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Plone

Plone

Overview

What is Plone?

Plone 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.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Plone has gained popularity across various organizations for its versatility and customizable features. Users have leveraged this platform …
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Plone - A Superb CMS

10 out of 10
March 01, 2014
Plone is the software used to manage the content on the entire University of Wisconsin Oshkosh's website. My place of work (the department …
Continue reading
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Popular Features

View all 16 features
  • API (5)
    9.0
    90%
  • WYSIWYG editor (6)
    8.0
    80%
  • Role-based user permissions (5)
    8.0
    80%
  • Code quality / cleanliness (5)
    8.0
    80%
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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

What is Plone?

Plone 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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

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

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Alternatives Pricing

What is ExpressionEngine?

ExpressionEngine is a content management system from EllisLab in 2002, a successor to pMachine Pro, a blogging system, which is written in object-oriented PHP and uses MySQL for data storage. ExpressionEngine is their flagship Content Delivery Platform.

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

Publisher's Plone theme

YouTube

Ploneconf 2020: Getting Started with your Plone site

YouTube

Plone Workflow

YouTube

PloneEdu hangout: plone.app.toolbar, and how to build a workflow application

YouTube

collective.takeaportrait: face detection and webcam Plone demo

YouTube

Plone 4 Demo - How to manage content

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.

8
Avg 8.0

Platform & Infrastructure

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

8.5
Avg 7.7

Web Content Creation

Features that support the creation of website content.

8
Avg 7.6

Web Content Management

Features for managing website content

7.8
Avg 7.3
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Product Details

What is Plone?

Plone is a free and open source mobile and multichannel capable content management system built on top of the Zope application server. In principle, Plone can be used for any kind of website, including blogs, internet sites, webshops and internal websites. It is also well positioned to be used as a document publishing system and groupware collaboration tool. The strengths of Plone are its flexible and adaptable workflow, very good security, extensibility, high usability and flexibility. Its users are varied from large enterprises to small businesses, non-profits, universities, and governments. It is available on any platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD).

Plone Video

What's Plone for you?

Plone Competitors

Plone Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Plone 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.

Drupal, Joomla!, and Kentico Xperience are common alternatives for Plone.

Reviewers rate Page templates and SEO support highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of Plone are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(23)

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!

Plone has gained popularity across various organizations for its versatility and customizable features. Users have leveraged this platform to create a wide range of solutions, including video publishing platforms, payment systems, customized forms, workflows, and integrations with other internal and external systems. Plone's solid and secure platform has made it a preferred choice for universities and organizations that prioritize security. The easy-to-use content management system in Plone allows for limitless customization options, making it suitable for both public websites and intranets. With robust and flexible permission management, users have precise control over access permissions on every page. Plone is widely used by universities like the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and the University of Jyväskylä to manage the content on their entire websites. It enables multiple users to collaborate on editorial work effortlessly. For over a decade, Plone has been extensively utilized to deploy websites, intranets, document management systems, and collaboration portals for clients. Its scalability, complex workflow configuration, permission management capabilities, external authentication system integration, and content revision tracking are highly valued by users. Plone serves as a powerful tool for effectively communicating a variety of content types such as strategies, goals, best practices, whitepapers, and instructions. Moreover, it has proven to be an efficient solution for developing help pages related to ICT products, reducing the need for additional help desk support. The reliability and versatility of Plone have made it a popular choice among both public administrations and private companies in building solid e-government solutions without incurring additional license fees. Users appreciate how easy it is to learn and use Plone from the perspective of the final user.

Usability for Content Editors: Plone's usability for content editors has received high praise from users. They appreciate how it eliminates the need for a separate admin interface, making it less confusing. Users find it intuitive and efficient to edit or create content directly in the relevant location. Modeling Specific Workflows: The ability to model specific workflows is considered one of Plone's greatest strengths by many users. They commend its flexibility in assigning different roles and permissions to staff members for different sections of the site, resulting in better content management and control. Theming Capabilities with Diazo: With the introduction of Diazo, Plone's theming capabilities have significantly improved as highlighted by users. They value the virtually unlimited flexibility offered by mapping page elements into existing HTML themes, which allows them to easily select and adapt designs from other platforms.

Higher System Requirements: Some users have expressed that Plone has higher system requirements compared to other CMSs, resulting in increased hosting costs. This can be a deterrent for individuals or organizations with limited resources.

Difficult Development and Lack of Documentation: Several reviewers have found Plone development to be challenging to learn, and they have mentioned the lack of comprehensive documentation as an obstacle. This makes it harder for new users to grasp the intricacies of Plone and effectively utilize its features.

