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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

(1-1 of 1)
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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.
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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