Sitecore is adding new features each release. When I compare what was in Sitecore 7.0 (version I started with) with the latest Sitecore 10.0, I have to admit that during those 6 years, Sitecore made significant journey.

They are not only cultivating the platform for end users – content editors / marketers / administrators – but also for us, developers.

Here is list of new features divided for developers and content editors / marketers.

1. Sitecore 10 for Developers

New features for devs:

  • Containers
  • ASP.NET Core
  • Serialization

1.1 Containers

When I started with Sitecore, we had to use msi Windows setup files to create new Sitecore instances. We also use SIM on our dev machines. With Sitecore 9.x, we had two options for that – SIF and SIA.

Meanwhile lot of community members were working on containerizing Sitecore images and make them working with Docker or on production on Kubernetes services.

Sitecore made in version 10.0 public support for containers. Finally we have official option to develop or instantiate Sitecore and other services with containers officially.

Sitecore has docker container images for Sitecore XP and XM. They also provide nonproduction images for MSSQL, Solr and Redis for developers.

Everything is publicly available in Sitecore image repository for customers. You can use Docker Compose for developers and Kubernetes for production.

They have added liveness and readiness health check endpoints for our needs.

Support for modules is also in place. In this initial version, SXA is supported. More modules will come in each subsequent release.

What’s great documentation on developing and deploying with containers will be provided together with examples and templates of container-based Sitecore solutions.

1.2 ASP.NET Core

Although some features of Sitecore prior Sitecore 10 are based on ASP.NET Core, the core rendering of pages and components was always dependent on .NET Framework. Publishing and Authentication services, Sitecore Commerce, … these are just examples were ASP.NET Core was used.

Situation was not changed in Sitecore 10 (I have a belly feeling that Sitecore is waiting for .NET 5 to be released later this year for that) but they have added a new feature / option to use Sitecore in headless way also with ASP.NET Core.

There is a new SDK for headless rending for ASP.NET Core in Sitecore 10. Hurray! Great first step IMHO. You can use placeholders, field renderings, model bindings in ASP.NET Core and editing is supported in Experience Editor too. Looking forward seeing ASP.NET Core / .NET 5 in future versions of Sitecore.

1.3 Serialization

Currently you have couple of options to serialize Sitecore content – Unicorn, TDS, …

With Sitecore 10, Sitecore is standardizing the tooling and approaches for serialization.

Serialization is now headless with completely tooling:

  • New CLI tool that enables you to login, publish and serialize from command line
  • New Visual Studio Plugin to configure serialization and sync from Visual Studio

2. Sitecore 10 for Content Editors & Marketers

New features introduced for Content Editors & Marketers:

  • Personalization
    • Personalization is supported also in XM
      • Marketers can now do simple personalization on CMS Only installations (XM)
      • Session-based and device rules that do not depend on tracker or marketing definitions are available in XM package
  • Experience Optimization
    • Performance and stability improvements
  • Experience Editor
    • All content pasted from Word into Rich Text Field is cleaned
    • Therefore no more MS Word styling, just pure content
  • Horizon
    • Supports multi-site and multi-lingual environments (also SXA sites are supported)
    • Drag and drop of content in Page Tree
  • EXM
    • Added new HTML templates (completely customizable)
  • Marketing Automation
    • Added new rules around birthdays
    • Improved usability (by rephrasing and redefining settings and rules) and security
  • Experience Analytics
    • Filtering was added to all reports
  • Connectors
    • Changes in Data Exchange Framework:
      • You can now sync a single contact
      • Respond to live events on the site
    • Additional field types added to CMP Connector

Looking forward to work with Sitecore 10 and using new features! Especially I am interested in new dev experience with the ASP.NET Core 🙂

You can find list of all new features on Sitecore 10 Download page.

Get more insights about Sitecore 10 in this post by Jason St-Cyr -> https://jasonstcyr.com/2020/08/05/sitecore-10-developer-benefits/

Interested in installing it? Take a look in my other blog post.

Stay tuned!