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Umbraco CMS

Umbraco CMS

Overview

What is Umbraco CMS?

Umbraco is an open-source .NET Core CMS with over 700,000 active installs worldwide and with more than 200,000 active community members. It was first released on February 16th, 2005, and is still to this day an open-source project backed by…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Umbraco CMS has emerged as a preferred alternative to WordPress for creating microsites, especially when clients and teams have tech-savvy …
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Popular Features

View all 16 features
  • Role-based user permissions (11)
    1.0
    10%
  • Code quality / cleanliness (11)
    1.0
    10%
  • Admin section (11)
    1.0
    10%
  • WYSIWYG editor (11)
    1.0
    10%
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Pricing

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Umbraco Free

$0

On Premise

Umbraco Cloud Starter

$45

Cloud
per month

Umbraco Heartcore Mini

$49

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://umbraco.com/pricing/

Offerings

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

How to add link to web page with Umbraco CMS "Link" component

YouTube

How to edit link with Umbraco CMS "Link" component

YouTube

How to remove/delete link with Umbraco CMS "Link" component

YouTube

Housing Hive: Everything you need to know about the Umbraco CMS

YouTube

How to add link to document with Umbraco CMS "Link" component

YouTube

Umbraco CMS — "Link" component DEMO

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.

1
Avg 8.0

Platform & Infrastructure

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

5.3
Avg 7.7

Web Content Creation

Features that support the creation of website content.

1.6
Avg 7.6

Web Content Management

Features for managing website content

3.6
Avg 7.3
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Product Details

What is Umbraco CMS?

Umbraco is an open-source .NET Core CMS with over 700,000 active installs worldwide and with more than 200,000 active community members. It was first released on February 16th, 2005, and is still to this day an open-source project backed by a commercial company. To ensure Umbraco is always running the latest technology, the company has aligned with Microsoft's .NET release schedule to always have the Umbraco CMS available on the latest .NET version.

The Umbraco CMS aims to give users full control of a website and its features. They offer 2 products on top of the core features of the CMS:

Umbraco Cloud For Umbraco projects with Azure Cloud hosting, automated upgrades, and streamlined workflows.

Umbraco Heartcore is a headless CMS option with fully managed APIs, GraphQL support, and CDN.

Why use Umbraco?
The solution boasts flexibility and it is designed so the website's look and feel are exactly as desired. With open-source code and open APIs, the user can integrate, extend and scale the website to fit exact needs.

For content, Umbraco features and workflows are built into the CMS to give content editors and marketers the best possible editing experience. It is presented as capable, out-of-the-box, and to meet specific requirements developers can customize the backend.

The vendor states their main goal with Umbraco is to give users a platform that offers the freedom to do and manage things in their own way. Every project has different needs and requirements and instead of packing a system with options and buttons that may or may not be relevant, Umbraco tries to keep it neat and open.

Umbraco 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
  • Supported: Website analytics

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: .NET

Umbraco CMS Screenshots

Screenshot of Umbraco 8 backoffice UIScreenshot of Umbraco 8 side by side multilingual editingScreenshot of Umbraco 8 Content AppsScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud project overviewScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud environment overview

Umbraco CMS Video

Umbraco The Friendly CMS

Umbraco CMS Technical Details

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Kentico Xperience, Sitecore Experience Manager, and Drupal are common alternatives for Umbraco CMS.

Reviewers rate Community / comment management highest, with a score of 6.

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

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Reviews and Ratings

(53)

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!

Umbraco CMS has emerged as a preferred alternative to WordPress for creating microsites, especially when clients and teams have tech-savvy resources to handle any issues that may arise. With its flexibility and open-source capabilities, Umbraco offers more freedom in design and data architecture compared to other content management systems. Users find it particularly useful for building company websites, providing different roles from editor to admin, while requiring minimal training for employees to use independently. The system seamlessly integrates digital marketing into web pages, allowing end users to complete forms effortlessly.

One of the key advantages of Umbraco CMS is its ability to be updated and maintained by anyone without relying heavily on the development team. This feature makes it a popular choice for organizations looking for a user-friendly solution that empowers non-technical staff to make simple changes without external assistance. Moreover, Umbraco CMS proves valuable in custom projects and websites for various clients, enabling fast development from scratch and empowering non-professionals to create and manage content effectively. It conveniently fits into company infrastructure as it is based on ASP.Net, making it a suitable option compared to PHP-based alternatives like Drupal.

Umbraco CMS serves as the central content management system for entire websites used by organizations across various departments. While the Content team focuses primarily on publishing, other teams utilize it for technology and events management. Companies have found Umbraco especially useful for their business units, meeting security requirements while providing core content for technical documents and reference materials. Highly regarded at Attityde ApS in Silkeborg, Umbraco CMS consistently delivers successful customer solutions due to its flexibility and adaptability.

