A great CMS, easy to program, design with, and to use!
Updated February 05, 2015

A great CMS, easy to program, design with, and to use!

Guy Verville | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

5.6.3.1

Modules Used

  • ProBlog
  • Gallerific
  • Mosaic
  • Register pro

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.
While you can build a site without programming a lot, it is necessary to grasp the whole API (it is always a good idea to know what's under the hood!) to go further and exploit the whole potential of this great piece of code. I like the file manager, the way you can reuse and change a file without any fuss. My experience with modules is also good since the developers who coded them are proactive. It is true that you have to pay a little amount for those modules, which is not, for me, a problem. I prefer to pay, hence showing my respect for the work done, and have in return a quick and professional response. So Concrete5 is a good mix of everything. Developers can develop, designers can design, and the most important, users can use it effortlessly! It is hard to compete with the big kids of CMS. I hope Concrete5 will make its place in this competitive world.

Concrete5 has not yet earned its due respect. It is a pity. I have done small websites with it, so I can not say how it performs on big sites. It is very hard to sell it. Wordpress and Drupal occupy a lot of space because they are seen as 1) popular 2) stable 3) there to stay. Concrete5 still appears as a new kid. Its future is still uncertain. I recommend it for small to medium sized organisations that want a flexible and easy CMS.

Using Concrete5

Concrete 5 is EASY to use for EVERYBODY. Programmers love it, designers and users love it too!