Content Management - ASP.NET Recommendations

Question

Build vs. Buy... We've all been down this road... It seems like content management solutions need to be a tool that you keep inside the toolbox for some quick wins and they are only getting better. I could certainly look at building one, but by the time you get all the bells and whistles in there, it would have been cheaper to get one off the shelf...

I've searched StackOverflow for some recommendations, but it appears that there really haven't been any highly rated ideas for ASP.NET implementations.

Don't get me wrong, PHP and mySQL certainly have their place, but there are some instances where you really have to stick with ASP.NET and SQL Server implementations due to other limitations. Both Drupal and WordPress seem pretty cool, but I won't be able to get these setup and installed in the environments I have to work with.

What are the best ASP.NET CMS solutions out there?

Answer 1

You could try these:

• http://rainbowportal.net/
• http://www.ektron.com/
• http://www.joomla.org/
• http://www.opensourcecms.com/

Answer 2

DotNetNuke is probably the most popular and has lots of plug-ins & documentation.
It's written in VB.NET though :(

Answer 3

I saw an article (written by ScottGu) about a cms named axcms. You can try it.

Answer 4

You might want to check out Umbraco - completely written in C#/.NET, with a very powerful programming API (using lots of XSLT for transformations).

They offer both a free community edition as well as commercial versions.

Marc

Answer 5

I'd try a slightly more targeted search:

[asp.net] "content management"

Filter it to just questions tagged "asp.net", and ensure that you're searching for the phrase Content Management, rather than the two words.

A lot of it comes down to your definition of "Content Management" really. I've spent the last 5 years working professionally with things like Microsoft's CMS, and recently a bit of MOSS Web Content Management, and before that on two or three bespoke CMS that we'd written for a publishing house, so I consider a CMS to be a complete site building tools, focused around publishing multiple types and styles of content.

On the opensource/free/cheap side I've looked at few recently and found the following:

• N2 CMS - This is what I've settled on using, mainly because they have a working MVC implementation, and I want to learn that, but it's also the closest I've found to my definition of a CMS
• Umbraco - Close second, let down by the lack of MVCness at the time.
• Graffiti CMS - Didn't really cut it with me as a CMS, more of a glorified blogging engine
• DotNetNuke - VB, and I work in C#. Great if what you really want is a portal however.

Just my thoughts to back up the usual bland lists.

Answer 6

My own favourite is Tridion, which can be used for either .NET or Java-based sites. It's not free, though, if that's what you're looking for.

Composite may also be interesting - also not free, but it has a possibility of a trial period.

Answer 7

I have been using DotNetNuke recently and highly recommend it. It was very easy to install, especially from the Web Platform Installer (from Microsoft) and also really easy to customize.

My clients ended up buying a skin, but I found it really easy to build a skin myself and customize the purchased skin as well. Try searching for Free XHTML DotNetNuke skins.

It was also really easy to build new modules as well! I've written four so far - in C# - and it was very easy.

The actual DNN source was written in VB.NET with lots of HTML tables. It is definitely not anywhere near what most people consider best practices, but it does work quite well. It's one of those software projects where it works really good and then you look behind the scenes and you regret you did that.

I once evaluated it, and didn't get past the source because it was VB.NET. I regret that now - this last project went really well for me. So, I highly recommend it. It's not like it will cost you anything but the time you spent evaluating. :)

Answer 8

Microsoft has released "Orchard"... This looks to be a solid CMS implementation on the ASP.NET MVC platform.

http://orchard.codeplex.com/