Concrete CMS Reviews

Summary: Overall experience is very good, as it is an open CMS with code that is solid and clean. Modularity is top-notch as well, although fewer modules available than i.e. Wordpress.

Positive: Concrete5 CMS is written by those who love clean, secure code. Especially if you are wishing to write your own PHP code for special requirements, C5 is really the most solid and affordable solution out there!

Negative: The marketplace is smaller than other CMS like Wordpress.

Summary: The Experience is great as an Administrator and Software manager, easy to use and to teach. All in one place Software.

Positive: Powerful Backend Tool.
Flexible.
Apps and Data Insights and Admin Tools in One Place.
Integration is Ways that that is very smart.
Use AI to provide insight.

Negative: Not so popular like Wordpress.
Still have room for improvement.

Summary: Concrete5 is one of the best CMS systems that I have used. It is easy to get started with, and has a lot of customisation options.

Positive: The flexibility was far superior over other CMS systems that I have used. I particularly like the HTML blocks, since I can add my own code into a site.

Negative: CMSs generally require more storage space and the use of a database than building a website by hand.

Summary: I used to build *all* my sites in Concrete5 version 5.6. That was when third party support was the most active. With the release of version 7 and continued in 8, that was severely reduced due to new addon requirements and some developers not wanting to re-write their products. In addition, Portland Labs had abandoned their eCommerce and discussion board addons, leaving some site designers high and dry, until the e-commerce function was added by the open source Community Store.

I am hoping with the soon-to-be-released Concrete CMS (version 9), the third party situation will begin to improve.

Positive: What's not to like about Concrete5? It's intuitive, comprehensive in feature set, easy to set up, easy for clients to use, responsive, adaptable, and secure. The user community is supportive, helpful, and really, really smart. It has a lot of functionality built-in that you would need to add in apps like WordPress and Drupal. Licensing addons is unique because it is developer, not client, centered, so you could re-assign licenses and reuse addons and themes. So far, great!

Negative: Unfortunately there is no substantial developer ecosystem, which makes a great product even better. Not enough themes and addons for working with multiple clients, no way to test addons prior to purchase, unless you purchase and then return the product (which would really annoy me if I was a developer). As a site designer, it would be to your advantage to be comfortable working with code. File Manager could use some streamlining and speed. Many templates and addons have been around for a long time, and may be in need of updating to meet current web standards.