The following questions are just a sampling of the questions commonly asked in the DNN community forums, and other places where our community asks for help.
These quick links will take you to the most common places people are looking for.
Docs
Help
Download
News
Extensions
Code
DNN is a shortened version of the previous name of the platform, known worldwide as DotNetNuke. Today, we often refer to is as DNN CMS online, as there are many other competitors for the acronym these days.
Other terms you might see that are synonymous with those above include: DNN Platform, DNN Community Edition, and DotNetNuke (the original name).
DNN is also not an acronym, but rather, is an example of Initialism. So, it technically might be accurate to also spell it as Dnn, but don't tell anyone. It'll be our little secret! Shhh...!
If you have any feedback at all about this website, we have a forum for that. ;)
DNN is an open-source software application that is 100% supported by volunteers. With this being the case, we'll rarely be able to say how many releases there might be over the course of a calendar year. The community averages several releases a year.
View our Showcase
There isn't a known online or offline training option available at this time. However, you're not without options.
Conferences
There are two conferences that happen every year. There is plenty of knowledge being shared at these events.
Video Gallery - We have a video gallery right here that contains a large collection of videos created by various people in our community. You're sure to learn a lot here.
Southern Fried DNN - This is an online user group that meets once a month to discuss various DNN topics.
DNN Agencies - Almost all of the available DNN agencies tend to have various training options available.
Yes, there are! You're sure to find many videos on your own if you wish, but we also have a list of many of those videos right here on this website.
DNN Video Gallery
DNN Store is not a community resource. It is owned and operated by DNN Software (DNN Corp) (a.k.a., IgniteTech).
You can use DNN, DNN CMS, and DNN Platform interchangeably. They all refer to the same thing, which is the open-source CMS formerly known as DotNetNuke. You may also see legacy content out there using the term "Community Edition." This is also the same thing as the previous DNN terms.
Evoq is a commercial product built and maintained by DNN Software (owned by IgniteTech). There are various SKUs of Evoq, including Evoq Content and Evoq Social. Each SKU of Evoq exposes different sets of features. You can find more information about Evoq at dnnsoftware.com.
DNN and Evoq are not the same.
DNN (a.k.a., DNN Platform) is an free & open-source CMS solution. Evoq is a commercial (not free) solution built on top of DNN Platform.
This website is the official website for the software platform known as DNN or DNN CMS. DNN is the oldest and most popular open-source content management built on the Microsoft stack of web technologies. We use this website to communicate with each other and to the world about progress with DNN, provide our community with a place to discuss various topics, and much more.
The DnnSoftware.com website is not in any way related to this community. DnnSoftware.com is owned and operated by DNN Corp (owned by IgniteTech). This is a commercial website that is meant to market Evoq solutions.
The trademarks DNN and DotNetNuke are owned by DNN Corp and licensed to the .NET Foundation for use. The source code for DNN is the intellectual property of the .NET Foundation. As a community, we're very proud to join the likes of notable peers.
Learn More About the .NET Foundation.
DNN is an open-source software solution, using the MIT license. That means, the software is completely free to you to use, free of charge, perpetually.
DNN is licensed using the MIT License. This is generally thought to be the most permissible open-source license available.
DNN is open-source and free for everyone to use, as it's licensed under the MIT License. This license is widely known to be the most permissible of all open-source licenses.
DNN has a set of features that make it uniquely positioned to be used successfully in both personal and business scenarios. There is no minimum suggested use case for DNN.
There is no need for a trial or demo version of DNN to be made available. It's free and open-source. You already have access to the DNN CMS software, allowing you to trial/demo it for as long as you want.
If you're looking for a hosted trial option that you don't need to install yourself, there are no known options available at this time.
However, I'm sure if you ask nicely, you'll find a DNN Agency that might be willing to set something up for you. ;)
There are a variety of places you can look for free DNN extensions. They're listed below.
Psst... You're here! :)
Though, to be extra helpful, click the link below. You'll find yourself in the official discussion forum for the DNN Community.
DNN Community Support Forums
This can often happen because DNN has two different types of built-in privileged roles. They are known as Administrator and Superuser (formerly called Host or Host User).
Superusers can see and do everything in DNN. Chances are that most screenshots you've seen have been taken with this kind of user account logged in.
If you're looking at something that nearly matches, but features appear to be missing, this is likely because you're logged in as an Administrator.
There's nothing wrong with being logged in as an Administrator. You should only log in and perform superuser-level configuration changes while logged in as a superuser. At all other times, best practices would say to log in and use the user with lower privileges. This concept is reinforced by almost all security audit checklists you can find as well.
