Concrete CMS vs. OU Campus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Concrete CMS
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
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
OU Campus
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
OU Campus from OmniUpdate is billed as a CMS for institutions of higher education. It can be deployed as a cloud-based service or hosted locally. It is built in Java, uses open standards, and is extensible through APIs.N/A
Pricing
Concrete CMSOU Campus
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Concrete CMSOU Campus
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
Concrete CMSOU Campus
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Concrete CMS
9.4
38 Ratings
16% above category average
OU Campus
10.0
6 Ratings
22% above category average
Role-based user permissions9.438 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Concrete CMS
9.7
33 Ratings
23% above category average
OU Campus
9.3
5 Ratings
19% above category average
API9.731 Ratings8.65 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language9.730 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Concrete CMS
8.4
42 Ratings
10% above category average
OU Campus
8.9
6 Ratings
16% above category average
WYSIWYG editor9.242 Ratings9.26 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness10.037 Ratings9.26 Ratings
Admin section10.040 Ratings9.26 Ratings
Page templates10.040 Ratings9.65 Ratings
Library of website themes4.438 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design9.739 Ratings8.85 Ratings
Publishing workflow7.837 Ratings9.26 Ratings
Form generator6.539 Ratings6.03 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Concrete CMS
7.1
40 Ratings
3% below category average
OU Campus
8.8
6 Ratings
18% above category average
Content taxonomy8.839 Ratings9.26 Ratings
SEO support9.039 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Bulk management6.139 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions5.739 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Community / comment management5.739 Ratings9.64 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Concrete CMSOU Campus
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Concrete CMSOU Campus
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(59 ratings)
9.2
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(22 ratings)
8.4
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(12 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.8
(6 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Concrete CMSOU Campus
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.
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OmniUpdate
OU Campus is the best CMS product I've seen, especially when you have a large organization with less staff and resources. Also, its power, if one team likes marketing, handles all pages and that saves a lot of time and effort. I strongly like the components/snippets. Tags all dynamic modules.
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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).
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OmniUpdate
  • The JustEdit feature makes updating content a breeze. With a small staff, we rely on others to update their content. OU Campus makes it easy.
  • Site-wide find and replace. I use the site-wide find and replace feature for all sorts of things - links, enrollment numbers, department names. It's really helpful.
  • Customer service. The staff at OU Campus answers questions quickly and is always willing to discuss the most effective ways to take on new projects.
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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.
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OmniUpdate
  • Formatting. The page can sometimes look very differently when published than what it looks like while editing. Some improvements have been made in this area with version 10 however.
  • Find and replace. The command+F needs to find text on the page while editing, not present an actual find and replace dialog box. At least give me the option to simply "find" the text I'm looking for. The dialog box just gets in the way most of the time.
  • There is not a way to "unpublish" items. At least not a way that I can think of. I would like the ability to pull a page offline without deleting it. Seems like it should be done simpler.
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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.
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OmniUpdate
We renewed our contract with OmniUpdate-OU Campus for reasons previously mentioned and also the well-provided tech support received from the company.
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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.
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OmniUpdate
Once you've been training how to use it, it's really easy to use it on a daily basis
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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.
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OmniUpdate
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!
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OmniUpdate
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.
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OmniUpdate
The support at OmniUpdate is one of the reasons we continued with the company when time for renewal of contract.
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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.
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OmniUpdate
The support team at OmniUpdate is available to assisting campuses with implementation
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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.
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OmniUpdate
Before using OU Campus Content Management System we were using Adobe's DreamWeaver suite for creating and maintaining web pages. The core web development environment was cumbersome to set up. Non-tech people also had trouble understanding how the web works and how web pages are created/maintained. OU Campus Content Management System solved all problems for us.
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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.
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OmniUpdate
  • The positive impact of OU Campus is that is has increased employee efficiency and improved customer service among staff and students.
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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.

OU Campus Screenshots

Screenshot of OU Campus in-context editingScreenshot of OU Campus forms managementScreenshot of OU Campus user dashboardScreenshot of OU Marketplace: one-stop shop for OU Campus modules and cost-free gadgets