Getting started with PiranhaCMS is very difficult for a new user. The existing documentation is written for developers who have already committed to using PiranhaCMS. It's not geared towards .NET developers with no prior knowledge or end-user who wants to evaluate it.

When I fired up PiranhaCMS for a second time today, it started out in the site mode, but I needed to change some of the content. There was no single place in the documentation which describes how to login into the manager. A google search didn't yield any specific results. Since I couldn't remember how I managed to login into the manager the first time I installed PiranhaCMS, I became frustrated.

Eventually, I opened up the database using an SQLLite client to find the username and guessed the admin password. I also found the URL for the manager by searching my browser's history. As I am writing this, I wondered if the username and password were somehow given during the installation process. A search in VS gave me "Setup/index.cshtml" and the username and password appear in the HTML. This is the last place I would expect to find this information!

I understand the vision for a lightweight and highly configurable CMS system, but without adequate user level documentation, it may be one of the dozens of CMSes that wind up in the recycling bin during an evaluation out of frustration. I would add user level documentation covering everything from installation to managing content.