A commercial extension is any extension that is not open-source, normally requiring payment. Commercial extensions can be found at the DNN Store. DNN Store is not a community resource. It is owned and operated by DNN Software (owned by IgniteTech).
Documentation: System Requirements
Absolutely! DNN has been known for a long time to have one of the most flexible theme engines available, especially on the Microsoft stack. The theme engine allows you to have super-simple themes, all the way to being one of the most complex new designs with the newest frameworks.
Documentation: Themes
DNN Store Themes
Open-Source Themes
DNN is uniquely situated in the CMS ecosystem in that it scales very well, and in multiple ways. DNN has been well-known to function equally well for smaller websites as it does for those with incredibly high traffic needs. As long as your infrastructure allows for scaling, you can also scale DNN. It's architecture has allowed for this almost since the beginning of DNN.
Communities as large as 1M+ end-users have been known to use DNN. We've known of multi-tenant instances of DNN that have been scaled to reach into the tens of thousands of concurrent websites actively running.
DNN can function equally well in a traditional web farm, as well as in your favorite Windows-based cloud infrastructure. Scale it up, and scale it down! :)
Absolutely! Some might argue that this is one of the most mature and beneficial features DNN has. In fact, many would call it a web application framework before calling it a CMS. This is because of the incredibly robust and flexible framework it runs. This framework allows you to create a variety of types of extensions.
Integrating anything else into DNN can usually be pretty easy, assuming the other system has some sort of integration feature, such as an API. DNN doesn't do anything to get in the way of integrating with other third-party systems. If fact, there are numerous places to consider your integration, depending on the use case and what the other system does. It's really up to your technical team.
These extension points allow you to potentially add features and functionality of any kind that you can think of. Basically, if you can't find an open-source or commercial extension that already exists for what you want to do, it's almost a guarantee that it can be built.
Find an Open-Source Extension
Find a Commercial Extension
Documentation: Build an Extension
Technically, any website can be migrated to another website platform. It's never a matter of if it can be done. It's merely a matter of how.
The advice to follow is not unique to DNN. It's the same advice for any similar software application.
In some cases, you can build a tool (or a few of them) to do the migration for you. This use case assumes that there is some sort of similarity between the website software you're coming from.
In other cases, you'll find yourself manually rebuilding the website using the built-in features of DNN. Then, copying and pasting as much of the content as possible.
The most common use case is that you'll be doing a combination of the previous two options. This is because there rarely is a case where you can find features in both systems across the board that can all be imported the same way.
If you don't have your own development team, you may want to consider finding a DNN agency to help you with your migration to DNN.
DNN has always had a reputation for being one of the most secure solutions for a CMS-based website, on any technology stack. Even though DNN has historically always been attacked broadly by bad actors, it continues to have one of the smallest reported number of CVEs (security bulletins), compared to nearly any other competitive solution.
The reputation of DNN over the years has earned its adoption in companies as large as Fortune 100, and in places as secure as various State government agencies. In both cases, DNN has been put through all kinds of security audits and testing over the years - and this continues to be the case today.
You can see all of the CVEs that have been reported about DNN at our security center.
Official Security Center for DNN
As a community, we take security VERY seriously. There is an official security policy for DNN. It will inform you how to proceed.
Documentation: Features
DNN comes with built-in support for Google Analytics. As long as you have an active account, you can connect it and have it running on your website in less than a minute.
If you're wanting to use a built-in analytics solution, there isn't one included in DNN. Though, there used to be, years ago. It is possible to add this capability using open-source and/or commercial extensions.
There are various views that have their own reporting of sorts, but reporting can be done using any number of open-source or commercial extensions.
The short answer is, yes. :)
Documentation: Localization
Yes, it does. DNN itself doesn't restrict the number of tenants you can have in your single instance of DNN. The only limitations you'll find yourself hitting are the resource limits you might have in your hosting infrastructure.
DNN has been SEO-friendly long before that term was as commonplace as it seems to be today. There are numerous areas where DNN can help you optimize your website to accomplish your SEO goals. There are even open-source and commercial extensions to help make this even easier for you and your team!
This really depends on the level of support you're looking for. There are two main types of support - commercial and free. Regardless, you can find someone to support you regardless of the kind of support you need.
Free Support Options
These free support options are all great, and most people in the community use one or more of them at a time.
Commercial Support Options
All vendors and agencies in the DNN ecosystem offer some level of support. For example, module vendors will have various levels of support you can use for the module(s) you may be using. In some cases, you might even be able to get SLA-based support.
As a community, we do not endorse any specific commercial vendor, for any reason.
There have been many mobile apps built for managing DNN over the years. However, there do not appear to be any that are publicly available/known at this time.