Joomla or DotNetNuke

I used to think that posting only on the DotNetNuke site was the way to go, but I’ve seen things I’ve contributed disappear lately and I know there are deletion of posts without any notification, so when I spend my time trying to give objective points of view, I feel on my own sites, I’ve got more assurance that it won’t get deleted.  There are some places honesty doesn’t pay.  And I’m glad I didn’t put many hours into the DNN blogs because believe me they are all gone now – so it’s disappointing to see history being rewritten!!

So, to add to this, I’ve decided to also includ a link to an article I’ve done, which I send to people who are wanting to know why I use DNN in my business.  It’s an overview, one of many I have that helps me explain that everything has it’s purpose and in some instances, nothing is better than the other, but more suited at that time for that solution.    What I noticed was the more I stuck with DotNetNuke, the more I learnt about the application and spent the time growing with it.. and we all know about growing pains.

In spite of being dropped from the the core team and as described by one of the board members that ‘I don’t code, so I have no value whatsoever, nor should I be an MVP’, I feel there is distinct value with advice and experience shared by those who run DNN as their business model in the nature of which the product is marketed.  An open source project attracts people who don’t want to spend any money initially. The majority of DNN users are non developers, resellers, marketers and a very small proportion are coders, hence the flourishing third party seller market- for people who thought that DotNetNuke was their ticket to money without any experience.  Good developers here are making a business out of providing excellent modules to a keen market.

One of the biggest challenges I see is when people compare DotNetNuke with other applications.  A few years ago, DNN was brand new, but now it’s appearing as mainstream, but still lacks the growth compared to Joomla, in the top 500 of sites visited, whereas DotNetNuke over the last 6 – 8 months has fallen below top 10,000 sites globally.  And that’s a big difference when you consider that Joomla is so much younger. So it leaves me to think where would DotNetNuke be if it did not have the support of Microsoft?  Would DNN actually be able to maintain it’s existence, based on it’s current path.   What support has Joomla had by comparison to see it’s growth be so substantially higher than DNN when I personally think at times, DNN is a better product?

Is it because Joomla appears to be more successful in it’s uptake, does it mean it’s better?  And how, do you, as a newcomer to DNN, or perhaps a non coder, or someone wanting to do some comparisons or see what DNN has got, find out all this.  You can go to the dotnetnuke website website and register – or download directly from here and away you go.   Or is it because of the resistance by avid Linux users that because it needs the Microsoft Platform to work with, that in fact, it’s not really open source that gives it the ‘recognition’.  It’s a complex issue and one that is very topical and full of different opinions.    So I thought from my perspective, I’d share this document with you so you can see how I perceive DNN, even if it’s not from the highly coveted and valuable ’developer perspective’.

You’re welcome to download and you can email me directly – (links are on my website) or pass a comment here but again, it’s just my own view on running a business that relies on a third party solution and how I see DNN.

The question asked about comparisons – and this was the summary – to which I’m answering here.

// Question Summary //

I am just trying to avoid the time (and capital) commitment to learning a new platform, given I have an investment in DNN already. 

Let me give you a personal overview on my experiences as a non developer with DNN -

Because I don’t code, I’m stuck… stuck with lousy modules, stuck with things that don’t do as they should, stuck with lousy dnn builds that almost cost me clients because you can’t upgrade, can’t fix things and spend half your time experimenting and hoping something will work.

I’ve also spent enough money that would fly me around the world on a holiday on modules ….  many, even reviewed ones here, that simply don’t work as they should or as I expect and I know I’m not alone, I get email from so many people asking me about what’s good, what’s not, what about this developer or that one, and I’ve copped alot of flack from people becuase I say things as I see them.. (Tip. they don’t like that around here.. and for goodness sake.. NEVER use the word ‘beta’)

Sounds negative doesn’t it… but it’s not meant to be, it’s realistic… and as a community contributor, try to also offset things that I think are shortcomings by offering alot of suggestions, work arounds, free downloads, help where possible, so I don’t look like a perpetual complainer.

Having said that, to be honest, I don’t think it’s any different to any other application that you look at and decide to use as your business model.  I don’t know anything that’s not been lacking or great in some area, and with the amount of people doing business online, there is a flavour to suit most.  You will find passion amongst all committed users of any application.  You are here because in spite of Joomla and all it’s trimmings, something’s not quite there, you’re after more, and the more bits are perhaps what you like about DNN that Joomla doesn’t have.

