DotNetNuke - Pro vs. Community Versions [closed]

Question

Our organization is looking to put up a site utilizing DotNetNuke, and according to our consultant (who is less a .Net fan and more of a Joomla fan), there is 'anecotal evidence' that the Community version is crippled in a way that pretty much forces you to get Pro if you wish to have a reliable site.

I have serious doubts as to the validity of this claim, but just in case I would be very interested to hear if this is or is not the case, based on use of the product and it's community and professional versions.

Specifically, if there are bugs/issues/etc in the community version that are resolved only by upgrading to pro.

I apoligize in advance if I posted this on the wrong stack exchange, but figured this was the best bet ;)

Answer 1

I would definitely disagree with that assessment.

The only Pro feature that I can think of that might affect reliability is a different caching provider (which we've had more problems with than the standard caching provider). I believe it's the suggested provider for a web farm scenario, but in most typical scenarios it won't be a big issue.

The community edition is the same community edition that's been used in real sites for years, there's been no crippling to it since the introduction of the Pro version. The Pro version is just a number of custom extensions on top of the community edition, most of which are quite optional for everyday use a website.

The Edition Comparison on DotNetNuke.com shows the following inequalities:

Advanced Content Approval Workflows

Content approvals ensure any of your users impacted by a content change can approve updates before they go live. Workflow approvals can be configured in a top down hierarchy at the site, page, and module level. A business rules engine enables workflows with an unlimited number of states and reviewers

Granular Permissions

Page, module and folder level extended permissions provide granular security rights which allow you to precisely define which content contributors can edit which modules on each page.

Advanced Site Search

The search engine includes rich query syntax with support for Boolean searches, phrase searches, relevance searches, wild cards, fuzzy searches, and groupings. Includes a true web spider that is capable of indexing any site which removes the requirement to implement the ISearchable interface within modules.

Configuration Manager

A host user can manage the various configuration files that control run-time operation. Upload a Configuration Merge script which can be used to automate many of the more repetitive and complex configuration operations.

Content Staging

Content contributors and software engineers make all changes to your web site on a physically separate staging server. You push the staging site to production when all changes have been reviewed, tested and approved.

My Editable Pages

Links to all of the pages and modules in the site which a user has permission to Edit are displayed, allowing efficient page editing

Document Management

A complete document management solution which allows your organization to store, control and view documents online

Module Caching

A database caching provider for module content which stores module content in a centralized database for faster page loading without requiring web server processing.

Page Caching

Allows your site to save an entire page of rendered content to one of three different caching locations: memory, database or disk. Improves page delivery speed for site visitors.

Distributed Caching Provider

More efficient resource usage in large web farms

File Integrity Checking

Checks files in the installation and reports any inconsistencies which may impact website reliability

Health Monitoring

Pings your web site periodically to identify failures and will notify you of any problems. Also ensures the site stays in web server memory for faster visitor accessibility

Security Center

A host-level feature which dynamically loads a list of known security vulnerabilities affecting your version of DotNetNuke and provides you with navigational guidance to acquire the latest upgrade

Comprehensive Product Documentation

Includes more than 2,800 pages divided into User and Superuser Manuals

Online Knowledge Base

Provides guidance for DotNetNuke administrative tasks and answers to common technical questions

Impersonate User

A host-level feature that allows you to impersonate another user who is a member of your web site. Search for a user by name and then click an icon to assume their identity to view the site using the user’s permissions while keeping their password confidential.

Outside of the three caching items, I don't see anything in there that's more than icing on the cake. Also, having used many of those features, they aren't quite as impressive as they all sound, and the DNN community core isn't completely devoid of any similar features. Module caching, in particular, is available in the community edition, there's just another provider. Also, page caching is possible in the community edition, it just doesn't come with any page caching providers built-in.

Answer 2

Quite the opposite.

Disclosure: Scott Willhite, Director of Community Relations for DotNetNuke

There is absolutely NO limiting code in the DotNetNuke Community Edition, and I am quite proud of that fact. We have made a purposeful and, frankly, very challenging business decision to keep our Community Edition the base of all of our software. We engage in enhancement of the base Community Edition to produce Professional and Enterprise editions using the same extension points that are available to all developers. And we constantly add features and capability to the Community Edition which benefit all users of the platform. Any suggestion to the contrary is unfounded and misleading.

Some companies choose to limit their free editions (by number of users, number of content items, number of pages, etc). Some require branding that can't be removed in free editions. Others specifically use their free editions as "hooks", knowing that a customer of any size will be forced to upgrade if they want to continue using the product. None of these approaches is acceptable in a truly open source environment and none of them are in practice with DotNetNuke.

It is fair to say that we have resources working on proprietary extensions to distinguish our Professional and Enterprise edition offerings. But this is the same privilege we enable hundreds of thousands of others to enjoy who develop for or implement proprietary solutions using DotNetNuke. We are also customers of those extension points and so are constantly improving them for everyone's benefit because we don't just use them as marketing points, we base our companies products on them. Every release of DotNetNuke contains both substantial Community Edition as well as commercial edition enhancements.

To specifically answer your question... while there are no constraints within the Community Edition of DotNetNuke, and it is a highly functional application out of the box, it cannot address every need (no product can, all projects have unique requirements). This is why it is constructed with well defined extensions points and why there is such a vibrant open source and commercial ecosystem supporting it. So it is fair to say that the solution, out of the box, may not address all of your needs specifically? But between Professional & Enterprise options, 000's of commercial extensions on Snowcovered, 00's of open source options in the DotNetNuke Forge and myriad developers and integrators in the ecosystem (in addition to your own skills), I am confident that any need can be met in the way that makes the most sense for your or any application.