Comments on: Choosing the right CMS: Firerift, Concrete5, and others

By: Ryuji - boston photographer

Ryuji - boston photographer — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:50:03 +0000

I’ve switched to C5 last year and that was absolutely the best move I made in terms of my website platform. I’ve tried and considered many other CMS and they just didn’t fit my specs well. C5 has many quirks that I wish get ironed out, but it works for me.

By: Andy Morris

Andy Morris — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:25:07 +0000

Thanks for the replies! I didn’t get the chance to really dig in to all the options yet… I was just looking through the add-ons and noticed the paid blog plugin, and assumed there wouldn’t be one included. Thanks for the correction. It’s great to see that there is a blog type included.

I’m glad to hear the positive responses to Concrete5. It helps put my mind at ease that I’ve made the right decision for my client.

Andy

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:55:27 +0000

I have been using Concrete5 since their emergence to the open-source community a couple of years ago. Their CMS simply gets better and better with every release. While it is somewhat of a drawback to have so many plug-ins with a paid model, I really feel that I get my money’s worth with every purchase. The RSS feed plugin is likely the most important purchase from an SEO and a user perspective. Otherwise, their is so much value already built-in to the CMS, that I really don’t mind paying for one plugin.

Since Concrete5 is not a Blog CMS, I would not expect it to be geared in that manner. With that said, the stock version of Concrete5 does come with a Blog Page Type by default. You can upgrade and buy the Blog plugin too. However, if a client or user only makes a couple of blog posts per month or so, the stock Blog on Concrete5 works just fine.

All in all, I have tried countless CMS’s for just about every purpose. Concrete5 stands on top and being the most scalable, easiest to manage, and most powerful system that I have used to date. Give them a shot. You WILL love it.

~Mark

By: Jordan Lev

Jordan Lev — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:16:23 +0000

I am a freelance web developer who has been using concrete5 to build sites for about a year, and like you I have found it to be a great solution, and very easy for clients to manage. I also agree that it is unfortunate so many of the plugins are paid (although I understand why this is the case — but I really think it hinders the growth of the platform). I would just like to point out, though, that this is not the case for the specific example of blogs. Blogging functionality was added to the core (free) system a few months ago and is hence available for free now.

Thanks for the great post!

-Jordan Lev