Overall Satisfaction with Concrete5
I have used this CMS for four sites, as a freelance for a company that is very satisfied with the product. And I have used Concrete5 three more times for personal uses. This CMS is impressive.
- Usability
- Great documentation and support
- Great community
- Efficient paid modules
- File manager
- Smooth updating process
- "on site" editing
- Flexible. A user has a lot of control to change things
- The cache system has improved, but i think there is still room for improvement. The admin bar disappears from time to time if a page has been placed in cache by the browser.
- I know a new version is on its way and it has addressed some layout problems (i hope!) The column feature is great, but while it is advertised as a flexible tool, it is not. Moving things in columns can be frustrating.
- The use of jQuery is great but, sometimes, abusive. Moving blocks is a great feature, but collapsing them before moving them is not.
- Another great feature is CSS overrides. The UI has to be improved and one can easily destroy a site since these "styled overrides" sometimes disappear or are too easily deletable. So Concrete 5 is like having dynamite in our hands. And for those who smoke...
- It takes certainly less time to build a site with Concrete 5 than, say Wordpress or Drupal.
- In other situations, the lack of plugins can hinder the development. Since Drupal or Wordpress "have a module for everything", the development must be given to developers.
- Processwire,Drupal,Wordpress,Textpattern,Typo3
I was overall pleased with the UI and the clarity of the development process. The upgrade process is a breeze, the CMS is light, powerful, and the community forum is great. Job is simply done with great results.