I've been keeping an eye on Kentico CMS for a while now, and I've been consistently impressed with its products. With each release, it has been adding substantial new features to an already solid foundation and Kentico CMS 4.0, released earlier this month, is no exception. This release focuses on a number of social networking tools, including support for blogs, wikis, and community-building and management features.One of the things I like most about Kentico is that it is clearly focused on value. Last year it adopted the popular model of offering a full-featured version of its CMS for free, albeit without support, and charging for additional features and support.

Kentico CMS 4.0 continues that trend with four different editions: Free, Professional, Enterprise, and Social Networking. The feature matrix lays out the pricing and what's included with each edition. While the pricing seems to have crept up a bit in the last year, it's still a bargain at under three grand for the full Social Networking Edition.

While the new social networking features are the star of the show, version 4.0 offers a number of other features, including improvements to URL aliasing, which can make sites easier to search, and easy-to-use support for slick Ajax features.

Kentico's products are ASP.NET-based, and one of the things it has done particularly well is develop a robust Microsoft partner program to assist organizations in building Kentico CMS-powered sites. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from developing the site in-house, but it's nice to have options.

Kentico's proven themselves to have a thoughtful road map that lines up well with its customer's needs. I think its products are well worth checking out, particularly if you're working in a .NET environment.