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Smooth User Interface: Many users have praised the smooth user interface of the product, stating that it is intuitive and easy to …
Overview
What is Concrete CMS?
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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Popular Features
- Admin section (40)10.0100%
- Page templates (40)10.0100%
- Mobile optimization / responsive design (39)9.797%
- WYSIWYG editor (42)9.292%
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What is Concrete CMS?
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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What is Concrete CMS?
Concrete CMS (formerly concrete5) is an Open Source Content Management System for teams. The vendor states users can run a secure website that content contributors will love using with Concrete CMS. Concrete is a platform that grows with the user's needs.
The user experience is built around in-context editing and is designed to be as easy to use as a word processor so that users spend less time training people, and less time having to fix things.
As an open source framework the user can build complex applications as features like permissions, workflow, file management, calendar, forms, SEO and so much more are built right in. A marketplace of add-ons & themes and an active community can help quickly deliver solutions using Concrete CMS.
The vendor boasts fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, individuals and the U.S. Army as users of Concrete CMS to power critical parts of their web presence.
Concrete CMS Features
Web Content Creation Features
- Supported: WYSIWYG editor
- Supported: Code quality / cleanliness
- Supported: Content versioning
- Supported: Admin section
- Supported: Page templates
- Supported: Library of website themes
- Supported: Mobile optimization / responsive design
- Supported: Publishing workflow
- Supported: Form generator
- Supported: Content scheduling
Web Content Management Features
- Supported: Internal content search
- Supported: Content taxonomy
- Supported: SEO support
- Supported: Browser compatibility
- Supported: Bulk management
- Supported: Page caching
- Supported: Availability / breadth of extensions
- Supported: E-commerce / shopping cart extension
- Supported: Community / comment management
- Supported: Import / export
Platform & Infrastructure Features
- Supported: API
- Supported: Internationalization / multi-language
Security Features
- Supported: Role-based user permissions
- Supported: Multi-factor authentication
- Supported: User-level audit trail
- Supported: Version history
- Supported: Simple roll-back capabilities
CMS programming language or framework Features
- Supported: PHP
Concrete CMS Screenshots
Concrete CMS Videos
What problems does Concrete CMS solve?
Testimonial from a customer
Concrete CMS Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
| Mobile Application | No |
| Supported Countries | anywhere |
| Supported Languages | arabic, bangla, bosnian, chinese, czech, danish, dutch, english, estonian, finnish, french, german, greek, hebrew, hungarian, icelandic, indonesian, italian, japanese, korean, lithuanian, malay, persian, polish, portuguese, romanian, russian, slovak, spanish, swedish, thai, turkish, vietnamese, welsh |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Reviewers rate Code quality / cleanliness and Admin section and Page templates highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of Concrete CMS are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Pros
- Cons
Smooth User Interface: Many users have praised the smooth user interface of the product, stating that it is intuitive and easy to navigate. Several reviewers have mentioned that they appreciate the clean design and well-organized layout, which enhances their overall experience.
Reliable Performance: Numerous customers have commended the reliable performance of the product. Several reviewers have stated that it consistently meets their expectations and performs tasks efficiently without any glitches or slowdowns. Users have expressed satisfaction with its stability and responsiveness.
Versatile Features: A significant number of users have highlighted the versatility of features offered by the product. Some reviewers have mentioned that it provides a wide range of functionalities, allowing them to accomplish various tasks effectively. The availability of customizable options has also been appreciated by several customers, as it caters to individual preferences and requirements.
Confusing User Interface: Many users have expressed frustration with the confusing and difficult-to-navigate user interface of Concrete5. They find it challenging to complete tasks efficiently due to the lack of intuitive design and organization.
Slow Rendering of Admin Pages: Some users have reported experiencing slow rendering of admin pages, particularly when using older computers. This sluggish performance hampers their productivity and can be frustrating during day-to-day usage.
Limited Customization Options: Users have voiced their concerns about the limited customization options in Concrete5. They feel that these options are buried within the software, making it harder for them to personalize their websites according to their specific preferences and requirements.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-14 of 14)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 24, 2021
Great value for a quick, easy website
We use Concrete5 internally to track and control internal processes. It was very quick to set up and use. We are able to host it on our own Apache server, and setup was similar to other CMS software like Drupal or WordPress--set up database, install code, provision users and permissions. Then we set up some pages for writing out procedures and then we ran it through Concrete5's publish workflow.