Web development companies facilitate the seamless migration of clients from other systems by setting them up with Umbraco CMS. The transition often starts with one or two sites before expanding to others gradually. This approach allows organizations to democratize content updates across a larger user base while moving away from static HTML pages toward a more dynamic .NET CMS system—without incurring prohibitive costs or licensing fees. In terms of management, Umbraco CMS typically falls under the purview of the marketing department, with occasional involvement from developers to customize it according to specific needs.

In summary, Umbraco CMS has garnered praise for its user-friendly interface and excellent features, making it an ideal choice for those seeking a reliable content management system. With its versatility and open-source nature, Umbraco proves valuable in building microsites, company websites, and custom projects while empowering users at various technical proficiency levels to create and manage content independently. Its seamless integration of

Flexible and Customizable Design: Several users have praised Umbraco for its design layout flexibility, allowing for easy customization of the website's appearance. This feature has been mentioned by a significant number of reviewers, highlighting Umbraco's ability to meet diverse design requirements.

High Level of Control: Reviewers appreciate the high level of control offered by Umbraco, enabling them to customize various aspects of their website such as data management, product pages, and entities. This capability has been consistently highlighted by multiple users, emphasizing Umbraco's versatility and adaptability to different business needs.

User-Friendly Interface: The simplicity and ease-of-use of Umbraco's user interface have received positive feedback from many reviewers. Users find it intuitive and straightforward to navigate through the system, assign different roles to team members, and keep the site updated with the latest information. Multiple customers have commended Umbraco for its user-friendly interface that promotes efficient content management.

Challenging for New Users: Some users have found Umbraco to be challenging, particularly for those with limited or no development experience. They mention that additional work is often required after installation to see results, which can be frustrating.

Unstable and Error-prone: Several reviewers have experienced instability issues with Umbraco. They report encountering errors when trying to save something in the admin panel, which can disrupt their workflow and cause frustration.

Lack of Out-of-the-Box Functionality: Many users express frustration over the lack of out-of-the-box contact forms in Umbraco. While there is a paid plugin available for creating them, reviewers mention that it is not well maintained and buggy, leading to further difficulties in implementing this common functionality.

Users commonly recommend the following:

  1. Hiring experienced Umbraco developers to avoid poor solutions and make the most of the platform's potential.
  2. Exploring the extensive documentation provided by Umbraco to try new things and discover additional features and functionalities.
  3. Taking part in training sessions and actively reaching out to the community for guidance and advice.

These recommendations highlight the significance of skilled developers, exploring documentation, and engaging with the Umbraco community for a successful implementation and operation of the CMS.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-11 of 11)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
May 24, 2021

Umbraco is a No Go

Lori Jerome | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Umbraco is used as the main website for one of the business units. With that being said, it was used for the whole organization as a core point of content for technical documents and reference materials for our product. It addressed the problem of not having a functional website and met security needs.
  • Very simple content management.
  • Secure, no hacking because no one knows how to use it
  • Not user friendly.
  • Need to be a programmer to do anything cool.
  • Not compatible with common digital marketing applications.
  • Very cumbersome, blocky.
  • Horrible user interface.
I didn't like Umbraco at all. It was already in place by someone who didn't have an SEO background. I evaluated an upgrade from Umbraco to Wordpress or Hubspot CMS and definitely beyond a doubt Umbraco couldn't compete. I have been for years easily updating content in CMS including currently working in Ruby on Rails and in my perspective, Umbraco is one of the worst. It would never be a choice for anywhere that cares about SEO and being found on the web for marketing. Maybe it's ok for an internal library or something but I wouldn't waste my time.
Janus Kamp Hansen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
At Attityde ApS, Silkeborg we develop all our customer solutions with Umbraco. If the customer demands anything else, we send them away! From giant to tiny companies, and through the use of Umbraco, our projects are always a success thanks to the flexibility of Umbraco. 500+ Umbraco sites and counting... Even our own website, intranet, and special products are based on Umbraco. We would be able to provide the same fantastic solutions if it wasn't for Umbraco... and we wouldn't want it any other way.
  • Content Hierarchy/tree
  • Media section
  • Plugins (Custom made)
  • Out of the box web-templates
Umbraco is well suited if you want to host the website yourself or if our customers want them on their own server. It's easy to get started though our own instance-system were we can spin-up customer sites within 4 minutes.

