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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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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.

9
Avg 8.0

Platform & Infrastructure

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

8.5
Avg 7.6

Web Content Creation

Features that support the creation of website content.

8
Avg 7.7

Web Content Management

Features for managing website content

7.2
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 Digital Experience Platform, and Drupal are common alternatives for Umbraco CMS.

Reviewers rate WYSIWYG editor and Code quality / cleanliness and Publishing workflow highest, with a score of 10.

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

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

(1-4 of 4)

Umbraco is the friendly CMS

Rating: 10 out of 10
May 27, 2020
JE
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco CMS
10 years of experience
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
Cons
  • 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.
Web Content Creation (8)
76.25%
7.6
WYSIWYG editor
90%
9.0
Code quality / cleanliness
90%
9.0
Admin section
100%
10.0
Page templates
90%
9.0
Library of website themes
20%
2.0
Mobile optimization / responsive design
50%
5.0
Publishing workflow
90%
9.0
Form generator
80%
8.0
Web Content Management (5)
86%
8.6
Content taxonomy
90%
9.0
SEO support
80%
8.0
Bulk management
80%
8.0
Availability / breadth of extensions
90%
9.0
Community / comment management
90%
9.0
Platform & Infrastructure (2)
70%
7.0
API
70%
7.0
Internationalization / multi-language
70%
7.0
Security (1)
90%
9.0
Role-based user permissions
90%
9.0
CMS programming language or framework
N/A
N/A
  • Development is faster in Umbraco than other CMS I have worked with
The performance of Umbraco is as good as Episerver. The back office in Umbraco is cleaner and more intuitive than Episerver. Sitecore is a good CMS for large projects, but the learning curve for developers and editors is steep.

Real world experience with Umbraco

Rating: 5 out of 10
May 27, 2020
Vetted Review
Umbraco CMS
5 years of experience
We are a web development company and we set clients up with Umbraco.
  • Templating
  • Code editing
  • Back office usability
Cons
  • 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.
Web Content Creation (8)
65%
6.5
WYSIWYG editor
50%
5.0
Code quality / cleanliness
70%
7.0
Admin section
80%
8.0
Page templates
90%
9.0
Library of website themes
10%
1.0
Mobile optimization / responsive design
80%
8.0
Publishing workflow
70%
7.0
Form generator
70%
7.0
Web Content Management (5)
28%
2.8
Content taxonomy
40%
4.0
SEO support
40%
4.0
Bulk management
40%
4.0
Availability / breadth of extensions
10%
1.0
Community / comment management
10%
1.0
Platform & Infrastructure (2)
10%
1.0
API
10%
1.0
Internationalization / multi-language
10%
1.0
Security (1)
70%
7.0
Role-based user permissions
70%
7.0
CMS programming language or framework
N/A
N/A
  • We like using Umbraco, but the update process is an real issue.
Umbraco's templating is far superior than WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, but it's update process is WAY behind those platforms. The release schedule of Umbraco is way to often and most releases are to fix something missed in the previous release and not an improvement or new feature of the CMS.

Umbraco - clean CMS based on ASP.Net MVC 4.

Rating: 7 out of 10
July 08, 2015
FW
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco CMS
3 years of experience
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.
Cons
  • 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.
Web Content Creation (8)
71.25%
7.1
WYSIWYG editor
100%
10.0
Code quality / cleanliness
90%
9.0
Admin section
90%
9.0
Page templates
70%
7.0
Library of website themes
10%
1.0
Mobile optimization / responsive design
90%
9.0
Publishing workflow
90%
9.0
Form generator
30%
3.0
Web Content Management (5)
44%
4.4
Content taxonomy
90%
9.0
SEO support
N/A
N/A
Bulk management
60%
6.0
Availability / breadth of extensions
40%
4.0
Community / comment management
30%
3.0
Platform & Infrastructure (2)
65%
6.5
API
60%
6.0
Internationalization / multi-language
70%
7.0
Security (1)
70%
7.0
Role-based user permissions
70%
7.0
CMS programming language or framework
N/A
N/A
  • CMS is free
  • Support form Umbraco HQ is not expensive, can include Courier or other functionality
  • For most cases does not need back end developer
  • For trained Umbraco developers (Razor coding, using admin tool), developing medium site, takes a few weeks max
There is not really an alternative when it comes to CMS based on ASP.Net (MVC4 with Razor). There are a few frameworks, like Booststrap; however framework is not content management system.
I will compare it to Drupal, because the second one is well known. Against Drupal, Umbraco is very clean and fast framework/CMS. It does not have as much of big community, support or range of plugins as Drupal.

