Item: Concrete CMS
Rating: 7
Author: Collin Berg

Overall Satisfaction with Concrete5

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

With Concrete5, you don't have to explain to your clients on how to edit a site/page. Once they are familiar with the very basics, they can do their thing. Just go to the page where you want to edit something, and click on a so-called "Block" to edit it (a page is a collection of blocks).

Pros and Cons

Pros

The live editing (and its ease of use) for every page is THE best thing Concrete5 ships with.
It is easy to use for (tech-unsavvy) users and still extendable for developers.

Cons

The ecosystem for add-ons is small compared to WordPress, so finding solutions is harder or they get updated less frequently.
The time between updates is slow and lengthy, which can lead to security risks.

Return on Investment

Concrete5 is a good PHP based framework that can be used as an alternative to WordPress
From a developer standpoint, Concrete5 does a better job at adhering to PHP guidelines

Alternatives Considered

WordPress and Drupal

Concrete5's UI is a bit more dated compared to WordPress, and the ecosystem for plugins is smaller. But out of the box, Concrete5 does more with its clean code than WordPress does. WordPress's UI and large plugin/community around it is its biggest strength as a product, not the underlying code.

Other Software Used

WordPress

Likelihood to Recommend

Concrete5 is a good CMS for small websites that are not updated very often. I've built everything I needed with Concrete5, from booking systems, shopping carts, e-learning systems for schools. Beautiful, fast and robust websites are easily built. Don't be scared off by the relatively (compared to WP) small amount of free add-ons. It is a GOOD thing that Concrete5 does not need much of them.

Concrete CMS Feature Ratings

Comments

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Great Alternative to Wordpress for small projects