Content Management Systems help to control and manage the content of any website where business is efficiently managed. .NET CMS gives you the power you need to develop high-concept, beautiful websites with a strong backbone which gives an experience working with .NET platform used in various kinds of business.
Sitecore CMS and Sitefinity CMS are two content management systems based upon ASP.NET framework. We have chosen to focus on these systems as they are flexible, functional and easy in using. They are proved to be compatible on multiple devices, albeit using slightly different mechanisms, and customizable for the needs of differing countries. Also they are able to deliver vast amounts of information as part of logical information architecture.
Both of these CMSs have similar features and can meet various business needs with different requirements. Websites get more customized, gain more potential and get more interactive with these CMSs.
Hope the information in this article will assist you with the choice of either Sitecore or Sitefinity as more appropriate option for you.
Sitecore
Sitecore is a flexibile, scalabile and secure CMS, used by many leading global organizations such as Experian, Toshiba, Canon and Nestlé. The CMS incorporates a powerful desktop interface that is controlled by a fully-customizable role-based system. This desktop is very similar in look to a Windows desktop, which makes it easy for users new to Sitecore to pick up and learn the system. There are also multiple applications, like in Windows, aimed at specific tasks such as editing content, managing users, monitoring campaigns, setting up workflows, etc.
Sitecore enables web content editors and marketers to have full control over all aspects of their website from social integration and blog posts to advanced personalization, e-commerce and more.
Points in favor:
• The possibility to customize content based on user activity, such as completing a form;
• The opportunity to add an engagement metric, allowing developers to give visitors a value based on how much they’ve engaged with your solution;
• Sitecore CMS makes it easy to create world-class websites with its open architecture and rich development environment and tools;
• The function to send triggered emails (automated marketing messages based on a prospect’s behaviors) direct from the platform;
• On top of the CMS foundation, organizations can optimize the experience of their customers through multivariate testing, personalization and engagement automation;
• The CMS capabilities offer complete customization while maintaining data integrity so that organizations can manage large amounts of content efficiently not just on the web presence but across email, social, mobile and print;
• The ability to analyze the journey in either a campaign or a journey view, giving full visibility of the value to relevant sources;
• Sitecore CMS helps you to reach your customers in their preferred format with functionality to deliver content on multiple devices, including mobile.
Points against:
• If you do not have developers with .NET experience or operate on a small scale, Sitecore may not be the most appropriate option for your needs;
• The email marketing capabilities are still maturing along with volume capacity. The basics are solid, but the more advanced features still have some caveats in their function;
• When a platform offers an immense amount of features the usability becomes more challenging. For those organizations that can truly take advantage of the enterprise-level capabilities, proper training and onboarding (organizational change management) is a must-have in order to see the vision fulfilled;
• Sitecore CMS has a licensing cost. Pricing is based on the number of Sitecore Server installations, as well as the number of simultaneous users logged in (such as developers, designers, content editors, etc.).
Sitefinity
Sitefinity CMS is used for the construction and management of commercial websites, community portals, intranets, etc. Different successful organizations such as NASA, Chevron, Expedia, PepsiCo, Panasonic, Roche and more, rely on this CMS to optimize customer experiences across multiple digital channels. Sitefinity is engineered with flexibility and extensibility in mind to give developers the freedom they need to integrate legacy applications or use custom 3rd party controls and modules.
This CMS doesn’t require any special skills. You don’t even need to know any web development languages to use this system. But if you want to customize the system like our experts, then some of the languages you’d need to know.
Points in favor:
• Content Authors and Marketers need the ability to change and edit content on the fly. With Inline Editing feature you can create and edit content right on the page;
• Sitefinity’s page editor makes it easy to create rich, dynamic content by interacting with user-friendly interfaces. Content is created by simply dragging & dropping widgets onto a page;
• This CMS makes websites fully accessible on other platforms such as tablets and smartphones, which is really useful nowadays;
• Sitefinity provides a rich toolset for automatically connecting visitors with personalized content showing the right content to the right person by defining your audience, transforming the content, and testing the result;
• The multisite management makes it easy for organizations to manage a collection of websites and microsites through a centralized interface. Content authors can easily contribute to multiple websites, or utilize content from other websites. Users, roles, content, permissions, templates, images, and others can be effortlessly shared or synchronized between sites;
• Extensive Out-of-the-Box Features: there is an extensive toolset for addressing the challenges associated with managing a modern website. Solutions for mobile, email campaigns, social media, ecommerce, blogs, forums, search, and much more are instantly accessible. This allows organizations to focus on what to build instead of how to build;
• Sitefinity also provides inbuilt Search Engine Optimization (SEO) while enabling you to customize basic meta-data such as the title and page descriptions.
Points against:
• While the documentation is available, sometimes it isn’t extensive enough for some of the advanced concepts because it is of a quite basic level;
• Sitefinity provides a high level of granularity to customize the system, but sometimes this is a bit overkilled. For example, e-mail notifications are disabled by default in the installation system. If you want to see e-mail notifications after a form was submitted, you have to update your system settings, notification profile, and also enable notifications for forms;
• This CMS works on a “feather” template that is supposed to be more bootstrap friendly, so ultimately you have to write some special template code. A large scale HTML mode could help with some updates;
• There is licensing fees. Sitefinity tailors their licensing toward different user bases. There’s a free edition, a small business edition for companies who don’t need to use a lot of the advanced features/modules, standard, and enterprise.
Conclusion
As we can see, there are various attributes of Sitefinity & Sitecore CMSs and the choice definitely depends on your preferences.
If you are not up to build very structured site we would like to recommend Sitefinity because you don’t need any specific skills to work with this CMS. The licensing price seems good compared to others .NET CMS platforms and the out of the box features assist to get you up and running a site. The templating model is good and the extensible models aren’t overly complicated to work with.
On the other hand if you have a relatively big website or host many websites Sitecore is better in this case because this CMS is the most effective when it’s using as part of a full digital strategy, targeting content at your audience and using the personalization features to create real engaging websites. However in case your budget is limited and you have only a few sites to manage, this product is not the best option for you.
So wish you good luck with your own choice! I really hope this article was useful for you.
Also it will be nice to know your opinion. Which CMS do you use for your business? Which CMS do you think is more appropriate for your projects and why?
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!