The key areas I see that draw people to using DNN is the ability to change the look and feel and the development aspect of it in my opinion as an experienced user, who can’t code and who specialises in providing dnn as solution for the general public and resellers and marketers who want to extend their service offerings to clients but don’t have the time or inclination to learn about how to make it sing and dance and play the tunes you’re after.

Having said that I’ve also got some setups with Joomla, Mambo, XCart, ZenCart and WordPress setup so I can objectively look at the applications, the forums that are attached to it in how you use these products and be able to give objective answers and comparisons to those who ask me questions as to why I use one application over another.  This I feel gives me a ‘balanced’ outlook and I can objectively comment on key areas of DotNetNuke.

On the DotNetNuke website, it’s mainly for developers.  That has been my opinion from day one, and will most likely continue to be that way for a long time, unless something substantial changes.  If you look at http://www.alexa.com/ and compare traffic between DotNetNuke and Joomla – I’m sorry to say that Joomla completely kills us in growth, downloads and uptake of the product.   Why – I’m not sure – I’ve really tried to look at Joomla as a serious solution, and we’ve got linux servers as well and I have a linux developer on hand, and yet, as a non developer, I come back to DNN because my clients want more than what Joomla offers over look and feel.   It reminds me of Avon perfume .. you know – where people say … is that Avon, not.. I like your perfume… mainstream, every joomla site, wordpress site they all look the same.. and I hate that aspect.. I feel so constricted when offering a solution that should I use Joomla – it’s going to be Joomla… and my clients honestly they don’t care half as much about SEO and XHMTL as much as I do, and when I look on Snowcovered, the most popular skins for sale are in fact the most bloated and heavy but they .. look good… in the eyes of the non developer, grab a skin and make the site work.. type of person.

You’re not a coder – but you ask which is easiest to learn -

I don’t code, so can’t tell you the coding answers, but can tell you DNN has better developer tools – Microsoft based ones.. they really make a difference.  php continues to improve just like any other software, but I have personally found it hard to find really good php developers by comparison to .net developers, it could be the space, but one of my resellers, they do dnn and php sites, and found that good php developers are hard to find unless they outsource to India, and now even they are getting more expensive to use, so the cost of development for php and .net isn’t too far apart any more. (I could talk all day on this – it’s a very subjective topic)  The main issues I’ve heard with using PHP projects is they are often ‘wild’   so many little add ons and libraries, so much inconsistency, it’s hard to pick up other coders work, but again, could this be the case with .net – since I don’t code, I can only pass on their comments.   But what does make me think is .. if php is so good, why are these people now picking up DNN and using it as their solution?  There must be some reason…so it’s a win for DNN somewhere along the line.

1.) Both platforms seems to use heavy js; is one, however, more SEO ready than the other out of the box? I’ve seem some very human and search engine friendly sites using Joomla!  This is one of my biggest concerns, second only to the cost of modules.

Search engine friendly – well, let me tell you that I managed to be listed well in google and that was nothing to do with DNN being search engine friendly – and I had lousy url IDs.   Search engine friendly URLS is just the start.  Having a site with worthy content, external linking are just as important, so is domain naming to a certain extent, so I have two minds about this, based on my own site experience.

However, PageBlaster by John Mitchell will help you get a long way there, and so will friendly urls writer which I put on most sites as standard and Ventrian’s URL rewriter could help you. These all require some learning and that takes time – which  – is money, but maybe not out of pocket costs like some solutions are.

Which is easiest for total newbies with zero programming experience using today’s languages?

Easiest for total newbies – I found Joomla was very easy, really easy to setup so easy in fact, I had no choices… it’s great, like most other templateable products, looks better out of the box quicker than DNN, but in reality, I think you can only get so far with Joomla, but can extend DNN much further but it’s harder.  And I think it will cost more, but long term, it’s a more flexible offering if you really want to set this as your business model.

Prgramming wise – well it goes back to the tools, tutorials and developer tools you have access to to make these things a reality.

Which is easiest to work offline, then upload to a host (and easiest to wire the DB up for what was already built using a local DB)?

Working offline sucks with DNN in my opinion.  Most of us use a directory based setup – eg.. localhost/dnn/  whereas live, we use full path – eg.. mydomain.com and what happens is when you go to export, upload, attach db, or export site and import… images have broken links.   Whereas if you had two online development areas.. eg.. live and dev, you wouldn’t have this issue, but not everyone wants to be connected.  If you work offline and need to connect using DB you need to be sure your hoster will let you do that.  Basic GoDaddy install doesn’t even let you have host access.. and is a virtual directory install unless you setup manually, but it can be done.  I would be looking at a third party back up tool which is available, but not sure how you’d get it restored.. some hosters charge for this.

