Concrete CMS

Score9.2 out of 10

84 Reviews and Ratings

What is Concrete CMS?

Concrete CMS (formerly Concrete5) is a free and open source, PHP built content management system for content on the web and also for intranets. It is optimized to support the creation of online magazines and newspapers.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

In-context editing is simple to understand

Versioning and workflow built on top of powerful permissions

Flexible backend to power complex communities and intranets.

1 / 4

Code quality / cleanliness
Code generated by WYSIWYG editor is clean and validates according to W3C standards.
Category average: 8.3
Admin section
The admin page is easy to navigate and use.
Category average: 7.9
Page templates
The CMS has standard webpage templates or types of web pages (e.g. homepage, article page, interior page, blog page, etc.); users can also build custom templates.
Category average: 7.9

Availability / breadth of extensions
There is a broad library of extensions, plug-ins, modules or add-ons that allow users to easily customize their websites without building custom code.
Category average: 6.9
Community / comment management
Users can put post/page comments through an approval process, auto-approve commenters based on their email addresses, block commenters by IP address, delete comments, etc.
Category average: 7.4
Library of website themes
A library of website frameworks or themes is available as a starting point for building a website.
Category average: 6.7

Tim Macknelly

Creative Director at TM Designs (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Amazing and really well thought out CMS. Works out of the box, easy to setup and is packed with features so you don't need loads of plugins. Great for editors and very good for developers to build off. The code base is excellent. This has been design with the basic user in mind, the UX and UI is very well thought out and being able to edit content within the page without having to go to a backend is very valuable. The team behind this CMS is constantly improving and updating it but not just fixing bugs, really user improvement. The community that supports it is vast and there is always someone on the forums to help you out.

Pros

Works out of the box.
Packed with Features.
Simple to use with brilliant UX/UI.
Great code base to work with.

Cons

Some documentation can be confusing.
Not enough people using it.
Has no ecommerce.

Return on Investment

Less time spent updating software for security bugs.
No need for expensive hosting.
Less time training my clients to use it.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

WordPress, Joomla!, Squarespace and Wix

Other Software Used

Joomla!, WordPress, Wix

Jalen Séguin View profile

Founder, CEO at Questio (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it for our public-facing website, and we use it to deliver a range of website solutions for our clients. I offer it to my clients because I know I can create easily maintainable and extensible sites for them and be confident that they can become quite self-sufficient in a short amount of time.

Pros

create and publish user-defined database content
easy and intuitive for site editors *and* developers
standards compliant and highly secure
was built from the ground up to be a versatile and robust development environment

Cons

reinvigorate and grow the (addon) developer community
expand and refine the documentation/education program
grow brand awareness

Return on Investment

easy to sell because of ease of use and ability to offer a solid solution to any request
the ease of extensibility has made it simple to upsell features
we only develop in Concrete because other options are too costly in the long run

Alternatives Considered

WordPress and Drupal

Other Software Used

Figma, ClickUp

David Reeder View profile

Founder & Managing Director in Information Technology at Made Simple Media (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Concrete CMS for our website and for our clients. We host 120+ websites that we have developed over the past 7 years. Projects range from simple brochure sites to eCommerce, through to highly bespoke sites, where we have created lots of new functionality.

Pros

Easy and intuitive for site editors
Standards compliant code
Up to date and secure
Limitless, easy to extend
Lots of functionality out of the box

Cons

Documentation could be more extensive
Need to grow community to encourage developers to sell more in the marketplace
Build brand awareness

Return on Investment

Easy to sell due to how intuitive the Concrete CMS is
Being a specialist in a fairly unknown platform can lead to the easy acquisition of clients who already use Concrete CMS
Low search volume for Concrete5 means we still take on more general web design work

Alternatives Considered

WordPress

Other Software Used

WordPress, Joomla!

Olivier Soille View profile

Architecte logiciels in Engineering at AdQuate (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I'm using Concrete CMS for almost all kinds of web-based software I build. It's a real swiss knife. I've made a website, e-commerce, ERP, and many management tools with it. it's a very nice project base. I always have the facility to teach how to use it to the project's users, it's very intuitive.

Pros

in context editing
plugin programming
web security
modification with mouse

Cons

i don't see

Return on Investment

90% of my work is based on

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Commerce (Magento Commerce), MODX, WordPress, TYPO3 CMS Website Development, Odoo and GLPI

Other Software Used

Odoo, Adobe Commerce (Magento Commerce), WordPress

Katz Ueno View profile

Editor-in-Chief in Corporate at deerstudio, llc (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

Permission and workflow
Ease of adding features by Symfony and composer
Large enterprise intranet
Big enough global community
University websites

Cons

Community
Hosting service

Return on Investment

Easy to develop new features
Worrying [about] security less
Very complex permission model
Sometimes too complex to manage permission

Alternatives Considered

WordPress, Joomla! and Movable Type

Other Software Used

WordPress

Drupal

WordPress

Concrete CMS

What is Concrete CMS?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Key Features

Top Performing Features

Code quality / cleanliness

Admin section

Page templates

Areas for Improvement

Availability / breadth of extensions

Community / comment management

Library of website themes

Reviews

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

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