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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Guru
Score 9.3 out of 10
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Enterprise AI Search, Intranet, and Wiki in one platform. Guru lives in tools organizations already use, so no need to context switch. Users can find info across any app, have an expert help if the info can't be found, and let Guru proactively identify knowledge gaps, duplicate knowledge, and translate it to 100 languages.
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.
All organizations can benefit from a platform like Guru. The platform allows content to be easily searched in one central location. Information is key to everyone doing their work correctly, and Guru brings access to information in one central location. I can't imagine a scenario where an organization wouldn't benefit from this platform. It's excellent for cross-functional work.
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).
It's not clear how to relate/ attach other guru cards. The feature exists but is not very easy to spot.
We often find it difficult to search because we don't remember the card's title. I would love it if the tag words worked better.
Once editing a card, instead of adding someone to collaborate on a draft, it would be good to send the draft to someone via email. I find people often ignore these emails/pings if it's just a draft collaboration. The wording could be to ask someone to verify the draft.
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 rated Guru a 9 out of 10 for renewal likelihood because it has significantly enhanced our processes and customer satisfaction in the automotive rental company. Guru’s user-friendly interface and organized knowledge base make it easy to access and update essential information, which is crucial for maintaining high operational standards. The tool’s integration with other platforms, like the Guru Chrome extension, streamlines our workflow, increasing efficiency and productivity. One of the standout features is the ability to favorite cards, allowing quick access to frequently used information, which saves time and ensures accuracy in customer interactions. Additionally, Guru’s analytics feature helps us identify which resources need updating, ensuring our knowledge base remains relevant and effective. The only reason it’s not a perfect 10 is occasional slow performance and occasional inaccuracies in search results. However, these minor issues do not overshadow the overall benefits Guru provides. Its consistent updates and reminders further enhance our ability to deliver excellent customer support, making it an indispensable tool for our team.
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.
I give this rating because I really find Guru useful and user-friendly. You can easily follow and understand the steps and information from Guru. It has suited every issue that I have handled, and I was able to resolve it with the help of Guru. I hope that more people will find it helpful.
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.
I have never encountered an outage with Guru in the year+ we've had it. I also never encountered an outage at the previous company where I used Guru. It has been extremely reliable.
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!
There is some occasional slowness, or multiple refreshes before content will load. This doesn't happen frequently, though, and I don't get complaints from teammates about it.
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 only reason I do not give it a a ten is because I think there is still some room for improvement in meeting the different time zone needs of their customers, but overall their support is top notch. Friendly, capable, and quick.
I would rate the in-person training for Guru a solid 9 out of 10. The session was incredibly valuable as it provided comprehensive insights into using Guru effectively. I learned a lot about the tool's functionalities, which significantly enhanced my proficiency and confidence in utilizing Guru for my daily tasks. The training was engaging, informative, and tailored well to ensure I could apply what I learned immediately. Overall, it was a highly productive and beneficial learning experience.
I would rate the online training for Guru a strong 8 out of 10. While it lacked the interactive nature of in-person sessions, the content was well-structured and delivered effectively. The training modules were clear and comprehensive, covering all essential aspects of using Guru. The flexibility of online training allowed me to learn at my own pace and revisit topics as needed. Overall, it provided a solid foundation and practical understanding of Guru's functionalities, making it a valuable learning experience despite the virtual format.
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.
You will need a very strong team of guru champions in order to get EVERYONE and EVERYTHING on Guru, it takes some craziness and over talking about guru everywhere to get people to be exicted, contribute and use. If you are starting any kind of buisness and you need KB, just go for guru as fast as you can because when you will grow you will thank yourself.
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.
Guru is a vastly superior product for centralizing company knowledge, and in many ways, we feel that there is "more gas in the tank" with the tool (AI search, etc) and ways that we have yet to unlock all of its potential fully. This is primarily a resourcing issue on our side, not a fault of the Guru tool or team.
Guru is somewhat expensive compared to what our org is typically willing to spend on software solutions. Additionally, there is a price difference per seat when paid monthly versus annually, which was a big downside for us as my company didn't want to commit to an annual cost.
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.
Guru allows our team to quickly reference available learning/knowledge materials with our clients on a daily basis and provide better support at every outreach
With that said, spreading those same resources across two major global teams in the USA and Germany can lead to some inconsistencies. The i-frame process is not very intuitive for this scenario and our team treats policy/procedural differences as separate card or article entities.
Guru allowed our organization to pioneer and establish a dedicated knowledge team component, of subject matter experts who work in tangent with existing resources, create new ones, and vet collective knowledge.
