Powerful for developers, easy for site editors
February 20, 2021

Powerful for developers, easy for site editors

Josh Bender | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Concrete5

As a developer, I use Concrete5 to build custom solutions as well as off-the-shelf products for sale in the community marketplace. Concrete5 provides a reliable, safe, scalable base to create powerful websites and web applications. Being open source, the price is right and it is also supported by a committed community of developers, site editors, and users.

I've been using this CMS since 2009, and over a decade later, I'd still choose it again in a heartbeat. The team behind Concrete5 is always pushing the platform further, and taking bold, brave steps to make it a world-class system. As a developer, it's a breeze working with Concrete5. The elegant architecture makes it easy to create complex add-ons and functionality that is clean, fast, and future-proof.
  • Comprehensive editing tools for site owners.
  • User-friendly and intuitive interface.
  • Extendable architecture for developers.
  • Solid community forum for asking questions and getting free and paid help.
  • Good number of third-party add-ons and themes to extend the core features.
  • Regular news updates from the core team about platform improvements and strategic direction.
  • Average quality and depth of developer documentation.
  • Allowed me to build more websites more cost-effectively
  • Reduced support costs from clients
  • Increased the scope of functionality I could deliver to clients within a fixed budget
Concrete5 was far easier to use than alternatives--which is very important when handling support issues for clients. As a developer, the architecture makes it easier to extend the core functions elegantly without overwriting core code. Although a few other CMS platforms have wider usage and more add-ons/themes, the superior quality of Concrete5 outweighed those factors. Concrete5 also has only had one major upgrade that wasn't backward compatible. This was a tough transition to navigate, but I understand it was done for the right reason by the core team.

Do you think Concrete CMS delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Concrete CMS's feature set?

Yes

Did Concrete CMS live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Concrete CMS go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Concrete CMS again?

Yes

It's best suited for complex websites with multiple contributors and editors, such as an online magazine. However, it also performs perfectly for small business brochure-style websites. Considering the wide range of third-party add-ons, what you can do with Concrete5 is only limited by your imagination. I've used it for intranet, e-commerce, and B2B solutions as well.

If you have a large inventory of products and want to build a comprehensive e-commerce site, then there are other CMSes that tackle that challenge better than Concrete5. However, if you only have a few basic products, then this can work very well.

Concrete CMS Feature Ratings

WYSIWYG editor
10
Code quality / cleanliness
10
Admin section
10
Page templates
10
Library of website themes
9
Mobile optimization / responsive design
10
Publishing workflow
10
Form generator
9
Content taxonomy
10
SEO support
10
Bulk management
9
Availability / breadth of extensions
9
Community / comment management
8
API
7
Internationalization / multi-language
10
Role-based user permissions
10