Concrete CMS vs. Titan CMS

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.

Titan CMS is a good full featured CMS if users are fairly tech savvy. It is under active development and has added significant features through the years.

Incentivized

• 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

• Utilizing a Filter to determine what shows on a page saves countless hours of configuring content that should be displayed on a page - it's been a lifesaver how easy it is to set up too.
• Smart Search takes the search box and makes it magical. Common misspellings and alternate names can still send a user to the proper page!
• Data nodes and filters can also be configured to Find a Dealer, Doctor, Location etc. It puts the power into a users hands and makes is easy to use.

Incentivized

• 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.

• I would love to see a "View this Page" button after a page has been updated/published. Every time I publish a new page, I have to open a new browser window, navigate to a different tab, copy the page url "example/example/example" and paste it after "www.mywebsite.com" in order to preview the new page/content.
• If Titan and WordPress were in a beauty competition, there is no way that Titan would win. Titan's dashboard, buttons, etc are dated and bland, and is in dire need of a refresh.
• A drag and drop to upload feature would be very helpful.
• Creating forms is very cumbersome and the pop-up window in which the form is created needs to be revamped. The font-size is much too small and it is not as customizable as it could be.

Incentivized

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.

Titan CMS had a great support system and they helped make my experience go smooth. They offer courses to help people get acquainted, offer support over the phone and are more than willing to make your experience a great one. Once I was familiar with Titan I always found myself wanting to learn more and do more to improve upon the website. Titan makes CMS fun and exciting!

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

Everything we've needed to accomplish, Titan CMS has been able to accomplish. From multiple levels of user rights, document rights, tagging pages and documents to make filters do the work of content displayed on a page - it's all easy to set up too. Creating a content rich product detail page template and customizing a ecommerce cart to work for those using a dealer network - needing a request for quote, to go to dealers instead of a self checkout.

Incentivized

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

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.

Incentivized

I understand that our Web Development Team is very busy, however, sometimes there is a delay in response and a followup email is needed to determine the progress of the issue/question

Incentivized

It was customized to include screen shots of our site and how users can access the content that only pertains to them as well as advanced training sessions for admin duties and everything that goes along with it. Training is in small groups and can be private (your company only) if you like too.

Incentivized

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.

Talk to your project manager for Titan early on in development about minimalizing customizations. It seems obvious, but many times they do what you ask in the respect of "This is how we do it now, make that happen in Titan" vs. think of how Titan can deliver the same results within the confines of the base software. It's not a fault, just human nature.

Incentivized

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

Clients have access to the online and PDF documentation, also tips and how-tos for the most current versions of Titan CMS in the market. Check out our full documentation library! unlimited Dev/ QA/ Server install. Load balancing, and cluster support included. Upgrade options included free of cost along with unlimited CPUs per server.

Incentivized

• 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

• Positive ROI by allowing content contributors embedded within departments with the department domain knowledge to update the site directly. More efficient and less centralized spending.
• Requirement for investment in training users of CMS cuts into ROI. Would recommend a two-step workflow where department content contributors enter information into CMS and then approval step is done by webmaster team to ensure content meets standard formatting guidelines. This workflow functionality exists in the Titan CMS.
• Positive ROI experienced during projects such as moving to a responsive design because much of the content can migrate untouched. Also positive when updating graphics in template to give site new look.

Incentivized