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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Plone

    Score10 out of 10
    N/APlone is a free and open source content management system built on top of the Zope application server. Plone can be used for any kind of website, including blogs, internet sites, webshops, and internal websites.N/A

    Square Online

    Score7.8 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
    PloneSquare 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
    PloneSquare Online
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Pricing decreases when paid annually: Personal - $10/Month Professional - $12/Month Performance - $26/Month
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    PloneSquare Online
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Plone and Square Online
    Feature
    Plone
    10.0
    5 Ratings
    19% above category average
    Square Online
    7.6
    31 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Role-based user permissions10.05 Ratings7.631 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Plone and Square Online
    Feature
    Plone
    10.0
    5 Ratings
    25% above category average
    Square Online
    9.4
    22 Ratings
    19% above category average
    API10.05 Ratings9.417 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language10.05 Ratings9.418 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Plone and Square Online
    Feature
    Plone
    9.4
    6 Ratings
    18% above category average
    Square Online
    6.6
    43 Ratings
    17% below category average
    WYSIWYG editor10.06 Ratings5.636 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness10.05 Ratings5.339 Ratings
    Admin section10.05 Ratings8.739 Ratings
    Page templates10.05 Ratings6.143 Ratings
    Library of website themes5.05 Ratings6.243 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design10.05 Ratings8.242 Ratings
    Publishing workflow10.05 Ratings5.435 Ratings
    Form generator10.05 Ratings7.136 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Plone and Square Online
    Feature
    Plone
    9.4
    5 Ratings
    22% above category average
    Square Online
    9.3
    40 Ratings
    21% above category average
    Content taxonomy10.05 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    SEO support10.04 Ratings9.636 Ratings
    Bulk management10.05 Ratings9.621 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions8.05 Ratings9.333 Ratings
    Community / comment management9.05 Ratings9.430 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    PloneSquare 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
    PloneSquare Online
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (13 ratings)
    9.6
    (44 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (11 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.6
    (3 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    PloneSquare Online
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Plone
    The larger your organization, the more appropriate Plone will be. This is not to say that Plone is a worse choice for small websites, only that the minimum investment for a Plone site is certainly higher than for other platforms. If you already use Plone for your site and are looking for a redesign or an overhaul, I would only advise switching to a different platform such as WordPress or Drupal if your organization is downsizing. For any other situation, Plone is the natural choice for your growth.
    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
    Plone
    • Plone is a folder-based system, organising content in a similar way desktop-users are doing for the last two decades. No need to teach non-tech customers some relational-database like paradigm for content management.
    • Plone is secure. It is the most secure CMS you can get your hands on.
    • Plone is flexible, and makes fast development easy.
    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
    Plone
    • Not everything is configurable or editable by Plone, and when you need to adjust or add custom pieces in, you need to deal with Zope. Zope has an ugly, confusing and difficult UI and structure as a backend.
    • Using 3rd party products is difficult to do - there are a few different ways to get them installed, all of which take a bit of luck to get right.
    • Building custom products for Plone is not fun. You've got to deal with an archaic framework to tie in that is not well documented (there is documentation about many things, but not great documentation and there are a lot of holes in the documentation).
    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
    Plone
    We have critical systems running on Plone so will need it in the future.
    Free to use since its Open source, so we don't have to worry about licence costs.
    We know how to use and develop Plone and it has no limits.
    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
    Plone
    Compared to the amount of Plone sites, users and customizations we have in our organization, the amount of support requests and training needed is really small.
    The new user interface in Plone 6 is even better, it is super fast, has lots of different blocks for enhancing the page, has flexible layout system and is easy to extend with more features.
    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
    Plone
    Our Plone sites are very robust. We have critical systems on Plone and we have been running sites on Plone for over 20 years with very little unexpected downtime.
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Plone
    Plone is very intensive in its operations, and if not configured well it can be slow. However it is designed and built with speed in mind and with proper use of coding, templates and caching can perform extremely well under high loads. It is capable of scaling to very high load availability environments with no specific coding requirements.
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Plone
    There are not too many Plone companies in the world. But the ones who are, are high level professionals
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    In-Person Training
    Plone
    I have been participating Plone training and the trainers have always been professional. Materials were good and the instructions clear
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Plone
    Well organized, professional training with good materials and instructions
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Plone
    Drupal: Plone is cheaper, so with Drupal is more complex to reach the required ROI. However, Drupal has a lower learning curve WordPress: For our necessities it has a more expensive learning curve than plone. Joomla, is easier to use. However, it have some issues on security and web content where Plone is much better
    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
    Scalability
    Plone
    Plone has no limits. We have massive sites and can run them just fine
    Read full review
    Block, Inc (Square)
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Plone
    • The impact Plone has had at the University of Oshkosh is as follows: this software allows student workers to learn about IT departments and CMS's in a user-friendly way. It gives many students great jobs that look great on their resumes.
    • Since there are great training manuals for Plone, there is increased employee efficient in the workplace. Training doesn't take long, and if there's ever a question, the Plone manual is a great tool to refer to.
    • If an employee using Plone quits, its easy to find someone to replace them with quick training and great resources.
    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