CakePHP vs. CodeIgniter vs. Concrete CMS

If you need to create simple CRUD applications using a MVC framework, I could say CakePHP could achieve this. But with frameworks like Laravel on the market, I would have a hard time recommending CakePHP for anything.

Incentivized

The input class makes it easy to provide server-side validation and scrubbing of user input. Setting Error messages. It doesn't require constant command-line access, It's great because it has a strong community and excellent documentation, but the problem is that it tries to retain backward compatibility with PHP 4 and therefore lacks a lot of "standard" features modern frameworks have such as auto-loading.

Incentivized

Suitable if you are part of small to large scale companies or web-houses which have PHP developers and frontend engineers with some budgets. [Also suitable if] you or your client want to build a website that requires some features or uniqueness [and needs] some customization and freedom. Additionally suitable if you want this project to be DevOps based project or if the project requires very tight security and is inside of a closed network.

• Easy learning curve
• Can be used by new developers without paying a formation
• The MVC is pretty well implemented

Incentivized

• CodeIgniter is an excellent tool when a simple database API is needed. Postgres, MySQL, and SQLite are all abstracted into a simple-to-use
• CodeIgniter's simplicity is truly its best feature, because you are able to create controllers and methods based on the http://www.example//, and immediately being developing the application.
• Flexibility is also another developer-friendly feature, because developers are able to design their application in any way - controllers, models, libraries, and helpers can be located anywhere or not used at all.

Incentivized

• As a dev, the Page object (coupled with page attributes, nav menus and page lists) makes structuring a website or web app a dream. The separation of page templates from page types also helps, the former being about layout while the latter is more conceptual.
• As an admin, you pretty much have as much control as the developers of the site decide to give you.
• The versioning system allows admins to roll changes back and work on changes before publishing them.
• The permissions system is exceptionally powerful, allowing roles and/or individual users to be included or excluded from each permission.
• The attributes system allows pages, files and users to be given custom properties of various types (e.g. text, image, colour).

Incentivized

• The biggest issue inherit in CakePHP, and why we switched to Laravel, is the base configuration of the program. Most people aree that CakePHP uses old (outdated, even dangerous) PHP habits. There is some truth in this: Cake has not been as quick to adapt to the newer PHP versions as they should. I was always surprised that with new major releases, from 2.4 to 2.5 for example, that the minimum version of PHP will never increase. For example, CakePHP only requires version 5.2.8 of PHP, but it would not have been difficult to update the minimum version at least 5.3 when adapting a new version.
• Speed - our company had many issues scaling CakePHP to a medium size application software, even with using REDIS/memcache we would still run into many issues with the built-in ORM.

Incentivized

• Faced some issue of session management, so that's why we used the Core Session library for that. It would be great if we could improve it a little bit.
• Frameworks provide the option to setup all getters/setters, so having this option in it is a great idea.

Incentivized

• Allow end users to clear cache when updating pages.
• Needs a few more built in forms.
• The CMS is not multilingual by default. Even though I managed to 'hack' it so, it would be nice to have it included.
• It'd be nice to make use of custom PHP modules through shortcodes more straight forward. It seems the hooks are a bit contrived.

Its a very solid, very consistent package that never lets you down or leaves you frustrated. It gets a 10/10 because its so much better than anything else currently available. It also gets a 10/10 because, even if not compared to others, it does not leave you wanting for features or functionality. It is an excellent piece of software that will answer almost every CMS need.

I have used it on over 30 projects in the past 3 years and it's still a pleasure to work in. Doesn't always have all the answers, no CMS does, but I still find it very easy to use from prototyping to working to final project. Also there is no problem working on a localhost then moving to a live site, like there is with WordPress. It's my go to app in my CMS quiver.

Incentivized

Since it's not tied to a central server (other than for authorizing updates and assigning licenses to specific sites), it's available pretty much 100% of the time.

Incentivized

The site works extremely well, the front end flies, searches and form submissions are very fast indeed. The reason its a 9 not a ten? the back end can be a little slow at times, and this is unfair, because for the backend to be so amazing, it has to do a huge amount of work!

Concrete5 is open-source and has an incredibly strong, polite, and supportive community. You can get an answer to nearly anything you want to do with Concrete5 by googling for it, searching the Concrete5 discussion forums or stack overflow, or posting your question to the forum. Members are very courteous and do not look down on those with less knowledge. And answers are always quick, informative, and supportive.

Incentivized

Build off of an existing theme to speed up the creation of custom designed themed. Bootstrap is a good one but there are many others that are probably much simpler to build from than the Bootstrap one was. Make sure you host on a Unix/Linux server so you don't have to install PHP or MySQL separately. It's just smoother on those platforms.

Cakephp is more easy to implement and to learn that CodeIgniter. That's why I switched pretty quickly from the first (CodeIgniter) to cakephp.

Incentivized

CodeIgniter has a very small footprint. The source code is very small sized. Setting up a project is very easy. Follows MVC pattern. Consumes low memory and CPU. Well documented. Has a built-in forum for users to discuss and get the solution for issues. Periodically updates versions and patch fixes etc.

Incentivized

WordPress at the time was riddled with security breaches in the news and while Concrete5 was smaller (and therefore a smaller attack vector), after eleven years of use, Concrete5 has only had one published incident with an add-on that resolved within hours and with excellent communication. You can talk to the CEO and the CTO (or the rest of the team). They are very engaged and you're working with a small company of people who care, not a call-center with people just waiting to go home.

Incentivized

• Negative Impact - we ended up having to rewrite our entire web-application from CakePHP to Laravel.

Incentivized

• Because of quick turnaround on portals/intranets, it was easy to offer this as an option to clients.
• As there is no cost associated with this framework, it was great not having to worry about purchasing or licensing. (MIT License).
• Community support helps in that there are no ongoing support contracts or costs.
• No direct representative for one-on-one support, if needed. This can cut into time used on projects.

Incentivized

• Concrete5 is the customer-facing side of our business. It's where we host the site that potential customers see before they choose to purchase and create an account with us. We are able to keep that site clean, user-friendly, and with a lot of available options for customers to interact with thanks to Concrete5
• The ability to have multiple users and admins for the site means that we all members of our team can go in and create new content, fix or troubleshoot issues, and edit the site easily.
• Our CRM isn't directly integrated with Concrete5, so when customers go to make a purchase with us, they have to leave our Concrete5 site.

Incentivized