Ok, ok, let’s take a breath. Everyone together now… Inhale, exhale. Breathe.

Something continues to creep up in the back of my mind with each post in this series. It’s a group of people on each side of this virtual fence calling out something like this, “But WordPress isn’t the same thing as DotNetNuke!” Or, “You can’t put WordPress in the same class as DotNetNuke, they do completely different things! The series itself is ludicrous!”

I have to take a break from hitting the next topic and simply respond to these unspoken objections. Sales school, anyone? The overall huge point that I haven’t state yet regarding this entire series:

The end-user doesn’t care.

Remember, I am speaking in generalities, because that’s what we usually deal with in these things. DotNetNuke people, I know that DotNetNuke is a full fledged application framework, complete with all of the inherent technology advantages built on the Microsoft stack, with SQL Server, Windows Server, ASP.NET and more. I know.

The end-user doesn’t care.

WordPress fans, I get it that WordPress is easy to deploy, has a small footprint, runs on a gazillion sites worldwide, has a plugin directory to rival the number of entries in Webster’s dictionary and a cute dress to boot. I know.

The end-user doesn’t care.

The average end-user that is looking for a web-based content management system cares about this kind of stuff:

— Does it work?

— Is it easy to use?

— How much does it cost?

— Show me

Is there more to it than that? Of course. Is every client unique? Yes. Does that matter for this series? Not really. I have an opinion on it, and I’ll get it out of the way right here: No client’s content management system is a foregone conclusion when they come to us for a website. Each one must be considered on its own and options must be weighed. The question we try to help customers answer is, “What is the best solution for your business?”

Customers are looking for a solution to their problem. That’s what this series is about. I’ve checked out Drupal, Joomla, Umbraco, and a few others. In my experience, DotNetNuke and WordPress beat them by miles. So here I’m offering a glimpse into my little brain about the whole kit and caboodle.

Somewhere down the road, someone is going to be looking for a site that compares DotNetNuke to WordPress. I hope they find this site and are refreshed by the straightforward, top-level approach to varying points on each. If you’re screaming at your monitor because you love the one and hate the other, my apologies to your blood pressure. Just remember, for what it’s worth.

The end-user doesn’t care.

Everyone wants their site to look good. When it comes to today’s content management systems, nearly all of them give the end-user the ability to install their theme/skin of choice. In the DotNetNuke world, they’re called skins, while WordPress refers to them as themes.

There are solid theme and skin producers out there for both platforms, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of each available either free or paid.

**Developing Themes**
DotNetNuke wins this, hands down. The ease with which developers can start and customize their skins to a client’s needs is far superior than WordPress. The simplest of simple DNN skins can actually be made with a single file (as I recall; someone correct me if I’m wrong). WordPress doesn’t even come close in this regard.

If you’re going to build a theme in WordPress from the ground up, get ready for a learning experience. No doubt that first timers in either case will be learning quite a bit, but take it from someone who has built and customized at least one skin/theme for each platform: DNN is much easier.

Winner for Developing Themes – DotNetNuke

**Standardization**
Standardization in terms of functionality is what I’m getting at in this section. DotNetNuke skins almost all work the same way. WordPress themes are as different from each other as the day is long. And I don’t just mean how they look.

Both platforms allow for the separation of data presentation from data manipulation, but that line is not quite as clear in WordPress as it is in DotNetNuke. In a WordPress theme, you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get on the administration side of your theme. Your theme might have an options panel, it might not. It may include functionality like image sliders and shortcodes, or it may not.

Some may see this as an advantage for WordPress. As an everyday administrator for both systems, I can say that I don’t. When I move from site to site in WordPress, I’m having to know and remember where all the settings are for a particular theme. Since so many theme producers are also placing functionality into their themes, if you change to another theme on your WordPress site, there’s a good chance you’ll lose all of those features that you worked so hard to set up. If you ask me, that’s a disadvantage, even if you’re working with higher quality themes.

While things do change a bit from skin to skin on DotNetNuke sites, it is mostly in the layout of the pages, as you would expect when switching skins. DotNetNuke skins, by and large, aren’t trying to do so much on the user’s behalf. Most of that functionality in DotNetNuke is produced by modules that you would add to your site, that would NOT change from skin to skin.

