Is WordPress any good (from a .NET developer perspective)?

Question

I've been looking for a good ASP.NET MVC blog engine (I believe many others have too). I'm keen not to use the standard ASP.NET blog engines as I want to keep away from viewstate.

There isn't really much out there to hang one's hat on in the MS space, and in the back of my mind I keep thikning I should be looking outside of the Microsoft realm and perhaps consider Word Press.

Can any .NET developers offer their thoughts, experiences, gotchas on using Word Press from a development, maintenance, and design/theming point of view? IMO at the end of the day a good solution is a good solution (no matter what technology).

I have a basic understanding of PHP, but like most I have limited time so I need to consider my options if there is going to be a lot of learning (and also how much effort if I need to develop something for Word Press)?

Answer 1

I think the fact that wordpress is written in php would cause you some large headaches. I have a bit of experience with wordpress and all the plugins, themes etc have to be written in php too.

In my opinion it would be a poor fit and cause you oodles of extra work. Better to swap to php or find an ASP.net native platform.

Answer 2

Consider giving AtomSite a look.

• active development!
• You can install it using the Web Platform Installer.
• built with ASP.NET MVC, C# 3.5 and LINQ. LINQ To SQL wasn't specified.
• Windows Live Writer compatible.
• Allow or disallow anonymous comments
• Flexible theme system

I'm considering this for my next blog engine overhaul.

Answer 3

Maybe a blog engine implemented in Java instead of PHP would be a better alternative for you? See http://roller.apache.org/ for one of them.

Answer 4

Although I am a dot net developer and know only a little php I still work with wordpress for blogs.

You can't beat wordpress!

It may be a slight learning curve to create themes but it is really not such a big deal and you don't need a strong grasp of php to figure it out.

If there was anything in the .Net world that came close, I would prefer to use it for the comfort of .Net, but I am sorry to have to say that after looking at the .Net solutions, they can not compete with wordpress (yet, I hope?!).

So for now if you need a good blogging system don't let your .Net experience get in the way of using a great system.

If you do insist on using an Asp.Net MVC blog check out Oxite (Mix uses it) or Orchard (the newer system supposed to replace Oxite)

Orchard seems to be the most promising of the asp.net mvc cms/blog engines I have seen, but it is a work in progress.

Answer 5

I'm using Dexter Blog Engine, it is not release but is really cool and is very near at the first beta. You can see it in action on my blog (http://tostring.it) and you can find the project here http://dexterblogengine.codeplex.com

Enjoy it ;)

Answer 6

I am a 100% .NET developer myself. But Wordpress is great. Period. There are too many useful plugins, a big community, almost every problem can be googled for a solution.

When I hosted my website on godaddy, I had the same doubt. I had 0% knowledge in PHP. But went ahead with wordpress and it worked like a charm.

If you have decent knowledge of CSS/HTML/Javascript wordpress gonna suit you very well.