If you just want to have a borring-wp-a-like site that looks like everything else on the internet, Umbraco is not the best solution. It's more time consuming to get a proper website up and running.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco is really what it says, a friendly CMS. It is nice and easy for developing web sites and has many very good features.
  • The ease to use compositions (= interfaces)
  • Media handling, Image scaling
  • The user interface
  • Umbraco Heartcore is too expensive
Whenever there is a need for a small/medium-sized web site Umbraco CMS is a good choice. For larger multi-language sites there are probably better choices.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
We are a web development company and we set clients up with Umbraco.
  • Templating
  • Code editing
  • Back office usability
  • The update process is HORRIBLE!
  • Every release has bugs. NOT ONE release is BUG FREE!
  • Fixing issues quickly. We often have to wait over 30 days are months for something as simple as a media picker to be updated.
I like using Umbraco, but the update process is a PIA compared to WordPress. We have clients on WordPress and try to sell them on the idea of switching, but the maintenance to update Umbraco is a road block. Our clients don't have to pay to have their WordPress site updated. There are bugs in every release and the release schedule is mind numbing. Almost every other week there is a new release and with 20 web sites in Umbraco, it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep up with the maintenance and bill our clients for something that should have worked to begin with. Umbraco is more like a hobbyist CMS and is not quite ready for prime time. I would pay for a CMS to be bug free. The cloud option for Umbraco is not an option for us and honestly I find it impossible for the cloud option to be updated "automatically" while professional developers have issues with simple updates.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
One of the client of my company will migrate several web site to Umbraco CMS. For now we are in a learning phase and start to test the workflow with Umbraco and several plugins like Ucommerce and uSync. Our client would start to migrate one or two sites and their application first, and they intend to migrate other of their applications and web sites later.
  • Easy to learn. If you know ASP.NET MVC, using Umbraco is straightforward.
  • Full use of the Framework MVC.
  • Very short time to market.
  • Conflict management if two or several users modify the same page or object in the same instance.
  • It would be great if the CMS came with two or more starter kits: very simple site, corporate site and maybe one with a simple e-commerce functionality.
  • Integrate a minimum continuous integration/continuous deployment functionality.
  • Umbraco CMS is well suited for a small and medium size company and organization. The time to market is not long.
  • Umbraco CMS is less appropriate for large scale web site or application, especially if there are a lot of content managers and writers who work simultaneously on the web site.
Jakub Wilk | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We create our website, so it is used by the whole organization and all our potential customers. We manage Umbraco CMS by a person in the marketing department, and a little work is done by developers. We also change Umbraco a little to suit the needs required by the marketing department as very important.
  • customization
  • good prepared SEO
  • integration with other software
  • a little more ready templates
  • e-commerce integration out of the box
  • easier URL configuration
As I write, Umbraco is very good in customization, also customization by programmers, but sometimes it needs quite a lot of knowledge to develop something. It is also very scalable and it is the best CMS framework in .net programming. There is not too much competition in this area, though maybe I would like to have a little bigger community
December 06, 2017

Easy to use CMS

Debbie Marshall | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use Umbraco to build our company company website. It's a great tool and very easy to use, it allows me to [have] different roles from editor through to admin. The CMS is simple to use, each employee has been able to use it independently with very little training.

The system has allowed us to integrate our digital marketing into web pages, so for the end user, the process of completing forms is seamless.

We have been so impressed with the umbraco CMS that we currently use this tool to deliver [our] website to our customers.

