Win a concrete5 Hosted Website and Marketplace Credits
concrete5, an open source content management system created for the end-user (e.g. your non-technical clients) teamed up with Six Revisions to give away a one-year Commercial account (worth $300), free set-up, and $155 in credits on their marketplace for themes and add-ons. Read on to see how you can be the lucky winner of this awesome prize.
UPDATE: Giveaway Has Ended.
What is concrete5?
concrete5 is just about the most end-user-friendly content management system out there.
A bit of a back story: I happened across this wonderful open source project close to a couple of years ago and was impressed with it so much — and puzzled by its lack of attention in the developer community — that it set me out on a search to look for other content management systems like it outside of the CMS triumvirate (WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!). The result was a post called 10 Promising Content Management Systems, which continues to be a popular article here on Six Revisions.
Until this day, whenever I’m asked what a good CMS is for project work that involves clients that aren’t very tech-savvy, I point them to concrete5.
concrete5 Features
Here are just a few things that make concrete5 the next-generation CMS.
In-Context Editing
The central feature that sets concrete5 apart from most other CMSs is what’s called in-context editing. It’s a feature that lets you edit your pages right in the web browser — in a similar user experience as editing a word-processor document — making it extremely easy for both clients and developers to update and create content.
For developers working on a site design, this feature is like your very own WYSIWYG editor in a web browser.
Advanced Permission Groups
concrete5 comes with a granular permissions system they’ve hidden behind a seemingly simple interface.
For the individual with a small website, everything just makes sense out of the box, but for a large organization, you can lock down areas of your site or even specific parts of a page to different editing groups.
There’s a complete version management system that lets you compare differences. The more you dig as a developer into concrete5, the more you’ll find that there’s well thought out solutions to the real problems you run into when building large sites.
Add-ons are Tested for Quality and Security
These guys have taken a very different approach with their add-ons by keeping their marketplace small with tested add-ons and the promise that everything will actually work with everything else. Quality versus quantity is the working philosophy when it comes to add-ons.
Other Features
And, of course, concrete5 comes with fundamental features of a good open source content management system such as extensibility via add-ons, an active community that’s 24,000-strong (though I feel it should be 10 times that size!), and a beautiful UI that’s super slick and intuitive.
Resources You Should Check Out
- Download concrete5 (it’s free and open source)
- See a showcase of concrete5 sites
- Take the developer tour
- Take the end-user’s tour
What You’ll Win
This giveaway is for a 1-year hosted account for their Commercial hosting plan (worth $300) and $155 in credits in their marketplace.
How to Win
To win, simply leave a comment answering the following question:
Why would you use concrete5 over other more popular open source content managements out there (such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla!)?
Hint: browse their website to learn about concrete5 before leaving a comment.
Giveaway Details
UPDATE: Giveaway has ended. This giveaway end on Monday, June 21, 2010, after which comments will be closed and you will no longer be able to participate. The winner will be selected randomly from the comments using the same process as previous Six Revisions giveaways. Please only comment once and leave a valid email address when you are filling out the comment form fields so that we can contact you if you’ve won. Comments are moderated so your comments may not show up right away. Comments that do not follow the instructions in the "How to Win" section above cannot be posted.
About the Company
concrete5 is a free and open source content management system that wasn’t designed by committee. Started in 2003 as a commercial solution for a web shop that served ad agencies, it went open source in the summer of 2008 and has been gaining popularity ever since.
The team behind concrete5 focuses on serving the relationship between site owners and site developers, which is refreshing in a market that is typically dominated by intimidating technology. There’s an active job board and the core team has carved out a profitable niche where they can ensure the core toolset grows in a healthy fashion while not competing with web designers on client facing work.
Related Content
- 10 Promising Content Management Systems
- How to Evaluate What CMS to Use
- 10 Ways to Cut Down Web Development Time
- Related categories: Web Development and WordPress
About the Author
69 Comments
Alex W
June 14th, 2010
I would use Concrete 5 over the normal 3 CMSs to really give some power to my clients. There is nothing more satisfying then having a client who not only loves your work but who can make the changes they need without your help. I feel Concrete 5 is a unique and exceptional way to accomplish this without the normal overhead that comes with the three typical CMSs.
Iamin
June 14th, 2010
I think that concrete is more secure then other open platform
Nels
June 14th, 2010
I’ve used concrete5 a few times and, honestly, its the easiest CMS I’ve used to explain to end-users (clients).
Tom
June 14th, 2010
I wouldn’t?
Not within keeping of the compertition but still try none the less.
Munim
June 14th, 2010
For my point of interest, concrete5 allows to integrate e-commerce in a CMS very easily which is not always possible with WordPress etc.
Michael
June 14th, 2010
Would be nice to get some commercial support in case I ever get stuck with anything about it.
Alex
June 14th, 2010
Easiest CMS out there!
Jordan Walker
June 14th, 2010
I would use concrete5 hosting for a real estate application.
Veronica
June 14th, 2010
I think the in context editing could be more intuitive for non-technical clients.
Jason
June 14th, 2010
I’m probing Concrete5 Now, the better is the in-context edition, that makes the designer’s life more easy.
Creating a Skin,Theme from scratch is VERY VERY easy, i love that, i can integrate with anything, and convert any css-xhtml template to the concrete5 in minutes, not hours.
Concrete5 is focused to the security too, and that makes me rest in peace. :-D
Hollis Bartlett
June 14th, 2010
I use Concrete 5 over Joomla or Drupal because I can make a 3 minute screencast using Jing on how to edit your website, send it to a less tech savvy client and not get any questions afterwards. It just works.
Richard
June 14th, 2010
That’s a strange coincidence because I looked into this CMS for my further projects. It’s great for simple and midsized websites for users as they can edit everything on the fly. I would definitely use it on some of my projects – one of them is my personal website.
