Unlike PHP, ASP.NET Core Developers don’t have many options available when It comes to choosing a powerful Content Management System (CMS) for developing Applications. After searching & testing, In this Article, I’m going to list down some of the great Content Management Systems (CMS) for .Net Core.

No Doubt, that .Net Core is the most powerful & versatile framework. It already provides us with some great tools for rapid development like Entity Framework but having a CMS can save more time while developing an Application.

Before Sharing a list of Top Open Source Content Management System (CMS) developed on ASP.NET Core , we should decide whether we need a CMS or Not?

Developing from scratch is considers as a good idea in most of the cases. So, before start developing your application you must answer these very simple questions.

  1. You don’t like to Code so much?
  2. Are you going to develop an E-commerce website, Blog, a management system or an admin panel like app where most of the functionalities are simple CRUD Operations?
  3. Do you want your web application to be SEO Friendly but don’t have SEO knowledge?
  4. Do you want non-technical users to publish content to your website regularly?

If you have positive answers to the above questions then you need a CMS for the rapid development of your dotnet core application.

There’re two commonly used CMS Architectures i.e. Headless & Decoupled CMS. So, you should also know the difference before comparing Top Content Management Systems.

Headless vs Decoupled CMS

This single image describes the difference between Headless vs Decoupled CMS very clearly.

Image Credit: https://www.coredna.com/blogs/headless-vs-decoupled-cms

Now It’s time to list down some top Content Management Systems (CMS) available for .Net Core Developers.

Mixcore CMS

Mixcore CMS is a Fully Open Source UI Tools to create multi-purpose Web Apps & Application Services. CMS and Dashboards built on top of ASP.Net Core / Dotnet Core, SignalR, Angular.JS and Bootstrap.

Features

  • [x] Reliability - Member roles and permissions.
  • [x] High Security - Strong Data Encryption and Security compliance.
  • [x] Multilingual - Flexible multilingual content migration.
  • [x] High Performance - Millisecond response time.
  • [x] Cross Platforms - Powered by .NET Core and run everywhere.
  • [x] Online Coding - Visual Studio Code's heart inside.
  • [x] Customizable Designs - Build any kinds of website.
  • [x] SEO Friendly - No extra plugin required.
  • [x] Media Management - Multiple file formats for your website / application.
  • [x] Manage On The Go - Manage and Code everywhere you want.
  • [x] Easy and Accessible - Non deep tech knowledge required.
  • [x] Analytics - Inside Google Analytics dashboard & no extra plugin required.
  • [x] Dynamic Modular Architecture - Powerful module layers & Attribute sets feature.
  • [x] Extensibility - API-first architecture for Plug & Play.
  • [x] Easy Backup - Powerful 1 step export.
  • [x] More Coffee time! - You can relax and explore more ton of features are not listed here...

Documentation: Nice documentation makes easy to work with Mixcore CMS.

Docker Support: Deploy anywhere regardless the platform with container support.

Flexible Content Management: Reusable content attributes, fields, templates, modules. Role based user management also available.

Multi-Tenant: Reusable website templates. We can manage multiple sites with a single Installation.

Headless & Decoupled: Offers both Headless CMS or Decoupled architecture.


Orchard Core

Orchard Core is an open source, modular, multi-tenant application framework and CMS for ASP.NET Core. This is actually Microsoft’s venture into the planet of open source development. After the release of Dotnet Core, Orchard was redesigned using .Net Core.

Features

Modular: Every feature is a separate NuGet package as a separate module. So, we just need to get what we are needed for our development.

Documentation: Nice documentation makes easy to work with orchard.

Docker Support: Deploy anywhere regardless the platform with container support.

Flexible Content Management: Reusable content fields. Role based user management also available.

Multi-Tenant: Reusable website templates. We can manage multiple sites with a single Installation.

Headless & Decoupled: Offers both Headless CMS or Decoupled architecture.

Cofoundry

Cofoundry is an extensible and flexible .NET Core CMS & application framework focusing on code first development.

Features

Custom Entities: Define entities in code and get apis and CRUD management.

Roles & Permissions: Configurable roles and permissions enforced at the api level.

Documentation: Detailed documentation is also available to setup Cofoundry in minutes.

Docker Support: Deploy anywhere regardless the platform with container support.

Cloud Ready: Implementations for Azure services via a plugin.

Email: Email templating framework & plugins for emails sending.

Simple & user friendly: Simple & user friendly UI is also a plus.

Squidex

Squidex is an open source headless CMS and content management. It provides a rich API with OData filter & Swagger definitions.

Features

Docker Support: Deploy anywhere regardless the platform with container support.

Multiple Users: Invite users & assign them roles.

Cloud Version: Saas version available at https://cloud.squidex.io.

Editor: Powerful editors to manage the content in multiple ways. It also creates Audit log and history when you change your content.

Swagger Supported: It creates a swagger document when we create a schemas.

Excellent documentation: It is open source with really nice documentation.

Blogifier

If you want to develop a Blog using Asp.Net Core, Blogifier is here. It’s a lightweight, simple, open source blog written in .NET Core having all best blogging features as a highly customizable & extendable Application.

Conclusion

Content Management Systems help developers in rapid development with lots of benefits like third-party themes, plugins & extensions. Open Source technologies also minimize project Cost with better Security, Scalability & flexibility. I have only listed down four Content Management Systems, there are many more with great features. There’s also some .Net CMS with large community support having a plan to move from .Net Framework to .Net Core in future like Umbraco, EPiserver and Sitecore. Comment If you have any suggestion that you think must be included in the above list or let me know If you find this article helpful.

We’ll love to know your opinion, please vote for your favourite .Net Core CMS