With the amount of attention that Concrete5 has been getting of late, we decided to take it for a test run and see what this open source CMS is all about.
One look at the interface of the Concrete 5 content management system and you’ll understand why it’s so popular. Once logged in, administrative access to add and edit pages as well as the dashboard itself, is made simple by a top navigation bar. The appeal of Concrete 5 is no secret. It’s slick, intuitive, and simple.
The Installation
To install the Concrete 5 content management system, you will need to create yourself a MySQL database and the appropriate user credentials before you begin the installation itself. Download and unzip Concrete 5’s latest software to a concrete5 directory that you create in the root of your website. Then simply visit http://yourdomain.com/concrete5.
The latest iteration provides a welcome one page installation where you’ll need to enter your site name, email address, database information, and voila! On my test site I chose to install the sample data as well, just to give me a look at how information could be arranged and edited.
As you can see, the default site is attractive and appears well thought out.
Edit Page
Concrete 5 took being intuitive seriously and knew page editing is the most used feature. But how easy is this? Simply navigate to the page you would like to change and click the Edit Page icon on the top navigation bar. Once in the edit mode, you’ll see that Concrete 5 has more to offer than simple textual editing, rather a sophisticated system where you can tweak your content and how it’s displayed with features such as page types, advanced style sheets, viewing permissions, and even version control. Sections are highlighted in red and offer even more advanced editing options. It’s clear that even techies requiring more control can embrace this platform with confidence.
Add Page
When adding a page, you’re not only give the typical fields like name, alias, publication date, and description but also meta title, description, and keywords. You can even add custom fields to your page if required. Additionally, pages are not limited to strictly traditional content, but also functionality that is rarely offered free including slideshows, a guestbook, surveys, Google map integration, and even YouTube.
Dashboard
Lastly, the dashboard provides all things administrative, again all neatly arranged and presented in an intuitive fashion where virtually all but the most advanced administrative needs are met. From reports to permissions to maintenance, Concrete 5 has done its job well in covering all the bases. And, if you don’t mind shelling out a few bucks, you can extend your site to include such applications as blogs, ecommerce, rating systems, and chat functionality among others.
Pros
- Concrete 5 has a wide appeal to beginners and techies alike because it is a simple, intuitive platform that is also extensible.
- The installation process is simple once your database is created.
- All aspects of the look and feel are clean and organized.
- There are a number of free themes available once you become a member of the website.
Cons
- I’d like to see the installation take care of the database creation. Of course, that would add more steps to the front end installation but I think users who are beginners would appreciate it. I’ve seen more than a few get hung up and frustrated on creating a database, even when using tools like phpmyadmin or similar tool.
Overall Concrete 5 offers up a product that enables users of any skill, a level of comfort in confidently creating a website that has as little or as much functionality as the user requires. It affords the beginner a platform where baby steps are possible while still offering advanced users the ability to extend the platform themselves with additional add-ons or tweaking the source themselves.
I think Concrete 5 has found a niche that needed filling. I know I’m a fan.
Website: http://www.concrete5.org
About the Author:
Based in the Pacific Northwest, Michael Childress has been a system analyst and writer for 10 years. He currently writes for CMS Critic and maintains his own blog
at OutdoorBlogger.com.
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12 Responses to “Concrete5 CMS Review and Commentary”
Thanks Mike!
You hit the nail on the head.. After years of consulting using larger "techie" products it struck us - if its intimidating to edit your website, you just wont. Websites should be like word docs, if you can read it - you can change it.
concrete5 really is quite powerful as well. While its appealing at a glance for a little 20 page corporate site, we've built community driven portals with hundreds of thousands of pages, even millions. concrete5 is an awesome platform for education institutions, extra/intranets - all sorts of important stuff beyond your local dentist's site (where it works very well too!)
Thanks again for the flattering review Mike, it's great to be growin!
Great article Mike. It's nice to find a website creation tool that was built with the marketer in mind. After struggling with Joomla and Wordpress - the former never seeming to get easier - I found Concrete5 mentioned on a forum, signed on and created a demo site and by later the next day had a fairly nice 5 page site functional and running smoothly on my localhost. Tomorrow I plan to migrate it to my live server.
Thanks Franz for a great product and I wish you every success in this world of code-heavy CMS platforms. I also hope to contribute on the documentation side to help beginners like me to avoid the sticky points.
- A grateful non-techie
Hi Franz - Concrete5 made it easy to be complimentary. It is likely the most easy to use content management system I've had the opportunity to thoroughly test thus far. The system provides a sizable advantage to those who lack the technical skills required of other platforms. And that is simply good business.
Hi Kenton - Great to hear of your success. I think your situation clearly illustrates the power of Concrete5.
great review man. probably the best walk through of concrete5 i've seen thus far. in regards to:
"I’d like to see the installation take care of the database creation." Many mysql installations are set up so that mysql users do not have the rights to create new databases. This is especially true on cheaper hosting plans where they only give you one database per account.
Thanks for the comments Tony. Your point regarding the database creation is duly noted. It brings up a good reminder concerning CMS install requirements. I've seen more than one poor sod knock themselves out with an install only to find out that the minimums failed to be met. Thankfully, the required items testing that many platforms incorporate these days help with that.
IMO this review misses the point. The primary function of a CMS is as a tool for end-users to manage website content not as a tool for unskilled people to build websites. In fact anyone who needs an easy tool to build a database-driven site should be doing something other than building sites for anyone.
Concrete5 may or may not be good at content management but one certainly isn't going to find out from the above review.
Dear pov,
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
My intent of the post was to communicate the relative ease of which users, regardless of skill level (within the IT world), could manage content using Concrete5 and not to encourage unskilled people unfamiliar with the basics to pursue a career in building database-driven websites without the proper training. If in fact the primary function of a CMS is for end-users to manage website content, it would seem logical to avail oneself to a platform in which one could be effective, beginner or expert. I think Concrete5 offers this flexibility quite nicely.
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.
Concrete5 is amazing, the best CMS I was able to find and the easiest to use. We looked at loads of different open source products last year, and as web designers who build sites this was by far the best solution for us and our clients.
Easy to use and a great community online, thanks for posting about it!
Thank you for taking the time to check the post out. I think Concrete5 is a great solution and look forward to watching its development.
Greetings from East Africa via Canada & Barbados! I've been pushing WordPress down here big time, but I'm gonna take C5 for a spin. Looks real good and it's perfect for non-bloggy sites.
Question: Is it possible to insert blog posts in addition to traditional static "pages"?? Or is it better to just have WP as the blog component and C5 for the static stuff?
Peacies!
- Max "The IT pro"
You should certainly play with concrete5 and probably be asking stuff like this in our forums instead of Mike's site, but...
Sure.. with concrete5, we don't start by defining completely unique types of pages like other systems do. Instead everything's a page and you can refine what pages do and need to track with custom attributes and more. So yes, you can create a blog like list of posts in reverse order by just making pages and using the page list block.
If blog workflow is important to you (no in-context editing but rather a dashboard UI) you can buy the blogging add-on for $55 which gives that and lets you manage all your pages of blog type centrally.
That's a pretty brief answer, try asking here:
http://concrete5.org/community/forums
-frz
Greetings Max,
The answer to your question is yes, you can insert blog posts in addition to traditional static pages with Concrete5. I think it comes in the form of an add-on but I would suggest that you confirm with the Concrete folks. They are very helpful and could clarify even more. Have fun testing!
Mike