My review about concrete5 an awesome content management system

Hello everyone,

I just register on digital point a few days ago and I was wondering why nobody was talking about concrete 5.
So I decided to open a thread to introduce concrete 5. I know there are probably some spelling errors in my thread,
I try to do my best and share with the community, be lenient because English is not my native language.

What is concrete 5:

Concrete 5 is an free open source content management system, it has started as commercial cms in 2003,
after several revisions and updates versions 5 has been given out and is completely free and open source.
It has a great back end and special "edit in place" functionality.

Who can use concrete 5 :

Anybody, weather you are a site editor looking to easily update your content,
a developer who wants a solid base for programming (concrete 5 is also a framework),
or a designer looking to create awesome templates that can be easily updated trough drag and drop.

Something great about concrete is that you can control what is generated for the visitor,
compared to wordpress where you can simply right click, see the source code and know immediately
this has been built with wordpress (ie wp_content folder...). Concrete 5 is completely customizable,
you can change the name of the core folder and even completely brand it.

This will protect you from hackers who won't know which cms you are using and also permit you
to propose completely customizable solutions for your customer (if you are a professional programmer or designer).

If you are used to create Joomla or Wordpress site for your customer,
you know that this implies to train them to manage the cms unless you manage it yourself.
Let me tell you something, I created a new website for one of my customers last week, after the project was done,
it took me 10 min to show him how to update the content,
if it was joomla or wordpress it would have taken 2-4 hours. Incredile, but true, using concrete 5 is easier than facebook.

Sure there aren't so much plugins for concrete 5 than for joomla or wordpress,
but you can forget this handicap as any developer will be able to customize it without complication,
they have a well written documentation and an active community.


Strength :

• Unparalleled end user editing experience.
• The designer experience maps well to C5's approach.
• Easy to override any default behavior.
• WIth a knowledge of HTML and CSS (and a touch of PHP) you're up and running developing your own themes.
• Well thought out architecture which means that as one digs deeper into the application, one easily can take advantage of more power.
• The store has an approval process; add-ons tend to work and work well out of the box, and also integrate well into the environment.
• There are a lot of "developer extensions" which probably solve problems in a more generic fashion.
• The community is helpful and response.
• Can create a website with the CMS right out of the box.

Weaknesses:

• Not necessarily a weakness, but to take full advantage of C5, you do need knowledge of HTML/CSS and an acquaintance with PHP. The more you know, the more powerful the environment becomes.
• The marketplace isn't as full or complete as The Big 3. But, the core product and free add-ons address all issues for typical business websites. Free or paid-for add-ons address a number of specialized needs.
• There's room for more documentation and a more advanced text which goes into the architecture in greater detail for more sophisticated enhancements.
• Better API documentation.
• As with all CMS environments, nothing replaces your own research and practice.

Definitlly worth giving it a try.

What do you think?

Do you have good or bad experience with concrete 5? Please share them below.

 

i'm joomla lovers, but i will try concrete 5 for my new site

 

I also use Joomla for a lot of projects I even started to use Joomla 3.0 for some personal projects. I think Concrete is really a great CMS to consider as well.