Limited Provider Options: According to user feedback, there are only a few providers capable of running Plone websites. This limited availability may restrict users' choices when it comes to selecting suitable hosting providers that align with their specific requirements and preferences.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-2 of 2)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Peter Fraterdeus | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The slowprint.com public web presence has been on a Plone stack since SlowPrint started in 2007.
I also use Plone for other web properties, including my consulting at fraterdeus.com
As a content management system, Plone provides the ability to manage changing content requirements, for updating, adding new content, integrating a Twitter feed, etc.
  • Rock-solid technology stack. The python/Zope/Plone stack is as solid as anything else out there.
  • Highly customizable TTW, if needed, via the Zope Management Interface, or Diazo XSL-transform theme design.
  • Good support from core developers, lots of solid add-ons which address just about any needs.
  • Amazingly customizable workflow, permissions and security management.
  • Error messages are often cryptic, rising up with a traceback from deep in the system.
  • It's perhaps hard to control this, since add-ons will always bring uncontrolled elements to bear.
  • Perhaps some way to better visualize the source of the problem? End users should never see a traceback.
  • TTW design options. In fact, Diazo based theming is remarkably powerful, and there are many tools for TTW design, but to better integrate this essential part of web development would make for a more useful end product.
Is there an experienced sysadmin to install and maintain the stack? If not, Plone is not a good choice. However, hosted solutions are available. It's important to have qualified and knowledgeable personnel available who are able to address development concerns. For end-users, and content managers, it's a great system overall. Publishing workflow, multi-level undo and rollback, etc make Plone very attractive in active publishing environments.
Web Content Creation (8)
85%
8.5
WYSIWYG editor
90%
9.0
Code quality / cleanliness
100%
10.0
Admin section
80%
8.0
Page templates
70%
7.0
Library of website themes
80%
8.0
Mobile optimization / responsive design
80%
8.0
Publishing workflow
100%
10.0
Form generator
80%
8.0
Web Content Management (5)
80%
8.0
Content taxonomy
100%
10.0
SEO support
80%
8.0
Bulk management
60%
6.0
Availability / breadth of extensions
80%
8.0
Community / comment management
80%
8.0
Platform & Infrastructure (2)
100%
10.0
API
100%
10.0
Internationalization / multi-language
100%
10.0
Security (1)
100%
10.0
Role-based user permissions
100%
10.0
CMS programming language or framework
N/A
N/A
  • Positive in that we were able to launch a new site in a few days, mostly copying and pasting directly through-the-web from our old site.
March 01, 2014

Plone - A Superb CMS

Gracie Wardin | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Plone is the software used to manage the content on the entire University of Wisconsin Oshkosh's website. My place of work (the department I worked for when I used Plone) uses Plone to run it's specific pages within the department's website.
  • When uploading files, Plone gives great options of where you'd like your content to be stored.
  • After uploading your content and easily storing it, its extremely simple to retrieve it from any page you're working on.
  • Plone has a great toolbar for writing and editing content for your pages. Managing links, files, and aesthetic aspects of your site using Plone is simple and enjoyable.
  • When creating a table-like view (for example - an organized and lined-up photo gallery), Plone doesn't give you the option of holding down your cursor and sliding the picture (r other content) to a specific spot. Plone only allows you to move pictures to an absolute-positioned area, sometimes causing content to not be aligned.
  • I've had a few problems when uploading files with certain file extensions. It would be nice for Plone to have a pop up window or some sort of message that stops you from adding a file that doesn't fit their compatibility, rather than you encountering error messages or bad-looking sites due to having the wrong type of file uploaded.
  • Plone is slightly more complicated than Wordpress, a large CMS competitor, possibly causing people to stray away from it.
Managing a large site, for example a university, Plone makes it easy to access all pages securely and edit them easily and appropriately. One must be properly trained in order to use it though.
Key questions when choosing your CMS: How large is your site, how educated are the developers or employees that are going to be updating the site using 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.
  • Adobe Photoshop,WordPress
Plone may be more complicated than Wordpress when considering organizational factors and overall use, but for a reason. It has further capabilities than Wordpress and other content management systems. It takes slight training to learn, but it provides great knowledge that many people will use in the future. Wordpress is very simple, and it shows on the websites it runs. All Wordpress sites look very similar, but Plone websites can be customized and made to look exactly how you want.
I no longer use Plone because I got an internship in the web development field and my current place of employment uses their own content management system that they created. After getting to know other CMS's and similar software and comparing them to Plone, I would enjoy using Plone again in the future, but there are more complicated software that I'd like to learn as I progress in my field of study.
300
A university uses Plone as it's main content management system.
3
Skills required: able to go through a short training process and determination to stay organized and be willing to learn on-the-go.
People trained completely in Plone software are always available for quick questions or more in-depth questions and explanations.
  • Managing files within the large website in a simple and enjoyable way.
  • Keeping the website secure and accurate at all times.
  • Posting to the website easily everyday without problems.
  • Keeping your website well-maintained, therefore leading to greater success within your business or organization.
  • We use Plone for a lot of photo galleries, which makes a website much more attractive.
  • The university could expand Plone to be their primary CMS system (although it almost is, there are still a few departments that use a different one). This would create consistency among the websites and pages.
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