- Has a great community
- It's open source
- It's free
- Has an add-on market for features not built in
- Huge time saver
- Add-on market could be bigger
- Documentation can sometimes be lacking
February 20, 2021
Powerful, easy-to-use website content management
We deliver content managed websites built on Concrete5 to our clients. Our business is now completely focused on designing, building and supporting concrete5 websites. Concrete5 allows us to deliver sites that are easy to use and to build and configure flexible bespoke solutions for most needs.
- Complete CMS out of the box - extensions not required for basic functionality.
- Modern PHP development framework - build whatever you need to.
- User friendly editing environment - clients love using Concrete5.
- Knowledgeable, supportive and friendly community.
- Documentation is gradually improving, this needs to continue.
- Design and styling controls could be updated.
February 20, 2021
Powerful for developers, easy for site editors
As a developer, I use Concrete5 to build custom solutions as well as off-the-shelf products for sale in the community marketplace. Concrete5 provides a reliable, safe, scalable base to create powerful websites and web applications. Being open source, the price is right and it is also supported by a committed community of developers, site editors, and users.
I've been using this CMS since 2009, and over a decade later, I'd still choose it again in a heartbeat. The team behind Concrete5 is always pushing the platform further, and taking bold, brave steps to make it a world-class system. As a developer, it's a breeze working with Concrete5. The elegant architecture makes it easy to create complex add-ons and functionality that is clean, fast, and future-proof.
I've been using this CMS since 2009, and over a decade later, I'd still choose it again in a heartbeat. The team behind Concrete5 is always pushing the platform further, and taking bold, brave steps to make it a world-class system. As a developer, it's a breeze working with Concrete5. The elegant architecture makes it easy to create complex add-ons and functionality that is clean, fast, and future-proof.
- Comprehensive editing tools for site owners.
- User-friendly and intuitive interface.
- Extendable architecture for developers.
- Solid community forum for asking questions and getting free and paid help.
- Good number of third-party add-ons and themes to extend the core features.
- Regular news updates from the core team about platform improvements and strategic direction.
- Average quality and depth of developer documentation.
February 18, 2021
Powerful, Flexible Open-Source CMS
Concrete5 allow my team to develop and deliver robust and dependable websites that help our clients grow their businesses, attract new customer and hire the best employees. My firm builds designs, develops and builds brands, Concrete5 is our go-to web solution. There are a number of benefits including how much our clients web-team like managing through the Concrete5 in-context editing. Other benefits include superior security when compared to other CMS platforms, and limited need for software updates and patches for security reasons.
- Flexible, easy to manage websites.
- In-context editor that users and site managers love.
- Secure codebase.
- Development transparency from core team.
- Open-source license model.
- Extensible architecture.
- Ready-to-use out of the box.
- Better documentation from core developers.
- Better display of dashboard details.
- More name recognition.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Effective and easy to publish and edit content. You enter the page where you want to edit content, choose edit mode and all editable content is there for you to change. Great overview with sitemap feature, you get full view of your website structure.
- Extremly flexible, you can define page-types and assign custom attributes to each.
- Gives developer full controll over display, and lets the editor plot in correct values.
- Easy to maintain, good security. No need for external plugins in order to preform advanced features.
- Best plugin is no plugin.
- Not suitable for webshops. Sure there are plugins for that such as WooCommerce on WP, but that's a poor choice. Best to go for PrestaShop or full-blood E-Commerce solution.
- No list view edit of the pages such as Joomla, would make it more effective.
I built and maintain a few websites using Concrete5, both for internal use and for clients, over a period of several years. I've used both versions 5.5/5.6 and the newer versions 5.7/5.8 - in fact, I was around for the change and helped migrate a large website from 5.6 to 5.7. Concrete5 is unusual among open-source CMS software in that it is primarily maintained by a for-profit company, which helps give the project direction and stability which other open-source projects can lack.
- Concrete5 provides a very easy interface for website owners/administrators. Adding pages and content is simple and straightforward.
- Concrete5.7+ works well on mobile devices such as phones and tablets - including admin editing tools.
- Concrete5 has a good user community and support forums, as well as paid add-ons which provide advanced functionality which other open-source CMSs can lack.
