If you haven't used DotNetNuke in the past few months you really need to check it out. In December they released version 4.4 which introduced several performance improvements. Some people seem to think that DotNetNuke is slow or has too much overhead. Since we sell modules for DotNetNuke we get to troubleshoot all sorts of DotNetNuke problems. The first thing we ask a customer is where is their site hosted and what kind of hosting plan do they have. Nearly 90% of our support issues that have to do with DotNetNuke, and not our products specifically, have to do with their hosting environment. Up until version 4.4, DotNetNuke consumed quite a bit of memory. This is problematic in most shared hosting environments. It amazes me that some people will try to operate a website for their business on a $9.95/month hosting plan and expect it to be perfect. However, the DotNetNuke core team realized that they need to make some adjustments in order for the application to be more stable in a shared hosting environment. Not only did this help hosters, but if you were already running DotNetNuke on a dedicated server you saw a significant performance improvement.
DotNetNuke released a preview of the upcoming 4.5 version to their Platinum Benefactors yesterday. It seems they have improved performance even more, while making the entire application more user friendly. The first thing I noticed was the collapsible control panel bar. I never liked the large control panel bar at the top of every page. Back in October I posted a quick tutorial on how to make the control panel collapsible. This is now built into DNN 4.5.
Another common complaint about DotNetNuke is installation. Version 4.5 now includes a web installer which uses a wizard control and ajax to which makes installation extremely easy.
A few other features I have noticed are the Solution Explorer, User based permissions, ASP.NET AJAX support, unique identifiers for licensing support, new icons and in-line text editing.
Learn more about some of the new features:
DotNetNuke 4.5 Installation Wizard Video
Edit in place enhancements
Profile Updates
Client Side Personalization