3 Basic Misunderstandings about the Sitefinity Platform

We stopped in for a cup of tea with Jochem, our Telerik MVP / Sitefinity Solutions Consultant for a chat about the Telerik Sitefinity CMS platform and find out what the 3 main mistakes are that businesses make with the platform. Here is what Jochem had to report:

Misunderstanding #1: Implementation and Architecture

People still consider Sitefinity to be a web publishing tool that just produces pages and news updates, instead of a tool where you can store your information. It is a lot more powerful than people expect, and here is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Sitefinity is capable of:

• They just introduced full Google and Bing sitemap integration so when you publish a new page it automatically updates the sitemap - no more manual submissions to search engines!
• Full control of the output of the widgets, giving you greater control of your content.
• Sitefinity prides itself on it simplistic format, however this can lead to developers missing out on all the platform has to offer because they think they know it all. This complacency means that they miss some of the best implementation practices. Follow the Sitefinity blog to stay up to date on new features.

Misunderstanding #2: Pricing

Businesses often think that the entry version of Sitefinity isn't worth including in the RFP process even though it is equivalent to an Enterprise CMS. Granted, the pricing does depend on the size of your business as the basic version of Sitefinity only allows you to have 5 users and 2 production servers, however you are still getting the same features as the Enterprise version.

For many businesses, the notion of a relatively cheap CMS is not suitable, however decision makers should make the choice based on technical requirements, not on another industry pricing strategy. Consider the size and needs of your business before you purchase the Enterprise version of the platform.

Misunderstanding #3: Hidden Costs

The third biggest mistake is forgetting hidden costs once a CMS is purchased. Sitefinity comes out-of-the-box with one year of free-updates whereas most CMS systems just come out-of-the-box. Sitefinity also offers a seamless approach to updates that helps to save time in comparison to more complex CMS systems. Once a CMS is purchased and implemented the website will not run itself but requires content editors to constantly update the content. Using either the desktop app, inline editing options or default login to update approach, users can get a news article live in 10 minutes as opposed to 40 or 50 minutes. Other more complex CMS systems are not user-centric making it harder to make updates quickly. With novice/non-daily users the ROI is easily seen within the first year of purchase due to the productivity gain.

Sitefinity is not a complacent CMS platform and is constantly updating its service to provide a seamless experience for professional and novice users.

'Sitefinity, in 2010, introduced an architecture model, which began as Sitefinity 4 and it has now progressed to Sitefinity 8 - they rebranded their entire infrastructure and the vision behind it. They have been introducing new features ever since and have been one of the front-runners in CMS, being one of the first to introduce responsive web design and one of the first CMS to allow you to use whatever developer language and framework you want to use.'

-Jochem Bokkers,Sitefinity Solutions Consultant

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