DNN Platform vs. RWS Tridion Sites

Well suited to large enterprise website or web application developments. Less well suited to smaller site which would be better catered for by something like Wordpress.

Incentivized

SDL Tridion works well for organizations with a large website with a lot of content to continuously create and manage. The use of page templates and component presentations makes creating new pages fairly straightforward. It can be a little cumbersome when it comes to trying to "break from the norm" and build web pages that are outside of the template-driven format; however, there are ways around this to create pages that break away from the normal page-template format of the website. In this regard, SDL Tridion can be pretty flexible, allowing us to create a lot of custom functionality to keep up with constantly changing web trends.

• The core modules provide all of the basic content management functionality. You can drag and drop a Blog, Chat, Events, Gallery or versitile Text HTML module onto any page. Once you set a few properties you are up and running. And many of them provide a means of skinning them to match the look and feel of your website design.
• If the core modules don't meet your specific needs you can purchase additional modules from third party vendors. If you have some programming experience, you can even create your own custom modules. Christoc's DotNetNuke Module and Theme Development Template makes it easy to get started.
• One of the best things about DNN is that the page navigation and user management is already built in. It is complete with friendly URL rewriting and SEO features. DNN authentication can be integrated with Facebook, Google and other authentication providers.

Incentivized

• Makes it easy to spin up a new site quickly
• Allows for numerous users to work on the same site without conflicting with each other's changes
• Allows you to unpublish changes or revert to old versions if you make a mistake
• Allows you to time publishing actions (for example, you can set it to happen overnight)

Incentivized

• Missing a tool to test for compliance (built in)
• All module developers should be held to a standard before being allowed to sell in the dnn store
• Confusion between dnn and evoq creates a lot of headaches for us

Incentivized

• If you are hoping to orbit the planet with a CMS, Tridion is built to leave the solar system. It is a very very powerful solution built for very serious enterprise businesses in hope of robust capabilities, which could be good or bad.
• Supporting business users is a hefty lift and requires significant training and regular retraining, and support.
• It's a niche solution that originally came out of Europe and was largely unknown in America. But today it's growing in popularity across the United States.
• Finding capable support, and developers specializing in Tridion capabilities isn't always easy. And 8 years ago it was nearly impossible, involving finding European developer support shops in order to get the assistance needed. This is changing though and American developer firms are becoming more widely available.

Incentivized

I am giving this a semi-high rating because we have already got Tridion up and running and we are still in the process of moving the sites over to Tridion. It is unlikely we will be moving things to a new CMS AGAIN in the near future as the cost to get Tridion was high.

The editor user interface is very user friendly and in-site editing makes simple updates fast and easy. The extensibility of Tridion is a big plus and the ability to add our own options into the default Tridion interface helps us integrate with external systems. Finally, the user permissions and security system helps us deploy it within our large organization.

DNN [Platform] is as good as any CMS platform out there today. It's easier to use than WordPress for sophisticated sites and even (once set up properly) for non-technical people to maintain. For novice users without support, it's probably not the ideal solution against WordPress or wix etc. WP has more modules and extensions available. Drupal is a nightmare to use. Sitecore is expensive.

Incentivized

Interwoven teamsites, Documentum, Adobe - teamsites and documentum are old and limited. Adobe rocks but I like where I am and Tridion does a lot of the same things. No need to reinvent the wheel or move to a lateral product.

• The free version is certainly good for ROI, but the paid versions are expensively licensed.

Incentivized

• SDL is a very complex system. Creating custom components by external vendors turned out to be expensive.
• The learning curve is very slow, so training takes a lot of time and cost.
• The revamped corporate site looks clean, modern, and is mobile-friendly.

Incentivized