We've been with DNN since 2.0, and it's been a great way to start and grow our business, but over the years, it seems to have become too big and unweildy, and seems to have fallen far behind the other platforms out there nowadays, so we're considering bailing on DNN completely, but would love to get opinions on the matter. We testing a new platform (Duda) and have built, but not actively promoted yet, a new website hosting solution at Link removed by mod. While this new website is active and is a quick and easy way to launch and host new customer websites, I'm wondering if it's really any better than what we've already accomplished with DNN or not.
We've built thousands of sites on DNN over the years, and have migrated them all quite painfully through the many iterations of DNN. WIth the incredible help from Mitch and his team at Iowa Computer Gurus, we've managed to survive on DNN, but at what cost...many lost customers due to slow and outdated IU, far too many unnpredictable outages, clunky and challenging modules (mostly using Mandeeps modules), and extremely difficult and incredibly expensive upgrade paths, have all forced us to explore other platforms.
After considering several platforms, we've sort of decided on Duda as our new reseller platform of choice, but are now reluctant to really promote it out of fears that we might not have selected the right platform. Maybe DNN has gotten its act together with version 9x and really is a contender again, or is it just another 'has been' on the bloody trail of dead and dying CMS's?
While many of you are still HUGE DNN fans, I'm wondering if it's because you're sort of strapped to it and locked in, wiht no other option or way to get out from under it (easily or cost effectively), or is it REALLY still a viable contender against the likes of WIX, Weebly, Duda, etc.?
Thanks in advance for your input and open minded comparisons, and even any possible criticisms or critiques that I might receive about my new website and platform choice (link removed). As I said, I'm teetering on the fence as to which direction to go, and would really value any true and unbiased opinions about DNN's current and future capabilities vs. those of other platforms that have not had to suffer all the drama and growing pains that DNN has been through, or any of the many painful moments that I've experienced with DNN.
Rob
IMO it depends on what you expect from a CMS. I'm still convinced DNN is the right choice for me as site builders like WIX and Weebly would drive me crazy. For our clients those platforms offer too much liberty as it's very easy to create something that is ugly, chaotic or does not work (from a UX perspective). For me having the clients focus on content an not the design (we do that mostly by using Open Content) is very important. I love the pluggability and granular permission structure of DNN and although the UI could be improved, to me these are the biggest strengths of DNN.
I have also spent way too much time on some upgrades, but I have heard similar complaints by friends that use different CMS systems. As software progresses and extensions become "unsupported", you get into trouble. Unfortunately, that's a fact of life in any CMS I think.
Also, IMO a large part of the issues you describe are from the time DNN corp was in charge. It sometimes felt like there was not much one could do if there were issues. That has really changed. DNN is now "owned by the community" and it's much easier to contribute to DNN. Although for those contributions you need developer skills or in some cases hire somebody that does (as fixing issues is on a voluntary basis) to me the new vibe feels much more open than before.
I am working hard along with everyone on github to get this moved to .NET CORE Support for this is in much need. Now that this is .NET Foundation the ship is in full control of the community... I like DNN still over Wordpress or other CMS's I love a lot about it. With that said there are a lot of UI issues I keep bringing up on GitHub to help calm things down in versions I am hoping and I believe everyone is just as concerned as I am. It is just a thing that everyone is used to the old ways and need to get on page with the new ways... DNN and module developers. You want new UI .... so do I, you dont want breaking change, so do I... and everyone here. The problem is you can't have both. The old DNN is in fact out dated and ready to be decommissioned. Really it is in the process of this now. Dnn.Next is a goal to have this all 100%. Also doing this without breaking things too much along the way... it sort of puts the few developers working on these issues spread thin. We need more resourceful people to help speed up the process and make get some logical and aggressively active decision making going so we can get there sooner IMO. I am trying to find a way to convince creating solutions that allow the switch to happen from 9-11 for the UI improvements but I am sure the advisory teams are very aware of the situations since they are supporting them. I wish these where done so we can all move forward with creating more features instead of complaining about the same old issues, but the community has to produce to make it happen. The candle is burning and more people will abandon it as most moved to EVOQ already due to all the issues that have not gotten dealt with and how much DNN was broken by EVOQ Corp for the community to suffer. This is a chance for a fresh start and get this ship moving in a direction that we can all benefit from. I have a DNN website promoting Wordpress hosting instead of DNN... comon lets get the ball rolling here if you want the business of the future! But a lot of people just use apps and facebook pages as well so the whole hosting thing is a bit in a transition. But Mac is putting out new laptops, the mobile device hype is over... time to get into big screens again !
On the part of speed in the near term version 10 should support HTTP/2 more and there is discussions on this as well as making UI adjustments.
I know this is an older post, but it reminded me of just how frustrating DNN can be. TLDR, some complaints - Add existing module? existing as in... exists, or on another page, or both? Why do I have to keep rebuilding the lucene index all the time because I can't find users in the list that are clearly in the database. Why did I spent 40 minutes today trying to reset someone's password, from the user screen. - Error message said the password was not complex enough, found the logs in the portal directory and turned out the exception said it was locked, but on the screen it said it was not. When I click on something, there's a 2-3 second delay because of the heavy footprint, and when editing widgets, they refresh slowly and if you don't give them time it messes up. If I login from another browser to my left, the toolbar is only half-there for some bizarre reason. It doesn't send the forgot password email, even though all other emails go out fine.
Ok anyway, suffice to say there are hundreds of situations where I wished the client was not using DNN and I actually got to this post by googling "Why is DNN so buggy". I hope the redesign works because as a concept, it's very nice! I'm thinking too if they got rid of the clunky request/response UI that Microsoft built ASP .NET on, and just made everything Angular with a .NET Core API, it'd rock. Every time the page refreshes because I hit "Ok" I want to format my C drive :) This site must be running DNN because I had to click submit about 3 times to submit this post.
Hi Joe,
It looks like this client is on 09.01.01 (129). Performance did improve after they moved to a dedicated VPS instead of a shared instance, but all of the problems I mentioned above have been in the last few weeks.
I appreciate your interest!
Dan Chase
Posted By Dan Chase on 22 Aug 2021 08:44 PM Hi Joe, It looks like this client is on 09.01.01 (129). Performance did improve after they moved to a dedicated VPS instead of a shared instance, but all of the problems I mentioned above have been in the last few weeks. I appreciate your interest! Dan Chase
9.1.1. was still a bit buggy and already quite old as Sebastain said. We are currently @ 9.10.0.. Upgrade wil make your experience a lot better IMO.
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