Beware of the 4!

I think this pretty much sums it up: http://www.sitefinity.com/devnet/forums/sitefinity-4-x/general-discussions/an-open-letter-to-vassil-terziev-svetozar-georgiev-and-the-sitefinity-team.aspx

We've been extremely disappointed in Sitefinity 4. It waaaay underachieves, it's much harder to develop for, and the pricing increase doesn't seem to match an increase in value.

Mostly, it's the bugs that have our developers shaking their heads, wishing to go permanently back to the days of Sitefinity 3.7, despairing that we've already built products on Sitefinity 4 and it's too late to back out.

Sitefinity 4 (4.2 as of now) never should have been shipped in its current state.  Our sentiment now is that, for Telerik, it will probably take another .7 release (4.7) before it's minimally stable.  Is there any reason this perception would not be correct?

This post is ridiculous...start to finish...4.2 SP1 is quite stable

Missing some features 3.x has...sure...but it also introduces some amazing things like layout controls.

Harder to develop for?...hardly...the API is close to the same, you still have your managers, and moreover you can now CHOOSE to use Fluent.

Updates are a 1 click 30 second wait compared to the hours of diffmerge in 3.x

WCF architecture allows your clients to build mobile apps against the API

I must agree with Steve. SF 4.2 SP1 is at a very good state now and I am sure that by the end of the years SF will be even better.

I would have agree with Developer on 4.0 and even 4.1 but 4.2 SP1 is a different strory and would think its save to start Sitefinity.

Markus

+1 (Steve)

Yes they've released a quarter to soon but the last 3 releases have been quite stable and a joy to work with. Try running the same site in 4.1 and in 4.2 and look at its performance increase, you'll be amazed.

It's not harder to develop for, it's different to develop for. So yes, you have to teach an old dog new tricks and that comes with a learning curve (esp coming from VB) but if you're unsure about your coding skills (like I have been in the beginning) then try and find alternatives. It's been a year now since the beta release but I'm feeling really confident about coding certain parts while at the same time I fully acknowledge there are certain areas I'm just a beginner because I've barely touched them. 

The pricing is what it is, there's still a community edition and the SBE version sells for $499 and the biggest issue with the SBE concerning languages they've started to address. Just because Mercedes sells cars and a 'Smart' is classified as a car doesn't mean a Mercedes should be in the same price range. There are numerous of architectural decisions and implementations that set v4.x completely apart from v3.x.

The v4 platform is a platform that allows flexibility and scale geared towards the future and not towards the kind of websites we've been developing the past 10 years. That's what still has me so excited and passionate about Sitefinity because they showed guts and vision to walk away from a money cow to invest in something larger.

Of course there are bugs, it's a new platform. And just like any new platform there will be bugs, quirks and issues. File them, explain them and vote for them. If the forums shows one thing, it's Telerik's amazing support. Every bug feels like a show stopper but if it is, file a support ticket and 9 out of 10 times you'll end up with a solution.

Should and could have are nice thoughts but everyone in technology knows its part of the process when dealing with a new technology/platform whether its MVC, WindowsPhone or a javascript library as jQuery.

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Some may think I'm doing a 180 because I've 'jumped' all over Sitefinity on the Ecommerce module but I'm not. When I try to learn something or testdrive it, I try to emerce myself in it and look for the edge cases and try and see what happens then. That's how I learn the best. I've been frustrated in the early stages, just like the rest of us, and sometimes still scratch my head but the truth is I'm excited about the platform and its capabilities and v4.2 is more than production ready.

Hi,

@ Markus, Steve & Jochem, thank you for joining the conversation and sharing your experience.

@Developer, we really appreciate all feedback on the use of the product. We do understand that you are frustrated with some aspects of Sitefinity. In order for us to be helpful however we would really like to have more detailed information on exactly what is not working for you and on which version of the product you are. As the other people involved in this thread shared we have resolved a lot of problems with the latest releases. We are constantly improving the product based on customer feedback. Let me take a quick example. You might have already stumbled upon this blog post: The power of post-purchase processing hooks in Ecommerce! This one talks about new functionality in the Ecommenrce module that was introduced with the latest SP. This was not part of the 4.2 release, however users have requested it and we delivered it.

To keep the goo in the thread I will suggest the following. Instead of just saying that people should not use the 4.x version, please let us know if your specific problems and the version in which you encounter them. Then we will go over each one of them and see what we can do to resolve them.

All the best,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team

Hi,

Quote Steve :

Okay, look, it might be a blanket statement of avoiding all 4.x releases, but our experiences are all we have to go on. Are my statements so unreasonable? When the head of the company says the product shouldn't have been released, that's saying something.  It basically means I'm saying what Telerik is saying: this first product trashed our customers' trust.

Have I tried 4.2 SP1 yet? No, I haven't, and yes, I'd love for severe and show-stopping bugs to be solved sooner rather than later, so I really do hope that the product has stabilized somewhat.  So far, we've built projects on 4.0, 4.1, and 4.2, and the bugs were severe, and yes, we've submitted those to Telerik, so there's no need to list all of them.

I know building a CMS is an enormous task. I know all software has bugs. But I would have rather seen a less buggy, simplified interface with less bugs, then all these great improvements and less refinements than previous products.

Another dev reminded me that I had pushed for us to migrate to 4.0, and so maybe I should take responsibility for that push. But our experiences on 3.7 had been great, and the feature set for 4.0 was so appealing. But it was quickly a nightmare of generic error messages that would pop up in the AJAX-y interface with no decent explanation and often no error logging.  It also removed or broke features that we heavily relied on.  As of 4.2, that level of reliability has not yet been met as we had with 3.7.

So, for someone who has been a 3.7 developer and is considering a future project with 4, I think it's important to share the cautionary tale of one team's experience.  I'm sure other people have had different experiences, or they weren't using the same features, so encountered less bugs, or maybe they encountered the bugs but considered them not a big deal and part of the job (to work around them).

Look, while Windows Vista crapped out initially, I was quick to recommend Windows 7 to many when it solved not just reliability issues but simplified the UI.  (I know it's not a perfect metaphor, but just an example that comes to mind of not liking a product and loving a follow-up product.) So, I'm quick to turn around and evangelize something if it works well just as much as I criticize it if it doesn't. 

There's not a lot of good CMS's in the ASP.NET space, so I'm going to push hard, because I want products that work, and for Sitefinity's price, I want products that work awesomely.  So far, Sitefinity 4 is not awesome. And from the statement from Vassil, Telerik agrees that it has not been awesome.  And I'm skeptical of the idea that it's gone from completely not awesome to completely awesome in one service pack. But we'll try it, of course, because we're invested into Sitefinity.

Our experiences are not ridiculous. To write them off would be ridiculous, as they've already been recognized by Telerik as common from their previous postings. 

We currently buy lots of Sitefinity licenses, but we're already starting to look around for backup (other .NET CMS) solutions, which is probably a good strategy anyway. If it was simple, we'd probably be doing projects in the immediate future in 3.7, but buying licenses for older versions is no longer straightforward. If you want to make us instantly happier, that would help.

I'd be happy to follow up with any of this.

Thanks for listening,
Matthew

Matthew: to sum things up, yes, you should take responsibility for having pushed for the migration to 4.0 (our manager did the same). And yes, Sitefinity 4 is a nasty can of worms, and the latest version is no exception (but the worms now wear lipstick; and they have ecommerce).