Looking for a replacement for our old DotNetNuke system

Rob Frierson asked on November 13, 2019 23:14

Hello everyone, I'm shopping around at different web hosting companies and platforms like Kentico for our new platform for hosting customer websites, and I'd love to get some feedback from anyone who has used the Kentico system or eCommerce tools (if there are any), and compare what they have to offer with the tools being offered by Duda these days.

We've been using DNN (DotNetNuke) for the past 16 years for hosting school websites, but after MANY, MANY, MANY fails and frustrations, we're finally giving it up completely and are in search of a new website hosting platform on which to build school and community websites.

After MUCH research and analysis of more than 80 different platforms, we've almost settled on the Duda platform and their white label package, and we’ve even built out our new primary marketing website as well as a few small test customer websites, which can be seen at https://www.iwantawebsite.com.

The big issue is that, although we're already underway with our new Duda reseller package, we're just not feeling 100% sure that we've made the right platform choice, and would love to get some true and unbiased opinions of our new site, the Duda platform as a whole, and how it might compare to what we could get and/or do with the Weebly platform in direct comparison to what Duda has to offer, especially with regards to the Duda VS. Kentico.

We still have not actively promoted the new website, out of fear that we might not be heading the right direction, so we need to really commit to it and launch it, or we need to jump onto the right platform (Kentico?) immediately before we dig ourselves a deeper hole in the Duda world!

Thanks for any help and insight y'all could give us, and don't be afraid to give any critiques or comments about our new site, any of our new test client sites, or any other advise that might help push us in the right platform direction before we get too far along and discover that we’ve made the wrong choice!

Rob

Recent Answers

Brenden Kehren answered on November 13, 2019 23:25

I'd base your decision on the level of complexity of the websites you're working with. If they are simply cookie cutter sites, then use a simple platform. If you want the flexibilty to add customizations in there the look at Kentico.

You might also look into Kentico Kontent for housing all of your schools data and simply building an MVC site around that data. Kenico Kontent is NOT a full fledged CMS, it's a headless CMS meaning there is no front-end to build your website with BUT gives users a place to manage all of their content.

I know it's not much of an answer but it's a start and I'm very partial to Kentico in general so not sure if you'd get anything from my "sales pitch". :)

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Rob Frierson answered on November 13, 2019 23:31

Brenden, thanks for your quick reply! I hadn't even heard of Kentico Kontent, so I'll check it out. What about eCommerce with Kentico? Is it even a thing, or is it any good compared to what Duda has these days?

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Brenden Kehren answered on November 14, 2019 00:28

I have no idea what Duda has but I know Kentico has decent E-commerce but can prove to be challenging for multiple stores in one install.

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Mike Wills answered on November 14, 2019 01:16

Hi Rob,

An e-commerce solution that would fit well with Brenden's headless suggestion is ZNode. It's a headless e-commerce platform and supports multiple storefronts. They have a very helpful team too. You could also use it with Kentico EMS if the e-commerce features fit your needs better than Kentico's out-of-the-box features.

Mike

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