- 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.
December 23, 2015
Concrete5 Review
We use it as one of our go to CMS platforms for building web experiences for clients. It allows us to create versatile and yet systematic solutions for clients. Its reusable component architecture and being built on a LAMP stack makes it easy for anyone with moderate experience with web development to jump in and play around.
- Modular reusable web UI components
- MVC Approach
- Easy extendability with package system
- Certain blocks could use some more expansion, I'm mainly thinking of the form block. I wish it gave choices for how to fulfill emails other than just using what seems like the regular mail method
- Having everything bound to naming makes things hard sometimes as multiple files with the same name can be open in a project and cause confusion
November 11, 2015
Concrete5 - a CMS with a good past, and a better future
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I discovered Concrete5 3 years ago. I was thoroughly disappointed with WordPress, and started to create my own CMS. Then an associate sent me a link to Concrete5.
It was all I wanted mine to be, and then some!
More recently, 5.7.came out, which has a new interface, and couldn't be easier for the end user.
The intuitive interface allows easy creation and management of pages, with help for SEO, and a wealth of plugins.
With different user roles, its easy to allow different departments to manage their own site areas.
We are a web host, and have an easy install solution for this program, but if you don't use that, the install is remarkably easy to do, with a friendly interface.
Like any online solution, it is not the best answer for every need. But it is the best answer for most needs. With an ever growing supply of themes and plugins, you should definitely look at this for your CMS solutions. Except for sites that we build needing a lot of custom coding, all of our web sites are now run on Concrete5.
It was all I wanted mine to be, and then some!
More recently, 5.7.came out, which has a new interface, and couldn't be easier for the end user.
The intuitive interface allows easy creation and management of pages, with help for SEO, and a wealth of plugins.
With different user roles, its easy to allow different departments to manage their own site areas.
We are a web host, and have an easy install solution for this program, but if you don't use that, the install is remarkably easy to do, with a friendly interface.
Like any online solution, it is not the best answer for every need. But it is the best answer for most needs. With an ever growing supply of themes and plugins, you should definitely look at this for your CMS solutions. Except for sites that we build needing a lot of custom coding, all of our web sites are now run on Concrete5.
- In-line Editing: 7 + has in-line editing, so you see your changes appear in the place they will be on the live site, in the font they will be and the size that they will be.
- File Management: Excellent file manager, allowing images to be grouped, tags added, lists of what pages use that image, so you can put the images in sets for being used together (in sliders, for instance).
- Very Human! Every contact you make with the site, the mail that comes to you is from the owner of the group. (Yes, Concrete5 is Open Source.) Very friendly, very nicely done.
- If you upgrade from pre 5.7 to 5.7, adding pages is rather tricky. Once you are familiar with it, it makes perfect sense!
- If you are using an older computer, the admin pages are very slow to render.
- In some cases, using the column tool will stop a responsive theme from being responsive. This is not the theme's issue, as we have used it many times in the same theme. Some pages stop being responsive, others do not. ("Stop being responsive" is technically incorrect, they behave improperly as they resize. This is with text-only content, and does not have images distorting them.)
- The only way to add h tags is to click on the html editor of a block, and add the the tag to the heading.
September 30, 2015
Concrete5: The basic building block of any CMS
As a web development company, we've seen the move from static HTML web pages to more CMS style pages. This has been for both our clients, who have requested the ability to maintain, update and add their own content, as well as ourselves to be able to better manage development and deployment. Almost all of our projects over the past two years have been done using Concrete5.
- Fast setup on both local and remote web hosting servers, either via "one button" installs or manually
- Does not require Windows hosting or software, so it's less restrictive and allows for a larger selection of hosting environments
- A very active and supportive community both developers and users
- Uses common, open source software like PHP and MySQL
- Custom theme development much easier compared to other platforms like Joomla!, Drupal and WordPress, or can easily integrate into existing design
- Many addons are free or reasonably priced, or you can write your own custom ones
- Migration from host to host relatively painless
- Page rollback and backup functions are great features for clients
- You have to really find a web host that runs well or maybe even a dedicated/virtual server to see the best response.
- Though you can often see live demos and documentation for addons and themes, it would be great to be able to try the product to see if it's a fit for your project.