Umbraco: The do-it-yourself framework

Rating: 7 out of 10
February 15, 2016
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.
Cons
  • 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.
Web Content Creation (8)
43.75%
4.4
WYSIWYG editor
50%
5.0
Code quality / cleanliness
40%
4.0
Admin section
70%
7.0
Page templates
80%
8.0
Library of website themes
10%
1.0
Mobile optimization / responsive design
40%
4.0
Publishing workflow
50%
5.0
Form generator
10%
1.0
Web Content Management (5)
48%
4.8
Content taxonomy
90%
9.0
SEO support
80%
8.0
Bulk management
20%
2.0
Availability / breadth of extensions
20%
2.0
Community / comment management
30%
3.0
Platform & Infrastructure (2)
75%
7.5
API
70%
7.0
Internationalization / multi-language
80%
8.0
Security (1)
80%
8.0
Role-based user permissions
80%
8.0
CMS programming language or framework
N/A
N/A
  • When used for the appropriate clients, Umbraco typically helps get a customized layout and data structure to market faster than some competing CMS platforms.
  • For clients that may not understand data relationships on the back end, the content management in the admin panel helps them visualize what's happening.
Umbraco vs WordPress
Umbraco has more flexibility and customization options, but less features, reliability/stability, and community support.
WordPress offers less customization for data and content, but it is immensely more stable, has better features /plugins, and includes an enormous amount of community support & documentation.

Umbraco vs Kentico
Both are intended to be customized after installation (flexible design and data management)
Kentico is more robust, reliable, and feature rich. But, it requires more effort to get a site up and running.
Umbraco is less stable than Kentico. But, it is often easier to get a site up and running.


Yes
Umbraco occasionally makes more sense (in terms of flexibility vs time to market) than some of our custom frameworks or WordPress.
  • Price
  • Product Features
Umbraco seems to serve a market between WordPress and Kentico. That void can help clients that would otherwise be stuck with the other options.
We evaluate the requirements of our projects and clients from the very beginning before recommending a platform. If they are comfortable working with a less stable platform and have the budget to accommodate technical assistance and development teams, then Umbraco is the way to go. If they don't, it's best to stick to WordPress or fork up the license costs for Kentico.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes
  1. Requirements gathering
  2. Data architecture
  3. Design
  4. QA
  5. User acceptance testing
  6. Launch

Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled
Data architecture can consume a lot of time if the requirements are not clearly defined and agreed upon at the start of the project.
  • The premium contact form plugin from Umbraco is very buggy and unreliable.
Spend the time to wireframe the content structure prior to diving in. This helps speed the process of implementation and it serves as documentation for end users.
  • Online training
  • Self-taught
Online training is often based on older versions of the platform. So, you'll have to fill in the gaps on your own.
Learning how to use Umbraco requires an investment of time and interest. It's also contingent on being tech-savvy or having experience with other CMS platforms. People new to CMS platforms should subscribe to in-person training and have a few developers accessible to answer questions.
No
Umbraco paid support is often cost prohibitive for clients.
Support for Umbraco-owned paid plugins is nonexistent.
Yes
The root issue was never fixed. The resolution was to "do it over again and see if it works" quality.
So far, Umbraco has not provided quality support for their premium/paid plugins.
  • Adding new pages is relatively simple.
  • Editing / deleting content (users/pages/products/etc) is straightforward.
  • Code reuse is easy and straightforward.
  • Contact forms are buggy to work with.
  • The admin panel interface will occasionally feel sluggish to respond after clicking or performing an action. Performing another action during this time will almost guarantee an error.
Yes
The admin panel is responsive, but still needs some work. It's not as fluid nor intuitive as WordPress.
Many end users will be overwhelmed with the admin interface. Some common functions are buried in menus.
Without significant development, the product does not scale well.
Occasionally, errors will appear in the admin that make it impossible to work without developer support.
Working in the admin panel (adding / reviewing / editing content) is very slow.
The public facing site speed is dependent on what the pages are doing and how well the code was written (whether it is optimized for speed).
Yes
The process has the potential to be smooth. But, any complete site implementation will require developer assistance in order to update code. Without that support, the site will encounter errors after upgrade.
The upgrade process itself is not straightforward or automatic. It involves copying over files and changing code according to the very limited instructions provided with the update.
  • Umbraco now supports element and class styles in the TinyMCE. This satisfies a few specific use cases for our clients.
  • The latest release fixes an issue where some images would be lost when uploading to the media library in bulk.
  • 301 redirect management.
No
No
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