Managed Kentico Hosting

Most people know WordPress which is why it makes for a good comparison to lesser-known content management systems like Kentico. Let’s take a look at some key differences:

Audience

Unlike WordPress with its huge ecosystem of themes and plugins that allow you to create sites for virtually any purpose, any audience, Kentico is a robust platform better suited for sophisticated websites that require native eCommerce, digital marketing, and analytics components.

Pricing

WordPress is free, and so are many themes and plugins. Kentico, on the other hand, has a starting price point that might sit beyond the budgets of many small businesses. Presently Kentico Xperience 13 can be licensed for $11,100 (USD) per year.

Platform

Content management systems like WordPress and Drupal are typically hosted on Linux servers. Kentico is generally available on Microsoft Windows platforms (see System Requirements below).

Extensibility

Just like other content management systems, Kentico’s functionality can be extended. But with a much smaller addon ecosystem, you’ll likely have to task your dev team to code the extra functionality you need. But with that said, Kentico comes packed with so many features that will meet the needs of most use cases.

Support

With a premium licence comes premium support that gets a consistently high rating just about everywhere. Despite the comparatively small size of the Kentico community, you’ll nevertheless find all the answers you need – if not in the extensive Kentico documentation or directly from Kentico, then in online forums.

Security

Out of the box both WordPress and Kentico provide excellent security. But given that site functionality is often extended, Kentico might have the advantage over WordPress since many of its pre-packaged modules follow the same strict development practices as the core CMS.

WordPress, in contrast, does not have such strict control over the coding practices of plugin developers which sometimes increases the risk of vulnerabilities. It should also be noted that, since WordPress is by far the most popular CMS, it is a more common target for online attacks.

Kentico provides an intuitive interface which makes it easy to create and manage content and users. Individuals with little or no experience with content management systems might find it challenging to extend the CMS. Luckily Kentico comes packed with lots of documentation and tutorials, providing an easy start for all new users.

Start learning Kentico from their documentation portal at https://docs.xperience.io/tutorial, where you’ll find tutorials for developers and business. The former provides an easy start for developers, while the latter acquaints website managers with Kentico digital marketing and content management basics.

Note: Use the drop-down at the top of the page to access the documentation / tutorial for your version of Kentico.

There are also individual courses available at https://xperience.training.kentico.com/ for developers, marketers, and website managers.

Kentico runs on Microsoft’s Windows platform and requires a MS SQL database. The exact software requirements will depend on which version of Kentico you wish to run.

Xperience by Kentico:

• Windows Desktop: 10 (Version 1607+), 11 (Version 22000+)
• Windows Server: 2016, 2019, 2022
• Linux: Alpine Linux (3.13 or newer), CentOS (7 or newer), Debian (10 or newer), Fedora (33 or newer), openSUSE (15 or newer), Oracle Linux (7 or newer), Red Hat Enterprise Linux (7 or newer), SUSE Enterprise Linux (SLES) (12 SP2 or newer), Ubuntu LTS (16.04 or newer).

These software packages are recommended:

• .NET 6
• Microsoft SQL Server 2019 (including the free SQL Server Express Edition and corresponding LocalDB editions).

Kentico Xperience13:

• Windows Client: 10, 11 (32bit or 64bit)
• Windows Server versions: 2016, 2019

Note: Microsoft will discontinue support for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 on 23 October 2023. Kentico will cease support for the affected software versions at the same time.

During installation, the Kentico installer will download and install the following software packages if they are not already installed:

• Microsoft .NET Framework
• Microsoft Internet Information Services or Internet Information Services Express (Visual Studio)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, including the free SQL Server Express Edition

Kentico 12 SP:

• Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (32bit or 64bit)
• Windows 8 or 8.1 (32bit or 64bit)
• Windows 10 (32bit or 64bit)
• Windows Server versions: 2016

These software packages are also recommended:

• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.1 or newer.
• Microsoft Internet Information Services or Internet Information Services Express (Visual Studio).
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017 (including the free SQL Server Express Edition).

For the average non-developer Kentico’s extensibility is rather limited. You can create or customise page types for different purposes (e.g. articles or forms). You can also customise existing page templates to change how your information is displayed on the front-end.

Unfortunately Kentico does not provide a huge plugin or add-on ecosystem in the same way as some other content management systems do, which means any extra functionality or integration will likely have to be coded by a developer.