Plone - A Superb CMS
March 01, 2014

Plone - A Superb CMS

Gracie Wardin | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction

Plone is the software used to manage the content on the entire University of Wisconsin Oshkosh's website. My place of work (the department I worked for when I used Plone) uses Plone to run it's specific pages within the department's website.
  • When uploading files, Plone gives great options of where you'd like your content to be stored.
  • After uploading your content and easily storing it, its extremely simple to retrieve it from any page you're working on.
  • Plone has a great toolbar for writing and editing content for your pages. Managing links, files, and aesthetic aspects of your site using Plone is simple and enjoyable.
  • When creating a table-like view (for example - an organized and lined-up photo gallery), Plone doesn't give you the option of holding down your cursor and sliding the picture (r other content) to a specific spot. Plone only allows you to move pictures to an absolute-positioned area, sometimes causing content to not be aligned.
  • I've had a few problems when uploading files with certain file extensions. It would be nice for Plone to have a pop up window or some sort of message that stops you from adding a file that doesn't fit their compatibility, rather than you encountering error messages or bad-looking sites due to having the wrong type of file uploaded.
  • Plone is slightly more complicated than Wordpress, a large CMS competitor, possibly causing people to stray away from it.
  • The impact Plone has had at the University of Oshkosh is as follows: this software allows student workers to learn about IT departments and CMS's in a user-friendly way. It gives many students great jobs that look great on their resumes.
  • Since there are great training manuals for Plone, there is increased employee efficient in the workplace. Training doesn't take long, and if there's ever a question, the Plone manual is a great tool to refer to.
  • If an employee using Plone quits, its easy to find someone to replace them with quick training and great resources.
  • Adobe Photoshop,WordPress
Plone may be more complicated than Wordpress when considering organizational factors and overall use, but for a reason. It has further capabilities than Wordpress and other content management systems. It takes slight training to learn, but it provides great knowledge that many people will use in the future. Wordpress is very simple, and it shows on the websites it runs. All Wordpress sites look very similar, but Plone websites can be customized and made to look exactly how you want.
I no longer use Plone because I got an internship in the web development field and my current place of employment uses their own content management system that they created. After getting to know other CMS's and similar software and comparing them to Plone, I would enjoy using Plone again in the future, but there are more complicated software that I'd like to learn as I progress in my field of study.
Managing a large site, for example a university, Plone makes it easy to access all pages securely and edit them easily and appropriately. One must be properly trained in order to use it though.
Key questions when choosing your CMS: How large is your site, how educated are the developers or employees that are going to be updating the site using Plone?

Product Usage

300 - A university uses Plone as it's main content management system.
3 - Skills required: able to go through a short training process and determination to stay organized and be willing to learn on-the-go.
People trained completely in Plone software are always available for quick questions or more in-depth questions and explanations.
  • Managing files within the large website in a simple and enjoyable way.
  • Keeping the website secure and accurate at all times.
  • Posting to the website easily everyday without problems.
  • Keeping your website well-maintained, therefore leading to greater success within your business or organization.
  • We use Plone for a lot of photo galleries, which makes a website much more attractive.
  • The university could expand Plone to be their primary CMS system (although it almost is, there are still a few departments that use a different one). This would create consistency among the websites and pages.