As Steve Martin once said “Some people have a way with words and others have not way”, or something like that.  My disclaimer is, that I have not way. 

DotNetNuke is a very flexible web application framework.  It is built with heavy reliance on the provider model so that entire portions can be changed out easily.  You can swap out your text editor, your database, possibly your membership provider…  DNN has a terrific system to install modules that is second to none.  It provides a very flexible way where each page is built completely on the fly from data in the database.  The database defines everything.  The localization is very thorough.   It has many ways to use templates to define things.  It is very flexible.  Did I already say that?  This flexibility will allow you to create any type of website.  You can create an e-commerce website, a football team website, a gaming site, a blog site… It is very flexible.  It’s Brillnat!!

Therefore, DotNetNuke has some performance limitations.   I hate to use the word “limitation” for fear that people will immediately discard DNN from their list of possible tools for a project.   There are always trade offs.  It seems as though all the marketing we have been deluged with in the last 70 years has led us to believe that if anything has a limitation it is worthless.  Even our politics is driven by each side being unable to admit they have faults, and the other side pointing to a fault and proclaiming the other side is the devil.  We need to be honest and upfront about limitations and tradeoffs.  There are always tradeoffs to be made.  There are nearly always both pros and cons.  Tools have to be evaluated on weather or not they will do the job you need them to do.  We also have to be careful to not try to use a tool in a place where it is not well suited.  We need to understand the limitations.   

That being said when I look at DNN and its performance I need to understand the value I get for all that flexibility.  There is also a cost.  Turn on SQL profiler and open a trace to watch the database activity when you open a single simple DNN page.   A lot happens.  There are calls to membership, calls for settings, and calls for modules…  There is a cost to all that.  Now if you have a site that has thousands of hits to it every minute, the database may be one of the limitations.  Maybe a site with those 10 thousands of hits isn’t appropriate for DNN.  The design of DNN limits its ability to be a great performer in some situations.  Yes, you can throw hardware at it and make it perform better and probably acceptable. A site with that much activity must have some value.  Maybe it would be worth it to build a custom solution so that the parts of DNN that are working hard to provide that flexibility can be dropped in favor of a solution tailored exactly to your sites needs.  Flexibility leads to inefficiency by definition.  You don’t get something for nothing.  DNN is a really cool Swiss army knife, but you might not want your surgeon using it on you. 

Using a Swiss army knife during the day to open packages, tighten a loose screw, or take out a sliver… Brillnat!!!

Using a Swiss army knife to remove your appendix… BrillNOT!!! 

I love Swiss army knifes, I love DNN

mj