Upgrading DotNetNuke – horrible, horrible experience..Kiss hours and hours goodbye…  I might cop some flack on this by the ‘experienced upgraders’  or those who think they are but I can tell you first hand, I’ve had core team developers complain to me about the difficulty of upgrading (this is mainly when third party modules are included in a site) ..

As an example of my hands on commercial working experience  – here’s my current server scenario – maybe 80 databases, 300 urls, comprising of dnn 1.09,2.03,2.1.2, 3.013, 3.1.1, 3.2.2, 3.3.7, 4.0.2, 4.3.1, 4.3.4, 4.4.1…. with child portals, and third party modules, so let me tell you about the upgrade path…. in some cases there is no upgrade path, you are better off setting up a new portal…

There are some excellent tools to help you migrate your users across, but, once you get a site setup, I don’t recommend upgrading unless there is a specific reason to.  I’m still running a DNN 1 site as it does the job, and I have clients on DNN 2 & 3, who are due for site updates, and are very happy for a new build, new modules and rebuild the site themselves in a dev environment and exploreo the new changes…

What I do feel is that people don’t give themselves enoughtime to learn about this application.  I think as John mentioned, Joomla is far more mature (which is a bit worrying since they are so much younger than DNN and have the lion’s share of users), but I think that’s a management issue overall, which would then reflect on the other shortcomings of DNN too, as does the cost of running DNN sites, and how many you can stack on a server.

I have known people who install lots and lots of programs, or jump between product to product looking for the elusive.. money in a box…  and it doesn’t exist, not here anyway, but I can confirm, after 4 years of using DNN, it’s a great product.  Shaun’s BSD licensing model that was chosen over the the other licenses genuinely allows you to learn this application, and offer it truly as your own, without the need to share that code with the rest of the open source community and the calibre of developers here is excellent when you consider that it provides an ecosystem that lets you actually run a business.

I provide alot of things for free, but have to charge or I won’t have a business, and although I regularly look at my Joomla sites, have always felt that it falls short in the visual offerings that my clients want.. and their desire to have SEO friendly sites is not as important as having something that visually represents their company needs.

Here’s another reason I like DNN  – try adding a shopping cart to joomla… it ain’t gonna happen.. you need a third party product. .. try adding a forum to the site .. it ain’t gonna happen…try adding blogs (although I dropped the dnn blogs because they really didn’t cut it).. all of these things cannot be added within the site.. ecommerce – you need to build a whole new site and I think it would be very hard to get third party products to even look consistent.

So, DNN – not perfect, but for me it works – however, I’ve also used the strengths of DNN to sell against the others, and the other companies that compete, they are using the strengths of SEO and Cost  to sell a solution.. so Joomla is more profitable to sell I guess because it’s got a low cost of setup, maintenance and once you become fluent with it, might be cheaper all round to manage..

I hope you get something out of this… sometimes I think my comments and thoughts are at times misread and that I’m giving DNN a hard time, but I’m still here and use the application. I feel it is a great product, and have such a good understanding of it as well as hundreds of modules around that I’ve installed over the years, and there’s not much that DNN can’t do… but it won’t necessarily be for free.

What I will do is post a link to an article I wrote about DNN as a business, it might give you some further insight.

My biggest concern with comparisons to DNN and Joomla or any other solution… is that when I ask people why do you use DNN over another application, and they come back to me and say one of two things.. the client specificed it.. or that it skins better – they can get the site looking like the client wants and therefore moved to DNN…   But what if Joomla comes up with a really good skinning solution?  Or will they ever?  And will this be because to come up with such cool looking designs, the cost has been browser compatibility, so would that be a step backwards.. Or if DNN becomes completely compliant like these other apps, will that swing people into using DNN more, since alot of the design scope will need to be changed?  I think it will help, and are the two areas of SEO and Browser compatibility hodling DNN back?

Too much time thinking … I need to go and revisit Joomla and see if I can’t come up with some ‘comparisons’…

So there have another perspective on why DotNetNuke really is a great product and worth considering when choosing a solution for your clients or your business.

The initial thread is here.

Nina Meiers