The main reason we chose this tool was we wanted a site that could be updated and maintained by anybody, and we wanted to avoid having to wait for the development team to make a simple change to the site.
  • Simple to use
  • Different people can be assigned different roles
  • Easy to keep the site updated with the latest information, no technical knowledge needed
  • Accessibility features can be turned on
  • If you miss an update on the software, issues can happen if you jump to far ahead of where you are
  • Search could be improved on the site
Umbraco CMS is the perfect tool for a company that is looking to keep their website updated. The simple to use tools and templates means updating and creating new pages is easy. The WYSIWYG editor is a nice feature, however, for accessibility, there should be some more guidance on what is suitable to be used on the CMS.
Jason Kelly | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Umbraco CMS is the content management system for our entire website. It is used by the whole organization, but mostly the Content team, which uses it for publishing, and the Technology and Events teams. It addresses the need for a powerful, yet customizable management system that can host a wide range of content and media types.
  • Plugins - as an open source CMS, Umbraco is very customizable and flexible to the needs of the organization
  • Publishing - Umbraco has powerful tools for publishing
  • Media hosting
  • Speed for older sites - Umbraco content can load slowly if you have thousands of pages of content. Of course, this would not be a problem for simpler websites
  • Complexity - since the product is free out-of-the-box, it will take technical expertise to get Umbraco setup properly
Umbraco is well suited for websites that are looking to do a wide range of activities that require complex technoligies. An example of this is a company with several different products or services. Umbraco would be overkill for simple sites that are mostly static. It is also difficult to find developers who have Umbraco experience, as it's market share is not all that high.
Alex Lada | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Currently we have one client that uses Umbraco CMS. It filled their need of moving off of static HTML pages to a .NET CMS system that did not have prohibitive costs/licensing fees. The client only has one developer on hand, so this provided a way to democratize content updates across a larger user base.
  • Data architecture
  • Templating System
  • Permissions/Workflow
  • Updating system files from CMS admin
  • Migration of data between servers. There are tools that you can pay for that help facilitate this, but like any CMS system, there are still some tricks to getting it to work correctly.
  • Running as a Web Project instead of a Web Site. Umbraco does not run compiled code, but instead compiles it on the fly. I find this to cause some performance issues that would otherwise be resolved with a compiled code base.
Umbraco CMD is well suited for users looking for a .NET based CMS system without the high licensing fees that come with a system like Sitecore. It allows the developer to easily get up and running, model data, create front end templates, and get a framework of a site out quickly. It is also easy to extend the built in functionality with your own .NET libraries. For enterprise level users, Umbraco might not have quite enough juice to model and deliver content efficiently.
Matthew Hardesty | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Other than helping to implement Umbraco for some of our clients, we use Umbraco CMS as an alternative to WordPress for a couple of our microsites. We typically only consider Umbraco for our clients (and teams) when they have one or more tech-savvy resources to help instruct and troubleshoot issues when they come up.

From a business perspective, Umbraco is very flexible (and open source). It allows for more freedom in design and data architecture (vs WordPress). For some clients, that is a necessity.
  • Umbraco has a lot of design/layout flexibility.
  • Umbraco provides a lot of control for customization.
  • You can maintain your data (product, page, entity) in a structured way.
  • Umbraco can initially be challenging for new users with limited or no development experience. After initial installation, there is a lot more work required to 'see' a site.
  • Umbraco isn't stable. For example, even on a fresh new site sometimes you'll get errors when trying to save something in the admin panel. It's not common, but it happens often enough to be annoying.
  • No out of the box contact forms. Umbraco sells their forms plugin that we've used in the past, but the plugin is disappointing. It isn't well maintained and it's very buggy. Making a new contact form with the paid plugin can take a lot of time to get everything right (fields, validation, confirmation emails, etc). This is especially frustrating for new users.
  • Documentation / resource links frequently 404. Umbraco seems to change their site URLs often enough that, when you encounter an issue, you're likely to find a number of bad links in Google's search results. This makes it difficult to research solutions to a problem.
  • Posts often go unanswered or without resolution in their community support forums. Hopefully this will improve as the community grows.
  • The update process is clumsy at best. Many people are familiar with the simple WordPress upgrade button for the core and plugins. This doesn't exist at all for Umbraco. Instead, you'll need to select specific files to overwrite and potentially update any old code references.
  • Migration between development environments is clumsy. Umbraco offers a premium plugin to address this because, as they state on the premium plugin page, deployments are "complicated, headache-inducing"
We use Umbraco CMS when clients need design flexibility, more tailored content management, and structured data. Umbraco CMS is not for clients with little to no budget for technical/developer assistance. We don't recommend it for most small companies because they don't have the budget to maintain (read: troubleshoot and work around bugs) a platform like this.
Filip Witkowski | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco is used for custom projects (websites) for various clients. It is used as as framework (ASP.MVC 4) and content management system. It allows fast development of new websites, created from scratch. It allows non-professionals to create and manage content. Unlike PHP-based Drupal, Umbraco is based on ASP.Net and well fits into our company infrastructure.
  • Quick to learn. For most if cases, developer needs to know Razor coding.
  • Doesn't require back-end programming.
  • Has build in users management (developers, content managers) and members management consoles (users of the site).
  • Clear admin tool (especially in version 7)
  • Fast.
  • Creating code from scratch, so it is easier to create clean code.
  • Courier plugin, used for staging is not always working well. Tool is used to push changes (database and some files) between stages of website (dev QA staging production, or whatever the configuration is set by developer. The tool is not 100% reliable.
  • Rare incidents of publishing error.
  • Doesn't have build in support for SASS, LESS, ..., so if one of those is used, needs to be done outside admin tool.
  • Small community of developers
  • Little documentation, video tutorials are not free
  • Not many plugins for extended functionality
Umbraco is suitable when you need a clean code website with CMS or something that will work well on mobile devices. It is very scalable, [can even be ] used for a large website (100+ pages). When a company relies on ASP.Net environment, this is the CMS to go with.
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