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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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- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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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
(1-25 of 59)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use it for our public-facing website, and we use it to deliver a range of website solutions for our clients. I offer it to my clients because I know I can create easily maintainable and extensible sites for them and be confident that they can become quite self-sufficient in a short amount of time.
- create and publish user-defined database content
- easy and intuitive for site editors *and* developers
- standards compliant and highly secure
- was built from the ground up to be a versatile and robust development environment
- reinvigorate and grow the (addon) developer community
- expand and refine the documentation/education program
- grow brand awareness
July 02, 2022
Feature packed, intuitive to use
We use Concrete CMS for our website and for our clients. We host 120+ websites that we have developed over the past 7 years. Projects range from simple brochure sites to eCommerce, through to highly bespoke sites, where we have created lots of new functionality.
- Easy and intuitive for site editors
- Standards compliant code
- Up to date and secure
- Limitless, easy to extend
- Lots of functionality out of the box
- Documentation could be more extensive
- Need to grow community to encourage developers to sell more in the marketplace
- Build brand awareness
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I'm using Concrete CMS for almost all kinds of web-based software I build. It's a real swiss knife. I've made a website, e-commerce, ERP, and many management tools with it. it's a very nice project base. I always have the facility to teach how to use it to the project's users, it's very intuitive.
- in context editing
- plugin programming
- web security
- modification with mouse
- i don't see
October 26, 2021
Concrete CMS is your ultimate choice of CMS!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I've been using Concrete CMS [for] over 12 years. I've switched it from Joomla. I've cheated on WordPress a bit. But I always came back to Concrete CMS. I loved it so much that I even helped Japanese translation [and] helped implement it for other companies in Japan 12 years ago. It's very secure compared to other CMS. In the last 12 years, they barely had any severe, critical vulnerability. They made a very wise decision to switch it to Symfony-based, so it was built much more secure than WordPress. When you use WordPress, you must be careful not to create vulnerabilities. In the case of Concrete CMS, as long as you use its APIs, you worry much less about security. In addition, Concrete CMS has many default features and you won't need many "basic" add-ons that you would usually have to install when you are using WordPress. I highly recommended it. I'm very happy to help many Japanese small to big companies to expand their digital presence.
- Permission and workflow
- Ease of adding features by Symfony and composer
- Large enterprise intranet
- Big enough global community
- University websites
- Community
- Hosting service
October 25, 2021
ConcreteCMS: the Best!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use ConcreteCMS as the choice for our customers. We built and maintain websites, and have been happily doing this with ConcreteCMS (fka Concrete5) since 2009. Our customers soon realize that WordPress is not the way to go once they have seen the possibilities we create for them with ConcreteCMS.
March 12, 2021
My go to CMS for years
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use this on a variety of website projects, both internally originated and for clients. It's easy to launch a new site through our hosting platform and keep it up to date, and the compact marketplace for add-ons and themes weeds out so much of the noise you would find on bigger marketplaces.
- Great UI for users to create content
- No need to deal with the maintenance structure, but when you do it is well designed
- Doesn't most everything you need from the base install
- The user forum needs a shake up. Can be hard to get activity on a thread
- Some more complex features aren't being developed by the community and need to be
- Needs more support to overcome the preference for the 800 pound gorilla in the sector
March 08, 2021
Great CMS system for medium to large websites.
I currently build websites for my freelance clients using Concrete5 CMS. Concrete5 allows my clients to edit website content directly on the webpage. This enables my clients to quickly and easily update their website with little to no programming knowledge. Since is a PHP based CMS system, it also very easy to install on a clients web server.
- n webpage content editing.
- Very easy to use and understand.
- Short learning curve for Web Developers.
- PHP Based CMS system.
- Improve ability to create web page navigation
March 06, 2021
Best CMS
Concrete5 gets used from standard websites to big portals with a lot of individual funcionallities. It also gets used as a framework.
- Many built-in functionalities that makes it a complete CMS
- It constantly keeps on developing and the community is very active
- It can be extended very quick and easy and is a solid framework
- Should be known better
- Traning and certification
- Partner program
March 03, 2021
A awesome tool for a better and inclusive web
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
An awesome tool for a better and inclusive web. I build a lot of websites for different industries like medicine, construction, food, automation, real estate, etc. The principal benefit is the time I save building with concrete5. I discovered it in late 2013 and started building in 2014, making more than 100 websites with this tool.
- Easy: Installation, configuration, customization and to do improvements.
- A great community that helps everyone in trouble (if it happens).
- Tons of add-ons and great numbers of theme options (could be more, but is ok).
- A few options to customize a theme on core system.
- A few themes selling on market place.
- Small community around the world.
February 27, 2021
Amazing CMS, easy to use for both developers and admins
Concrete5 is used to allow the company's developers to easily create a flexible website that allows its clients to update their content with minimal fuss, and allows the developers to quickly implement new features or changes as when requested by the client. The level of control a client has over their site can be fully tailored to suit the their needs and technical skills.
- 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).
- Lack of a REST API for using as a headless CMS (although I believe this will change with the next major version).
- No built-in way that I'm aware of to integrate React and/or Vue components.
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
Concrete5 Is The Way to Go for Non-Programmers
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I used Concrete5 CMS as a solution for my landing page team to show our prices and achievements. It's really helpful and easy to use.
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.
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.
- Page rollback and backup functions are great features for clients.
- Easy extendability with package system.
- Fast setup on both local and remote web hosting servers, either via "one button" installs or manually.
- From a designers point of view, Concrete5 is very easy to re-theme with your own custom web design. Any web designer with a basic understanding of HTML and CSS can re-theme a website.
