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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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Learn from top reviewers

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Pricing

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Umbraco Free

$0

Cloud

Umbraco Starter

$53

Cloud
per month

Umbraco Standard

$320

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 8.2

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 7.8

Web Content Management

Features for managing website content

7.2
Avg 7.4
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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 TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesGlobal
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

Umbraco CMS starts at $0.

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

(1-5 of 12)

Easy to use CMS

Rating: 8 out of 10
December 06, 2017
DM
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco CMS
7 years of experience
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
Cons
  • 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.

Umbraco CMS review and comparison to other CMS systems

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 14, 2017
AL
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco CMS
2 years of experience
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
Cons
  • 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.

Umbraco CMS is great for publishing sites that want to use a .NET code base

Rating: 8 out of 10
September 29, 2017
JK
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco CMS
2 years of experience
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
Cons
  • 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.

Very simple but complete, Umbraco CMS will help you organization to go online in a very short time.

Rating: 8 out of 10
May 27, 2020
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco CMS
1 year of experience
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.
Cons
  • 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.

Umbraco is a No Go

Rating: 1 out of 10
May 24, 2021
LJ
Vetted Review
Verified User
Umbraco CMS
1 year of experience
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
Cons
  • 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.
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