Definitely also mention N2CMS in this list! I've been using it for a couple of years and never been disappointed. Lately trying the MVC Razor version as well!

As an extra the developer is very approachable on the discussion forum. Frequent updates to the CMS.

Thanks for such a deep and useful post. (Microsoft hater? huh?)

SageFrame 2.0 is here itching to marvel you with its appealing new features - plug and play module concepts, drag-drop widget feature, easy customization options... just to name a few. In SageFrame 2.0, we have incorporated various essential features that were given individually by several CMSes into a single package, to offer you an incredible CMS experience.
http://www.sageframe.com

All you say it is true. After 6 years of pain and so many problems with dotnetnuke, i am realy happy now with umbraco. Dotnetnuke is not even close to Umbraco. 100 votes for umbraco.

I think perhaps the best .NET/4.0 Content management system CMS, or portal out there today for Microsoft shops is one called Centralpoint by Oxcyon.com

I have implemented CMS Portal solutions for nearly 13 years, dating back to Vignette V3 (to date myself), also Stellent, and mostly Sharepoint. Centralpoint picks up where Sharepoint leaves off, with nearly 200+ out of the box modules, multiple portal development, and within each portal, multiple (and N-Tiered!) microsites, including roles based management and LDAP/AD integration (out of the box).

I would encourage anyone looking at Sitefinity, Sitecore, or DOTNETNUKE, Sharepoint (my favorite comparison) to look at Centralpoint by oxcyon. You can also see quite a few demos of theirs on Youtube. Ultimatley it offers an architecture out of box, which no other open source or CMS even considers.

No offense to the others on this list, but those not mentioned in my blog do not even rank as potentials.....

I think it's better if you create a higher classification of these CMSs based on their platform, namely Web Forms, or MVC.

Mojoportal is the best thing to come from the America's since the coffee bean.

If you have worked with PHP you will notice it is much slower than ASP since it is not compiled. PHP is for the LAZY developers. Toni I agree with you.

I really thing Sitecore is the ultimate CMS specially when it comes to centralising multiple sites and user management.

but shame it's too expensive :(

as for a free version, so far I'm starting to like N2CMS

I think we looked at just about every option including Sitecore, Kentico, Orchard, N2, Ektron. I actually really like .NET especially C# as a programming language. Initially it was a requirement that our company would be all .NET an whichever CMS we chose would have to be written in C# or VB.NET. I think writing our own proprietary CMS is out of the question amusing you all know why. N2 actually was the best choice since it plugged in very nicely with all other apps we have developed so we ended up using it for one of our sites. We are now converting all out legacy sites and the requirements are much larger and not one of these CMSes fit and were way more expensive than the PHP counterparts. It is unfortunate but we ended up going with Drupal 7 for all our sites as a standard. Unfortunately there is just nothing close in the .NET world and most of these CMSes (Kentico, Sitecore) require the actual software companies to support them. The good news is that the PHP interpreter is now supported by Microsoft and Drupal 7 supports custom DB layers MS SQL being one. We are also utilizing a Web Services module which allows us to easily talk to any WCF service that we would like. It will be interesting to see if this all changes but I highly recommend looking beyond what is available in .NET.

I just want to add that if your business requires a supported product then there are many options for Drupal, http://www.acquia.com being one of the largest. Also there is a new stackexchange site which has over 15k questions an Answers. http://drupal.stackexchange.com/

Thanks for providing such a useful informative resources for CMS's. They are really good to work when comes to ASP as it reduces the workload and various features are available in the CMS to make your project better for ASP NET programmer . Umbraco, Orchard are the nice one,,,,