Winner for Standardization – DotNetNuke

**Shopping Experience and Cost**
Theme and skin shops abound for both WordPress and DotNetNuke. The edge here is probably going to WordPress, because there are a great many more to choose from. Also, in spite of the lack of standards between WordPress themes, installing and previewing them is easier from within the admin section of the site. You can search for skins from within a DotNetNuke portal, but it’s just easier to click and install, then activate one on a WordPress site.

Free skins and themes for WordPress far exceed in both quality and availability what is available for DotNetNuke. That may simply be due to the enormous popularity of WordPress, I’m not quite sure why that is., but it just is. There are many free DotNetNuke skins that I have used and loved over the years, but for the most part the HIGH quality ones are few and far between. Over the years DNN has proven to be more of a hangout for developers than designers, but great designers DO exist in the DNN community. Just not as many.

Average costs for WordPress themes are also lower. It may not be a big deal if you’re running a corporate site, but if you’re just an average “Joe” who needs a theme, odds are you’d rather be shopping for a WordPress theme. Higher end WordPress themes can be just as pricey as good DotNetNuke skins, don’t get me wrong. But WordPress also has several high-profile theme shops that offer subscription services to their customers, allowing full access to all themes from their store. Most DNN skin devs don’t offer those types of subscriptions.

Winner for Shopping Experience and Cost – WordPress

**Summary**
The discussion on themes and skins could go on and on for quite some time. I think DotNetNuke skinning is simpler and more straightforward, which in the end leaves greater flexibility for skinners and developers alike. Developers don’t have to worry quite as much that a skin is going to break their module. Skinners don’t have to lie awake at night consumed with the development aspects of the DotNetNuke framework.

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded”]Overall winner for Themes and Skins – DotNetNuke[/box]

Upgrades. Sometimes I feel like upgrades come so quickly in the software market that it’s impossible to keep up with them. While the rapid rate of new releases and patches made possible by the application frameworks of today is of tremendous benefit in some ways (primarily security, if you ask me), that same pace is breathtaking for managers and administrators.

Minor upgrades or patches can help with stability and features, but they can also break existing functionality if you’re not paying attention. Have you ever downloaded an update for your computer only to find that a piece of software or your printer no longer works? Add to that the complexity involved when several 3rd party apps or plugins are involved! Phew, you can have a big mess on your hands with breaking changes before you can say, “Upgrade!”

So who wins the upgrade discussion? How would we even determine that? In our case, we’re looking at this from the perspective of a relatively inexperienced Admin user on each platform. Let’s pick a few of the main items you go through when performing upgrades, and rate the two products at each point.

**Notification and Alerts (System Awareness)**
Does your content management system notify you when an upgrade is available? Both DotNetNuke and WordPress, by default, post an obvious notification message to Admin users when they login. You can disable this feature in both systems if you don’t want to be bothered by the alerts, but I recommend the typical Admin keep the default settings in place, as updates are often related to security patches.

Winner for Notification and Awareness — Tie

**System/Framework Upgrade Process**
When you decide to proceed with the upgrade of your website, you’ve got options. WordPress and DNN both allow you to download and manually upload files over your existing installation, which will then trigger the upgrades to your site and database. Other than download size, that process is similar for both platforms.

Backing up your database and site files is critically important for both platforms, in case something goes wrong during installation. This isn’t really a how-to article series, so I’m not going to go into how to do that right here. It’s about the same for both systems, and a lot of that depends on what you’re doing with your site and what types of files you’re serving up on the web end of things.

For “most” admin users on WordPress, you can simply go the Updates portion of the admin dashboard and click a button to “Upgrade automatically.” This is the easier method of the two systems, for sure. In a sense, it’s almost too easy, b/c you could break your site without even thinking about it. I’ve never seen a WordPress upgrade break a site, but it happens all the time. Just take a walk through the WordPress forums and you’ll see tons of folks with post-upgrade problems. Still, it’s pretty amazing that you can simply push a button and get an upgrade, be it minor or major.

Of course, post-upgrade problems are plentiful with DotNetNuke, as well. Again, just breeze through the forums and you’ll see. Recent versions of DotNetNuke give a more secure upgrade, though, as the Host user account and password must be supplied before the automatic upgrade begins.