- Though its UI is one of the easiest to use for clients, there is always room for improvement. Two things come to mind, the first being the Layout block needs improvement, updating or replacing. It doesn't always behave as expected and sometimes to make changes requires you to rebuild the whole thing (especially if you use layouts within layouts). The other item is that you don't always see the correct display while you are logged in. I fought the code for days trying to figure out a formatting issue, until my client said they were seeing it differently from me, and I realized it was because they weren't logged in. I had fixed the code and never knew it! I have to say here that this might not have been an issue with C5 directly, but maybe with the theme I was using. In either case, you have to make sure that you check it both ways.
July 27, 2015
Concrete5 Is The Way to Go for Non-Programmers
I've used Concrete5 for several websites in the past.
- Very easy learning curve.
- Fast, reliable, open source.
- Lots of nice themes and add-ons.
- In page editing.
- SEO friendly.
- Non-programmers friendly.
- Can't think of any.
July 17, 2015
Concrete5 is the most Rock Solid CMS
Concrete5 is used for a variety of purposes to address our website needs. From college calendars, news releases, and directories on into marketing and internal support items. It's OOP based architecture makes troubleshooting AND development easy to handle. Since it is database driven, its ability to scale is excellent. The best thing about Concrete5 however is its ease-of-use with In-Context Editing abilities. It's very intuitive to use. As such, it has allowed me to take a supervisory role of the website as a whole, while empowering many editors who are experts on a given area throughout our company to post compelling content to the site, freeing me up for larger development tasks and fine-tuning. Concrete5 is the best CMS I've ever used on a large scale, empowering myself and many colleagues to easily setup, manage, grow and maintain our web presence.
- Dead simple editing. Basic training can be performed over the phone in under 30 minutes if needed.
- OOP architecture makes development and troubleshooting a logical and easy to handle.
- Ability to override the system with customizations, and ensure those customizations do not break when the system is updated. Brilliant setup to allow this.
- Speed. As with any system, it's easy for a developer or designer to bloat the system. Attention must be paid to speed costs associated with any new functionalities.
July 07, 2015
An Excellent Open Source CMS
We use Concrete5 as our main CMS for websites we build for clients. It's incredibly intuitive and easy to use for clients to self-manage their own content edits, so much so that our support post-launch of a web property is very low.
- Easy Front End Editing - Look at what you're editing instead of trying to do things in a dashboard in a WYSIWYG editor.
- Easily extendable with an MVC structure.
- Easy to design themes for.
- Concrete5 uses Bootstrap in their UI so when developing themes that may also use Bootstrap there can be conflicts using the same classes. This has been solved somewhat in 5.7, however, by use of namespacing.
- Concrete5's MVC structure is great in how easy you can override blocks. However, if you go nuts you can quickly rack up an obscene amount of stylesheet and "is" calls in the head of the document which can hurt performance.
- It's been criticized for having a rather large amount of files, which can be a problem on cheaper shared hosting, but I can't speak to that personally. We've never had a problem.
July 07, 2015
Concrete5 - easy to use, easy to maintain
We use Concrete5 for various websites inside our organization where people need a clean and easy to use CMS. Concrete5 is easy to implement/install and gets novice clients up and working in a short time. Training for basic functionality is relatively easy.
- Easy to upload and manage image and document files via the file manager. It groups images as sets to use on pages.
- Direct on the screen editing of pages. There is not a separate interface for managing pages. It is basically a WYSIWYG.
- A number of excellent simple themes.
- Numerous plugins that add a lot of functionality like forms, Google Calendar, Flash content, RSS feeds, Slideshows, etc
- The dashboard can be a bit confusing for a novice user. Naming of items could be clearer.
- Searching for themes by free or cost could be made easier, this includes plugins (blocks) as well.
December 16, 2014
Concrete5 should be in your top 3 CMS search
Concrete5 is being used by the marketing team. They were using a closed source .NET CMS that they were unable to get a true grasp of. Concrete5 was a godsend. It is very easy to edit and set up was easy as well. Front end editing was the biggest selling point of this CMS.
- In-context editing
- Able to create your own theme
- Clean user interface
- The community is quite helpful
- Some modules/Addons should be baked in IMO. Events, Designer Content as well as few others.
- Speed sometimes is an issue but I am exploring optimization on my end which could be the problem.