Silverlight or Asp.net?

My company is about to creat a new website to replace the current one. We hope the new website could be more attractive than current one, which means animation, flash, etc. And, in order to let non-technical staff update web content, we are also looking for a solution(like content management system). I'm an experienced .net programmer, also a big fan of jQuery. My prior projects are full of Ajax using 开发者_Go百科jQuery. I have to make a decision, what platform is going to be used in new website development. Silverlight or .Net? I don't know how to use silverlight, but if have to , I'll learn. And another concerning is, how to let non-technical staff update web content. Does anyone know if silverlight provides such a function that just like that of content management system? Any tip will be appreciated!

---

Use Silverlight if you want to make a more desktop-like app. It would be an alternative to Flash. Do note that Silverlight penetration rates are lower than Flash.

I haven't heard of any Silverlight based CMS but I haven't actively looked for one either. I'm sure some exist, but as for how good they are, I couldn't say.

Otherwise if it resembles more traditional websites and follows web paradigms and conventions I'd go with ASP.NET MVC (3) since you're already familiar with JQuery.

---

I would recommend against Silverlight from a Search Engine Optimisation and Accessibility reason.

Search Engine Optimisation
Google cannot read text in your Silverlight application, or follow links, which will damage your page ranks.

Accessibility
If users dont have Silverlight installed in their browser (mobile phones dont usually support this) then they wont be able to access the site.

I would recommend having a site built in ASP.NET with Silverlight components on the site for added animation, but without ruining the functionality

---

Although I am a huge Silverlight fan, I'd urge you not to use if for a massive CMS. My top reason is the following :

When you browse an HTML website typically all the files you download end up in Temporary Internet files folder - that way you don't download every single image over and over again. With Silverlight this is not the case. It doesn't have access to your hard drive and is only able to store things in isolated storage (1Mb by default, can be increased on demand only). When it comes to storing things on the hard drive, it is permitted only via direct user action. You actually need to click a button to open a file stream and open it for writing and reading - otherwise you get a security exception.

If you still want to use Silverlight in the CMS, I'd use it custom controls here and there or media playback, otherwise I would not recommend it for the reasons I've outlined above.

---

As some of the answers already touched on, using Silverlight is equivalent to telling Google and Bing:

"Please stay way and keep my content entirely out of your search index. I do not want users to find my site or content via search"

If that's OK with you, then you can more easily create a glitzy site via Silverlight. I cannot think of many public sites that want that behavior.

But be aware that using SL also means giving up on mobile users too. Silverlight doesn't work in

• iPhone / iPad
• Android phones and tables
• Windows Phone 7 (unbelievably)

If you want both SEO and mobile, I recommend you take @Davy8's advice and go with MVC 3 + Razor + Tools Update.

---

It's more of a question of what is the "problem" that the company is currently solving with the existing website, and what improvements can be made. Once you have defined the problem, then you can come up with a solution that would best suit the problem and a technology that can effectively tackle it.

The only reason why I would use Silverlight as a web solution would be if there needs to be some sort of user interaction that is outside of what can be provided using HTML, Javascript, or any other technology. Silverlight or Flex would be a great for providing a rich user experience and interactivity within your web app.