- End users can update their pages using built in forms. It's as easy as using MS Word.
- 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.
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 19, 2021
Works as expected, a bit resource intensive
I use Concrete5 to manage the website for my small publishing company. It is used across the entire company.
- It is quite extensible.
- There are many add-ons and themes.
- It makes it easy for even non-technical people to be able to update the content on the website.
- The extensions for older versions could be better marked to show if they are compatible with the current version.
- It could stand to have a bit of code optimizing to make it less resource intensive.
- It would be nice if there was a way to import content from my development server to my production server.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use C5 as a go-to solution for medium to large web applications, smaller webshops, and as a management system for users and access-control to standalone applications. We mainly use it for its intended purpose as customizable CMS for websites.
- Out-of-the-box functionalities like user management, search, SEO
- Edibility by users.
- Simplicity for non digital natives.
- Backend is for inexperienced users overwhelming.
- Management of custom models can be intensive.
- Frontend in edit-mode is sometimes unresponsive and irritates inexperienced users.
February 18, 2021
A CMS with clean, well-implemented code and good modular approach, but limited marketplace.
I am a freelance designer and developer and use Concrete5 for client projects. It helps setup website with CMS that are not bloated and based on well-written PHP code.
- Clean code
- Modular
- Internationalization
- Themes
- Marketplace needs to grow
- Larger marketshare would drive popularity
- Themes by experienced designers would be a plus
February 18, 2021
Powerful, Extendable, User-Friendly
Concrete5 is great for everything from simple websites to custom, complex, applications. The peer-reviewed marketplace offers out-of-the-box solutions that save plenty of time and cost less than developing on your own with many add-ons available for free. Community support is fantastic with user forums and projects, including an e-Commerce solution that is robust and inexpensive to run with no monthly fees (seriously, the best e-Commerce package you're going to find). Sites can be deployed quickly with minimal costs and end-users can be trained often in minutes instead of hours or days. The platform is secure and allows fine-tooth permissions control. Internationalization is handled too for those that need to display their sites in multiple languages. Self-hosted and Concrete5 hosted options are available and maintenance is usually easily managed at the user-level.
- User-Friendly
- Extendable
- Secure
- Learning Curve for Development
- Can be complex
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.
February 16, 2021
Amazing and really well thought out CMS. Works out of the box!!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Amazing and really well thought out CMS. Works out of the box, easy to setup and is packed with features so you don't need loads of plugins. Great for editors and very good for developers to build off. The code base is excellent.
This has been design with the basic user in mind, the UX and UI is very well thought out and being able to edit content within the page without having to go to a backend is very valuable.
The team behind this CMS is constantly improving and updating it but not just fixing bugs, really user improvement. The community that supports it is vast and there is always someone on the forums to help you out.
- Works out of the box.
- Packed with Features.
- Simple to use with brilliant UX/UI.
- Great code base to work with.
- Some documentation can be confusing.
- Not enough people using it.
- Has no ecommerce.
February 16, 2021
Concrete5 - the Wordpress beater
Concrete5 is my Content Management System of choice for implementation of my customer's websites. I install it for my customers as it is, in my view, the simplest of content management systems for the end user/editor. It minimises the amount of training I have to provide for the individuals who take on the editing of the website. Whilst being a simple to use system it also allows me to create fast, secure websites built to my clients specification.
- Ease of use
- Ease of installation
- Highly configurable
- Highly extensible
- Poor developer documentation
- Could do with editor profiles already added so permissions dont have to be set
- Doesn't have a very large marketplace so addons need to be created from scratch
February 12, 2021
Great for end users. Good for developers.
I use Concrete5 for pretty much everything from off-the-shelf web sites and for custom solutions with third party integrations.
- Easy for non technical users to edit content
- Curated marketplace of free and paid extensions at a fair price
- Good platform for custom development and further integration
- Reliable and secure
- Easy to manage
- Too much wisdom is lost in the depths of Slack
- With each new release, the infrastructure increases in complexity and leaves the documentation further behind.
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.
January 15, 2019
Our Experience with Concrete5
Our website is built on Concrete5. We are able to integrate our CRM and customer accounts system with the Concrete5 platform to give our customers a seamless transition between the two. We host all of our services and offerings on the site and customers are able to read all about our company and what we can do for them.
- Concrete5 has a modular editing system, so you can edit the pages without having knowledge of coding. You just pick the module you want to insert or edit and click where you want it to go.
- You are able to edit modules in an HTML format if you would like to, so if you have the knowledge you can have even more control over your modules.
- You can also edit entire page themes by selecting them from the page layout menu. This allows you a greater versatility of the pages on your site.
- The file sorting system can be clunky at times. It can be difficult to find the correct file when you are searching for files you have previously uploaded.
- Sometimes the page will crash in the middle of editing, and there isn't an autosave feature to backup your work.
- Without proper training on how to use Concrete5, you can easily get lost or overwhelmed. It's not exactly intuitive right away.
June 07, 2018
Great Alternative to Wordpress for small projects
With Concrete5, you don't have to explain to your clients on how to edit a site/page. Once they are familiar with the very basics, they can do their thing. Just go to the page where you want to edit something, and click on a so-called "Block" to edit it (a page is a collection of blocks).
- The live editing (and its ease of use) for every page is THE best thing Concrete5 ships with.
- It is easy to use for (tech-unsavvy) users and still extendable for developers.
- The ecosystem for add-ons is small compared to WordPress, so finding solutions is harder or they get updated less frequently.
- The time between updates is slow and lengthy, which can lead to security risks.