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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Overdrive
Score 8.6 out of 10
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Overdrive is designed for organisations using G Suite in both business and education. It makes workspaces and sites, transforming Drive and other G Suite content into web pages automatically. Overdrive can be used to build custom sites of any shape and size, with no need to upload and publish documents or content in the conventional, saving time and effort. For sites which require large amounts of enterprise data or content, Overdrive helps…
My initial test was to time how long it took to create a very basic site from scratch with no prior knowledge. Concrete CMS won decisively. Over time, I've worked on projects that use other systems, and the challenges I encounter always affirm my choice to stay with Concrete …
WordPress is a basic blogging tool that has been hacked into a CMS, it is not as intuitive or comprehensive as Concrete CMS. It requires more updates and it can be harder to locate settings that the user needs. However, as a business, the WordPress team has been very …
ConcreteCMS is different from all other a used. all others have a specific purpose, like Odoo or Dolibarr for ERP/CRM, Magento Prestashop ... for e-commerce, GLPI and other CMMS for material management, and so on. Concrete CMS is usable for all, flexible, natively for CMS or …
I didn't have to spend too much time learning Concrete CMS, whereas I had to spend a long time learning other CMSs. After struggling to develop a plugin for WordPress, developing an add-on for Concrete CMS was piece of cake thanks to many available APIs. Making custom themes …
WordPress is a real nightmare, needs regular updates. Plugins almost need daily updates, you hardly can do anything in WordPress without a plugin. ConcreteCMS offers a solid, strong basis that already includes almost all functionality you need to develop and launch a site. And …
Easier to set up and manage. Easier to edit content. Not as feature-rich so it might not work for very special projects. Harder to get client buy-in when they only know Word Press. Great for quick projects, and for the right client more complex engagements. Free of complex …
Like I said before, Concrete5 is a system to build a more inclusive internet, with tools easier to manage. WordPress is a tool to make a blog and you need a lot of modifications to reach the basics of Concrete5. It's easier to work with concrete5 in many ways, both developing …
Concrete5 is much easier to use than Drupal and has more functionality set up out of the box with just enough add-ons to get the job done. I have used both WordPress and Drupal, and this sits between them. Concrete5 is not quite as easy as WordPress but much easier than Drupal …
We previously used Joomla! but found clients were struggling to find their way around the eding interface. Switching to Concrete5 changed this and we now have fewer support issues and much more positive feedback from clients.
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 …
Front-end web design & development, graphic design
Chose Concrete CMS
I select Concrete5 when working with an experienced PHP-developer. The code is exceptionally well-written and to my clients, C5 is a secure, easy to edit platform for websites that do not have a too high dependence on third-party plugins.
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 …
If your web team is tired of dealing with CMS training issues, you need to consider Concrete5. If your technical team and host are tired of dealing with website security issues, you need to consider Concrete5. If you're pulling your hair out over frequent update patches …
Concrete is better than all this for its UX and code base. The feature set is rich and you don't need loads of third-party plugins. It never gets hacked and is updated by a core team or is accessible via email or Slack. Has a great community backing it up and with good support …
Concrete5 is by far the easiest for the end user. The user who edits the website can do so with very little training and not just with regards to the content. New pages and functions are easy to create and install. SEOand contact form functions are built in as standard.
I adopted Concrete5 after an end-user trial. With a variety of well known and lesser known CMS (including the above) in their fresh install state, I asked a group of users to register an account and then add a page with some text and an image on it. Concrete5 came out top by a …
Concrete5 is superior in most usecases to all other commonly used CMS platforms. The only thing where Joomla is outpreforming it is bulk editing. WordPress needs at least 20 plugins to do what Concrete5 does out of the box.
Programming C5 templates and custom views is a dream, …
Wordpress is much easier to use but I feel that it has less to offer. If you are looking for an easy WYSIWYG web site editor, Wordpress is probably a great option. If you are looking for something a little more robust, Concrete5 may be an option to look in to.
Concrete5's UI is a bit more dated compared to Wordpress, and the ecosystem for plugins is smaller. But out of the box, Concrete5 does more with its clean code than Wordpress does. Wordpress's UI and large plugin/community around it is its biggest strength as a product, not the …
Concrete5 is easier to use than Drupal or Joomla, and beats them in terms of features. WordPress gives Concrete5 a run for its money as far as extension and theme availability, as well as user base and support availability. But Concrete5 beats Wordpress hands down with features …
Concrete5 is perfect for a website that needs to be regularly updated without accessing the code, whether that be because a developer created your site for you, or because you yourself are a developer who wants to keep the time spent on updates down.
In my experience, it's less useful for modern web apps such as PWAs that would benefit more from technologies such as React and Vue.
Concrete5 has a modular editing system, so you can edit the pages without having knowledge of coding. You just pick the module you want to insert or edit and click where you want it to go.
You are able to edit modules in an HTML format if you would like to, so if you have the knowledge you can have even more control over your modules.
You can also edit entire page themes by selecting them from the page layout menu. This allows you a greater versatility of the pages on your site.
Concrete5.6 websites have no good path to migrate to 5.7, short of manual content migration. This is a big problem and affected the user community negatively.
Some features that were available as paid add-ons in 5.6, such as discussion forums and e-commerce shopping cart, are missing from newer versions 5.7/5.8.
Starting to develop add-ons and customizations for Concrete5 can be challenging as 5.7/5.8 documentation is not yet complete.
I have had nothing but good experiences with Concrete5. I have used it on several client websites and even several of my own sites. It is the leading CMS I will go to if I have a need to dynamically update content on a website by people who are typically untrained. They have solved every angst I had with the other solutions I have evaluated in the past and continue to be the simplest to implement and customize.
Although there is a slight learning curve (as with any software), it is very easy to use once you get a hold of it. It is easy to upload and manage files (and other digital assets), and the drag-n-drop interface on the front-end is easy for end-users to understand
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.
It's important that any CMS is implemented by a skilled developer. Content management is not a commodity. One of the keys I've found with Concrete5 is to create a homogenous content-entry method (e.g. focus on in-context editing OR focus on using the Composer feature). This seems to make it more likely that site editors will be able to easily come back to editing after a layoff without having to "remember" too much.
I didn't have to spend too much time learning Concrete CMS, whereas I had to spend a long time learning other CMSs. After struggling to develop a plugin for WordPress, developing an add-on for Concrete CMS was piece of cake thanks to many available APIs. Making custom themes and blocks was much easier than WordPress.