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.
N/A
eXo Platform
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
eXo Platform is an open-source, social-collaboration software designed for enterprises. Some key features include: Enterprise Social Network, Enterprise Content Management and Social Collaboration.
$5
engaged user/month
Pricing
Concrete CMS
eXo Platform
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Enterprise
5$
engaged user/month
Professional Edition
5$
engaged user/month
Enterprise Unlimited
9$
engaged user/month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Concrete CMS
eXo Platform
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
$5 per engaged user
Additional Details
—
Professional:
Starting at 100 users//
Enterprise:
Starting at 300 users//
Enterprise Unlimited:
Starting at 500 users
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.
It is especially suitable for working together remotely or from disconnected locations, allowing them to access collaborative work and tools to facilitate communication. Internal and cloud options also seem to offer a flexible adoption roadmap. It addresses the problems of efficient collaboration and effective communication between employees, particularly with regard to working and completing projects
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).
I personally love the user-friendly interface. Often you find software which is difficult to learn, and not utilized as often as it should be because of this. With eXo Platform, the interface is easy to understand, and is not particularly challenging to new users and non-tech savvy individuals.
It allows you to get work done, without feeling like using the platform is part of the actual work. It feels more like a natural system you would use in your leisure time to connect with friends and family, rather than a social intranet designed to facilitate employee communication and help you meet project deadlines.
The cloud platform allows users to easily share information and files, and collaborate on project work. Another benefit to this is it makes mobile collaboration possible.
As the platform appears to be packed with features and functionality it may be a bit daunting at first to get used to it.
The initial adoption in a corporate setting would involve a number of questions, such as integration with other applications, data migration and security and the optimum adoption road map in order to maximise the benefit from the platform.
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.
This platform has a pleasant user interface, is very easy to use, and offers a lot of useful accessories and add-ons. At first it can be a little intimidating, but it doesn't take long to get used to it. It is considerably reliable and safe. Facilitates connection and collaboration with coworkers. It provides tools that allow you to capture, organize and act according to the internal knowledge of your team.
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.
The eXo platform offers a high quality support, which satisfies the requirements of our company, especially when the platform begins to be used, due to the amount of tools that can be overwhelming. Support responses are made in a short period of time.
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.
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.
We selected this product firstly because it's easy to use for end-users, even if it's not so simple to configure from an administrative point of view. Managing and tracking overall activities is quite easy and it's also possible to have an immediate vision of everything that is done on the platform. Users feel confident and are encouraged to share resources.
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.