DotNetNuke vs Weebly
Developing your own website is so simple today, compared to 20 years ago. A large problem is the vast number of website design platforms to choose from. Some spend more money than others on advertising on mainstream media, which can cause those who don’t advertise there to go less noticed by many people. It can be difficult to figure out which website design platform is the best for you and your business’s needs. In this article
I will be discussing the major differences and some similarities between the well-known Weebly platform and the less well-known DotNetNuke (DNN) platform, and provide my opinion you which one you should most consider using to grow your business. I will consider the usability of the interface, features, and prices, of each of the two platforms.
Interface
The interface of a website designing platform is a key pillar to consider when choosing the best platform to create your site on.
Weebly is known for being one of the easiest platforms to design a website on. This is partly because it has low design flexibility and customization options, aside from the responsive themes. DNN on the other hand, is known for having a lot of design flexibility and customization options, which can be overwhelming if you are inexperienced in creating websites and you decide to dive deep into the customization.
Both platforms allow multi-user management, which is fantastic if you are not the only individual editing the website. Both platforms also provide good site speeds and PCI compliance. DNN is also much more scalable than Weebly because of its smart structure, allowing you to encompass many sites under one umbrella.
Weebly, unlike DNN, allows you to edit the website from your smart phone, which is a great perk. The bad news is that Weebly has a terrible backup system, and you generally have to pay for help from their support team. DNN doesn’t make you pay for support, which is great because there is not a strong online community of DNN users that assist each other.
Now we have covered a basic overview of the interfaces, we need to discuss another important pillar of website development platforms.
Features and Tools
The features and tools provided by a website design platform can lead to your website generating a lot of sales or minimal sales.
Both platforms have great SEO tools, compared to their competition, which allow potential customers to discover your website more often, if used properly. Besides basic functions, both platform do not provide a lot features and tools for you to use, like a lot of platforms these days.
Instead, both platforms allow you to include modules/applications on your website made by 3rd party vendors or by the respective platform hosting company. These applications be downloaded from either the app centers or 3rd party vendor sites. Having lots of strong applications is an immensely important piece of developing a strong website. Some applications will cost money and you will need to do research to figure out how strong individual applications are for their price. Speaking of price that is the final pillar to discuss.
Cost
Price of course is an important factor; that’s not news to anybody. We will now share the pricing options that each service offers.
For Weebly, basic service is free, but you’re getting a proper domain name with it. For $6/month is Weebly’s personal option, which allows you to choose a domain name and provides basic tools. At $12/month is Weebly’s professional subscription, which provides tools to build a branded site. And finally, Weebly offers their performance subscription for $26/month, which provides all of the tools and features they offer including integrated ecommerce tools. As mentioned Weebly also may require a purchase of some applications, which should be taken into consideration.
DNN on the other hand is a free platform and only charges you for modules and applications that you download and the domain name. There are two other associated platforms to DNN called Evoq and On Demand, which can be purchased for $3000/year. These two other services are incredibly advanced web design and are most likely not at all what you are looking for.
It is apparent that the two platforms have very different pricing strategies.
Which is the Best for You?
With all of this information presented to you, which website creation platform is best for you and your business, DNN or Weebly?
It’s actually pretty simple, we recommend you use DNN. There is no reason you should need to pay a monthly subscription fee for a web design platform that offers fewer basic features at a lower quality. DNN does everything that Weebly does and more other than advanced ecommerce, and if you want to do advanced ecommerce there are much better platforms out their than Weebly, such as AspDotNet Storefront.
As previously mentioned DNN can be a complex software, even for people who have built a website on a platform like Weebly. To ensure that you’re not abusing your precious time, energy, resources, and capital on learning how to design the perfect website with DNN, we recommend you contact us. At equaTEK, Inc. we have been building websites for businesses for almost two decades, and can assist to you in growing your business with our knowledge and experience in web design, ecommerce, and digital marketing.
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