Winner for System/Framework Upgrade Process — WordPress

**Module/Plugin Upgrade Process**
Both DotNetNuke and WordPress provide a plugin library from within their respective frameworks. Both systems also supply an update notification system when viewing your existing/installed plugins and modules. As with the system upgrade process, WordPress allows a single screen whereby admin users can select all of their plugins that have upgrades available and perform mass updates all at once. Again, it’s almost “too easy,” because if something goes wrong in that case, you wouldn’t know which plugin caused the problem. In the case of DotNetNuke, and update available link allows you to visit the module site, or in some cases update from within the framework itself, one module at a time.

Winner for Module/Plugin Upgrade Process — WordPress

**Summary**
Pro users or avid fans of one or the other should neither be too upset or too proud of their preferred platform. We’re only on the 2nd post going into any significant review, and there is a lot more to come. Patrick replied to my last post on this subject and made a good point that these products are not the same when it comes to feature set, so in some ways it’s not really “fair” to be comparing them. While I agree to an extent that the products themselves are not them same, I also think there is no real way for the beginning consume to understand all those differences.

With all of that being said, I’m giving the nod to WordPress when it comes to the most common types of upgrades performed by the most common types of administrators. Every situation is unique, but there are generalizations that we can apply to the field. That’s what I’m trying to do with these posts. Don’t think I’m trying to bash DotNetNuke. Trust me, there are plenty of areas where DotNetNuke absolutely clobbers WordPress… we’ll get there! 🙂

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded”]Overall winner for Upgrades – WordPress[/box]

Where do you begin with these two content management systems? Well, once you get past Google in your first search for “Content Management System” (where DotNetNuke and WordPress show up just after each other, incidentally), you probably want to get started trying one out.

You’ll have to trust me when I say I’m trying to give an overview during this series. Most of these topics could get out of hand in a hurry. I’ll picks aspects of each main subject and then give as brief of a description as I can. Generally, though, let me reiterate, these posts are overviews that will by necessity leave out a great many details.

Also, my perspective, though experienced with each, will be as though I were a first-time user. In other words, how do these topics rate to the first-time user? If you’re an experienced developer or designer, you tend to lose track of all the code you’ve written and the stuff you’ve gone through to get to where you are.

**Download**
WordPressis a 3.8 MB download. DotNetNuke is 35.5 MB. so it takes 9 times longer to download the install package. It follows, then, that it will take approx. 9 times longer to unzip/upload.

Worse for DotNetNuke is that folks visiting the site DotNetNuke.com, when they click on the Free Download button, are actually asked to provide their email address before downloading. That’s pretty much the #1 thing to NOT do when you’re providing something like this. People HATE forms.

Winner for Download – WordPress

**Configuration for Installation**
For both DotNetNuke and WordPress, you’ll need to create a database and modify your configuration file before hitting your site to do the install. So long as you know your control panel, these are about even in my book. Create a DB. Modify config file (for WordPress it’s called wp-config.php, and for DNN it’s called web.config).

In each config file, you enter your database server, database user, and database password. It is simpler to accomplish in WordPress, but not so much so that I would give a huge win over the particulars there.

Both platforms also require your server to be properly configured for permissions to the folder where you install. Since we’re dealing with shared hosting in these scenarios, I’m not going to grant a win on that level of setup, either. Most end-users don’t have to worry about that aspect of the installation, as the hosting providers account for it.

Winner for Configuration for Installation – Tie

**Setup Screens During Install**
Initial walk-through screens when you hit your site for the first time are simple enough for both platforms. WordPress has one simple page, while DotNetNuke has a series of pages. Load time is typically much faster for a WordPress site during initial configuration, as well. So long as your configuration file is correct, you just enter the username and password for the Admin user, a site title and description, as well as your email address. Press the button and the install is done. You get a login link and immediately begin administering your new site.

As an experienced administrator of both systems, I can accomplish a WordPress install in about 1/5 of the time it takes to perform a DNN install. Mostly, that’s b/c of the responsive nature of cPanel on a Linux hosting environment compared to Plesk or HELM on the Windows side. The Linux servers tend to be lighter on their feet, so creating new databases, users, etc., is just faster. Also, take into account that while DotNetNuke’s install package is still downloading, I’m already editing the config file in WordPress and getting ready to upload to my server.

Winner for Setup Screens During Install – WordPress

**Summary**
Over the years, DotNetNuke has become quite a bit easier to install than it used to be. Just a couple years ago, WordPress would have won with a knockout in the first round. Today, I’d say DNN loses in a TKO by the end of round 3.

[box type=”tick” size=”large” style=”rounded”]Overall winner for Installation – WordPress[/box]