Concrete CMS (formerly Concrete5) is a free and open source, PHP built content management system for content on the web and also for intranets. It is optimized to support the creation of online magazines and newspapers.
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Evoq Content
Score 8.7 out of 10
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Evoq Content is a content management system within the Evoq business suite. Evoq Content is extensible with many modules that add caching, advanced content approval workflow, granular permissions, document management, mobile accessibility of content, web farm support, and an ecommerce engine.
I think Concrete5 is much easier to do web development with than Drupal, DotNetNuke and Joomla. For me, Drupal, DotNetNuke and Joomla were harder to template and customize than Concrete5. I find Concrete5 to be more flexible and useful for general web development than …
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.
If you just need to implement a website that is dynamic but not real big in Data Processing almost anyone can do so with very limited knowledge as long as you know how to use a Word Processor and your Browser. If you don't have experience with setting up a Server to run a website there are Companies like PowerDNN, Rackspace and WinHost that can help and I recommend them in that order if you are using DNN. If you need a more sophisticated e-commerce website and don't have much experience with Servers, SQL Server etc. then you should find a consultant to help you install and setup not just the DNN Platform but also select the proper Modules to accomplish what you want to do. If you need a highly customized website that is very data intensive and you are not experienced then be sure to save yourself the time and money by finding a qualified Consultant to help you. The beauty of DNN is that it can handle as simple or as complicated of an Application as you need depending on what your needs are and how far you want to take it.
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).
DNN is a feature-rich, open-source project with a flexible license. This let us use it without licensing costs for custom solutions or as-is with no custom code just plug-in modules.
DNN is written in Microsoft .NET C#. This allows our developers and our customers to use their existing skill set to install and maintain the solution.
DNN is made for Windows platform, allowing us and our customers to deploy solutions to existing Windows servers or in some cases hosted platforms.
DNN integrates with Windows authentication allowing us to deploy intranet solutions and use single sign-on for improved user experience and security.
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.
Even though DNN is a good CMS, I have worked with other CMSs which are far more robust at this point, and would not be overly inclined to select DNN unless cost of the product is the most important factor along with staying on .NET. DNN is a whole package so unless the client has a requirement of including authentication, authorization for users, eCommerce, sticking to something simple is a better option.
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.
Evoq proved to be a solid backbone for our property-management portal, handling ≈300 active rental listings without performance hiccups. The page-builder made it straightforward to craft listing templates that surface photo galleries, floor-plan PDFs, and embedded map pins, while role-based workflows let leasing agents edit unit details (price, availability, pet policy) without touching global site settings—a big win for operational control.
For the management side, the platform’s extensibility let us plug in a third-party rent-payment widget and an automated maintenance-ticket form with minimal custom code. Evoq’s built-in analytics have already highlighted which neighborhoods and bedroom counts drive the most traffic, guiding our marketing spend.
Two caveats:
Search & filter logic – Out-of-the-box search was too shallow for renters who expect Zillow-style filtering. We had to commission a custom module for filter chips (price range, amenities, walk score), which added time and cost. Mobile image optimization – High-resolution gallery images affected load times on 4G; a CDN or Evoq’s Digital Asset Optimizer add-on is advisable.
Overall, Evoq delivers reliable content governance and enough flexibility to support both consumer-facing listings and back-office property-management workflows, provided you budget for advanced search customization and image delivery tuning.
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.
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.
I don't see how it could get any better unless they moved their staff into our offices. You have available to you any type of Support you need or want, both paid and free from thousands of developers and consultants all over the world. You might even find some on Mars if you look hard enough.Also, with all of the available resources available from your Browser you can literally find the answer to any question you have in a matter of minutes.
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.
Evoq proved to be a solid backbone for our property-management portal, handling ≈300 active rental listings without performance hiccups. The page-builder made it straightforward to craft listing templates that surface photo galleries, floor-plan PDFs, and embedded map pins, while role-based workflows let leasing agents edit unit details (price, availability, pet policy) without touching global site settings—a big win for operational control.
For the management side, the platform’s extensibility let us plug in a third-party rent-payment widget and an automated maintenance-ticket form with minimal custom code. Evoq’s built-in analytics have already highlighted which neighborhoods and bedroom counts drive the most traffic, guiding our marketing spend.
Two caveats:
Search & filter logic – Out-of-the-box search was too shallow for renters who expect Zillow-style filtering. We had to commission a custom module for filter chips (price range, amenities, walk score), which added time and cost. Mobile image optimization – High-resolution gallery images affected load times on 4G; a CDN or Evoq’s Digital Asset Optimizer add-on is advisable.
Overall, Evoq delivers reliable content governance and enough flexibility to support both consumer-facing listings and back-office property-management workflows, provided you budget for advanced search customization and image delivery tuning.
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.
Drupal is a highly expensive tool and is not offering anything extraordinary at a high price. If I keep its pricing in account then there should be some extraordinary features but unfortunately, there isn’t anything special about it; rather it was slow in its working. All these things actually forced us to move to Evoq that is just perfect in its working. Its working speed, interface, and UX are so simple that none of our team members find it tough to utilize. It has so many features like content scheduling and rich text edit. It allows easy editing of the text as well, and one can directly add text according to need.
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.
DNN have given us the ability to have basic sites for clients up and running in a very short time. This makes the client happy.
DNN has taken the trivial, simple tasks of changing text on a page or an image on a page and put it into the hands of the client. They do not have to pay us to do it and that also frees up more time for us to spend on development.
