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Concrete CMS

Concrete CMS
Formerly Concrete5

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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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Smooth User Interface: Many users have praised the smooth user interface of the product, stating that it is intuitive and easy to …
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Best CMS

10 out of 10
March 06, 2021
Incentivized
Concrete5 gets used from standard websites to big portals with a lot of individual funcionallities. It also gets used as a framework.
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 16 features
  • Admin section (40)
    10.0
    100%
  • Page templates (40)
    10.0
    100%
  • Mobile optimization / responsive design (39)
    9.7
    97%
  • WYSIWYG editor (42)
    9.2
    92%
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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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What is Square Online?

Square 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.

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Product Demos

Concrete CMS DevOps Hosting

YouTube
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Features

Security

This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.

9.4
Avg 8.0

Platform & Infrastructure

Features related to platform-wide settings and structure, such as permissions, languages, integrations, customizations, etc.

9.7
Avg 7.7

Web Content Creation

Features that support the creation of website content.

8.4
Avg 7.6

Web Content Management

Features for managing website content

7.1
Avg 7.3
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Product Details

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

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.

Concrete CMS Videos

What problems does Concrete CMS solve?
Testimonial from a customer

Concrete CMS Competitors

Concrete CMS Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Linux, Mac
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported Countriesanywhere
Supported Languagesarabic, 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.

WordPress and Drupal are common alternatives for Concrete CMS.

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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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(85)

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!

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

(26-50 of 59)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Tom Reitz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Jack Wong | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use it for one of our company websites. This website acts as a marketing tool for us as well as a means for us to utilize Concrete5 as part of our business. If we are to provide Concrete5 implementation services, it's good for us to run a Concrete5 website ourselves.
Frank Smith V | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Concrete5 was great for creating for small websites. If we had a client come to us such as a small business that needed an online presence we would use this because it is pretty intuitive when creating and managing content on a website. We would work with the client and build a coupe components that fit their needs to help them get what they needed online quickly and easily.
December 23, 2015

Concrete5 Review

Kobby Appiah | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
John Smart | TrustRadius Reviewer
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.
Harold Blevins | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Concrete5 is used by all departments as our primary intranet home page. Company links, news, and on call schedules are listed on the front page and each department has their own section. We included pages for training where Powerpoint or videos are provided.
David Zizza | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Concrete5 for some of our smaller clients who are not quite ready to jump on another CMS that we use called HubSpot. Concrete5 has many options that let us create a great stepping stone site that gets our clients thinking and using their website with more of an inbound marketing strategy. It is quick and easy to set up and customize. I use it as a freelance web designer too.
Joey Nizuk | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Concrete5 for ninety percent of our client projects. Concrete5 is a perfect solution whether our clients need a simple CMS, a blogging platform or a complex dynamic site. Concrete5 is ideal for user registration, mass content input and display. The platform can also handle transactions via the eCommernce add-on and the best benefit for us is that it is easy to develop custom add-ons. Also, the sheer simplicity of the CMS allows all levels of users to manage their site which saves the site owner money by not having to hire a developer to adjust/edit content.
Kevin Call | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
John Warren | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Concrete5 is great for getting prototype websites from static html to dynamic content full CMS systems in a short period of time. The learning curve for someone who has no experience with creating themes for CMS' to using Concrete5 is almost negligible.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We build and support Concrete5 based websites for other companies and individuals. We have built a variety of types of websites on Concrete5, from simple four page websites to complex eCommerce websites. Concrete5 was a good choice for us because it allows clients to easily manage their website without having to contact us anytime they want to make a change. The in-page editing provided by Concrete5 makes editing websites feel very familiar and easy for clients of ours with little training required. Concrete5 allows us to reduce the amount of time we spend maintaining websites and instead focus on higher value projects.
Bryce Wilson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We utilize Concrete5 as a base CMS platform for both small and large scale web development projects ranging from simple informational websites to full scale solutions with custom integrations with 3rd party APIs. One of the core competencies that is so appealing about Concrete5 is the ease of use and extensibility in being able to easily incorporate custom content management tools including page attributes that can tie into more complex solutions such as blogging, search, and calendar capabilities.
Francois Simard | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I used Concrete5 on many occasions. I first started developing a few websites with it for different small enterprises. At cirque, I used Concrete5 to build what we call the 'url builder'. It's a tool where promoters and people working in marketing use to set query string parameters to their url so we can later track it using Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Kirk Roberts | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As an independent subcontractor Concrete5 is one of my primary solutions to provide content management capabilities to my clients and their clients. Concrete5 blends a polished, friendly user interface with extremely powerful behind-the-scenes technology that is on a par with better known systems such as Drupal. Perhaps its best known feature is its "in-context" editing.
Melanie Mumme | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Concrete5 is used when clients come to us requesting a new site built with the CMS Concrete5, or they have an existing site using Concrete5. Concrete5 is one of many CMS platforms out there, however it is in our top 3 for many reasons. A good CMS will speed up development time, and make extending a websites functionality easier, it solves the problem of reinventing the wheel for all the basic framework needed for various functions and features
Daniel Caryll | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I've utilized Concrete5 for various projects, big and small. This content management system is ideal for projects of all sizes and is quick to implement a user-friendly CMS. As a designer/developer, I often recommended Concrete5 both to my company and the clients we are building websites for. Many CMS's don't give users the ability to easily know what and how to edit their content. Concrete5 helps to alleviate that issue.
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