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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Concrete CMS

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AConcrete 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

    Square Online

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/ASquare Online (formerly Weebly) is a basic content management system with blogging and eCommerce features. It can be utilized for building standard websites or specialized webpages for online stores.

    $13

    per month

    Pricing
    Concrete CMSSquare Online
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Personal
    $13
    per month
    Professional
    $16
    per month
    Performance
    $29
    per month
    Free
    Free
    Free
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Concrete CMSSquare Online
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsPricing decreases when paid annually: Personal - $10/Month Professional - $12/Month Performance - $26/Month
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Concrete CMSSquare Online
    Considered Both Products
    Portland Labs
    Chose Concrete CMS
    Years ago when I personally was early on in my web development learning path, I tried to learn and use Drupal. Its complexity and difficulty proved to be too much, at least for me personally at that point in time. Finding and using Concrete5 was a real nice experience after …
    Incentivized
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    22 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    22 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    22 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    22 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Concrete CMSSquare Online
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Concrete CMS and Square Online
    Feature
    Concrete CMS
    9.5
    38 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Square Online
    7.6
    31 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Role-based user permissions9.538 Ratings7.631 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Concrete CMS and Square Online
    Feature
    Concrete CMS
    9.7
    33 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Square Online
    9.4
    22 Ratings
    19% above category average
    API9.731 Ratings9.417 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language9.730 Ratings9.418 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Concrete CMS and Square Online
    Feature
    Concrete CMS
    8.4
    42 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Square Online
    6.6
    43 Ratings
    17% below category average
    WYSIWYG editor9.342 Ratings5.636 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness10.037 Ratings5.339 Ratings
    Admin section10.040 Ratings8.739 Ratings
    Page templates10.040 Ratings6.143 Ratings
    Library of website themes4.238 Ratings6.243 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design9.739 Ratings8.242 Ratings
    Publishing workflow7.737 Ratings5.435 Ratings
    Form generator6.639 Ratings7.136 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Concrete CMS and Square Online
    Feature
    Concrete CMS
    6.9
    40 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Square Online
    9.3
    40 Ratings
    21% above category average
    Content taxonomy8.939 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    SEO support9.039 Ratings9.636 Ratings
    Bulk management6.039 Ratings9.621 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions5.439 Ratings9.333 Ratings
    Community / comment management5.439 Ratings9.430 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Concrete CMSSquare Online
    Small Businesses
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Joomla
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Concrete CMSSquare Online
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.2
    (59 ratings)
    9.6
    (44 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.0
    (22 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    9.1
    (13 ratings)
    9.5
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.8
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Concrete CMSSquare Online
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Portland Labs
    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.
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    If you are having students create websites or information pages about something they are studying in class, this is a great option. The fact that students can spend less time getting situated and learning the app and get right to work researching and creating their pages is great. For middle to high school, this is a fantastic app to use. However, if you want more nuanced analytics or want students to focus on blogging more than webpage building, this is limited.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Portland Labs
    • 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
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    • Drag and drop interface makes it very easy to add all types of content, including images, text, video (and YouTube videos), embeddable applications and more.
    • It's very easy to set up navigation features like cascading menus and sticky navigation (where the menu stays put - may depend on the template chosen though).
    • A technical backend is fairly straight-forward for setting up a fav icon, 301 redirects, SEO, Google Analytics, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Portland Labs
    • 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.
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    • Weebly doesn't have a lot of templates to choose from, so if you don't have any experience with CSS or HTML, it's hard to customize your site to an extent.
    • Weebly isn't fully SEO friendly. They don't allow you to add H1 tags to pages out of the box.
    • You can't create folder structures when it comes to web page URLs. You can put web pages under a main menu dropdown, but they don't allow you to put all sub-menu items in a structured folder (like site.com/folder/page-1 and site.com/folder/page-2).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Portland Labs
    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.
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    Weebly is consistently adding features that line up with our needs. The ease of use makes it the perfect program for us since we have users of multiple age brackets and knowledge of web design. We love that we can give users access to only the pages they are affiliated with
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Portland Labs
    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
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    Very easy to use and intuitive to design after all of our business needs. From the website and POS system to how we represent ourselves internally and to our customers... Square is second-to-none in helping our business and others in our same boat become the kind of businesses we want to be when it comes to our inventory and sales of these kinds of products.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Portland Labs
    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
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Portland Labs
    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!
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Portland Labs
    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
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Portland Labs
    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.
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Portland Labs
    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
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    Weebly's designs, plugins, and customization options are a little more advanced in some cases than other similar programs. WordPress requires a different level of expertise and knowledge of code, keywording, and plugins, so I wouldn't even compare them. Wix is a little more user-friendly because you can drag and drop your design, which was very convenient for customizing your site. I didn't personally select Weebly, but it is user-friendly and nearly anyone comfortable with a computer could figure it out. Weebly support is also pretty good.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Portland Labs
    • 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
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    • Weebly has allowed our business to create a connection with our customers by offering home decor, cooking and styling tips.
    • Weebly gives us the chance to relay information to customers regarding merchandise, current sales and promotions, store hours and locations etc. Which has helped increase business.
    • Weebly has given our not very tech savvy business the opportunity to have a website and stay relevant with our competitors.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Concrete CMS Screenshots

    Screenshot of In-context editing is simple to understandScreenshot of Change text just like a word processorScreenshot of Versioning and workflow built on top of powerful permissionsScreenshot of Flexible backend to power complex communities and intranets.