Liminal Web Design Cornwall
June 14th, 2010
I spent months looking at other systems such as Joomla, Modx and WordPress, but C5 is by far the best. My clients want to be able to update their sites without needing a degree in computing.
SpookyET
June 14th, 2010
Few will use stuff that looks like crap and is harder to use just because they can read the source code. concrete5 is designed.
Rakesh Solanki
June 14th, 2010
Quite different platform rather than others, but simple
Oliver
June 14th, 2010
I use this CMS because it’s so simple, my clients love working with it because it needs little or no explanation and just works. Even when it doesn’t work its really easy to fix/change.
z0r
June 14th, 2010
I would not use it to build my websites.
Jason W. Evans
June 14th, 2010
Concrete5 just makes generating immersive, complex content EASY. Period.
And nothing is as important as the ease of getting content on the web–especially for a distributed team, making content from all over the world.
The easier it is for a team to make content, the more content you get. The more content you get, the more content your users have to enjoy. The more your users enjoy your content, the more your product can generate a revenue stream.
No other CMS, LMS, or blog publishing package allows a group of web-challenged developers to look SO good.
jlapitan
June 14th, 2010
i’ll use concrete5 for my small projects
James W Lane
June 14th, 2010
I would use it for my personal site cause it is very simple to setup and maintain.
Rishabh Agarwal
June 14th, 2010
Simple to set up, many options and integrated CMS support makes it usable for me.
Elizabeth Perry
June 14th, 2010
I’d use it to give clients — mostly artists who are still a little afraid of email — more control over the content of their sites. I’ve had bad luck with walking them through the back ends of WordPress and Drupal (both of which I love for myself, but which are really intimidating), and concrete5 looks like it’s meant to be less scary.
jamie g
June 14th, 2010
it would provide an alternative to my clients who are often confused by other CMS’s
David Sielert
June 14th, 2010
Concrete5 is elegant, easy to use and powerful. The API provided allows you to change/override any part of the core in seconds. Moreover, Concrete5′s API for addon (block/packages) is not overly obfuscated like Joomla/Drupal and one can usually get along with a very basic PHP knowledge skillset. The MVC/Object Orientated core takes wordpress’ antique procedural style code any day.
Our end users (as well as myself) simply love they’re concrete5 sites. Finally they can keep content updated without having to rely on us or a hefty barrage of training. The dashboard provides them with usefull information and they can add a new page in seconds and it’s automatically added to their site nav.
Donna
June 14th, 2010
I love concrete5. It’s not only great for clients, but it is also very powerful for developers. It’s easy to customize and extend with new functionality.
Thaya Kareeson
June 14th, 2010
I would suggest Concrete5 to my clients mainly because I have to skin the theme once and then my client will be able to visually modify so many things themselves (So they don’t have to come back an ask me for help on every little thing they want to change).
Vincent K.
June 14th, 2010
My clients want to feel confedent while editing content.
Dieter
June 14th, 2010
This realy is a good cms, and its not like the others. I realy like it and i’m using it for about 2 years now. I also made some add-ons for it (for free).
It would be nice to get some credits, i would like to try the commerce add-on for it.
Tony
June 14th, 2010
nice. i know this is a competition and all, but this post is still a great summary of concrete. really concise, with a good overview of the main strengths. I think concrete’s biggest strengths is that you can get a basic site up and running in minutes, and can just drop in packages to solve most common problems. i’ll pass on taking part in this competition though.
faydalihayat
June 14th, 2010
very good overview i like it
Valentin
June 14th, 2010
It has great in-context editing and a superior WYSIWYG editor than other CMS platforms.
Zlatan Halilovic
June 14th, 2010
It seems like a very user-friendly CMS, which I will definitely use in the future.
Re
June 14th, 2010
It looks incredibly straightforward for clients to use straight out of the box!
Adam
June 14th, 2010
I like Concrete5 because it is easy to understand for both developers and clients. Clients can simply click an area and edit it intuitively, whilst developers can be up and running in a half hour and have whatever functionality they need via add-ons or by building something themselves. In one word: Easy.
Arturo Linares
June 15th, 2010
The inline editing is a very useful feature, my clients will enjoy edit contents in concrete5; usability in general is great.
Razvan Juravle
June 15th, 2010
It’s very simple to use by clients and editing content is done in a few seconds by them ;)
Gaurav
June 15th, 2010
In-Context Editing, Advanced Permission Groups, Add-ons Tested for Quality and Security. Perfect.
sada
June 15th, 2010
I think concrete5 is a best secure platform and as well as more Add-ons to control our site easily….
Robert Hoppe
June 15th, 2010
concrete give me more security and performance than drupal or other stuff.
Melita
June 15th, 2010
I think this would be easier for my non-techy clients to do the content editing. I would really be happy to win this giveaway.
Phillip Makabe
June 15th, 2010
I had a look at some of the plugins that Concrete5 has and I must say, most of them can be very useful for my clients.
Giuseppe
June 15th, 2010
Good for user, excellent for developer!
Stelian
June 15th, 2010
I would use it, because it is soooo simple. Much more easier than Drupal WordPress or Joomla which require some knowledge.
Amit
June 15th, 2010
While WordPress, Drupal and Joomla can satisfy most of the needs of organization, simplicity is somewhere missing in these systems.
Sometimes, you just need a CMS that just works without all these bells and whistles which to be frank are not needed by Mom and Pop shops and even some bigger organizations.
The other reason to use concrete5 is that its Free and Open Source just like the previous 3 I discussed and the team behind the concrete5 platform provide hosted service as well which instantly makes it easy for non tech-savvy people to get started and running quickly!
One more reason as to why I’d give concrete5 is that you need to give new CMSes a chance before calling it quits!
The last reason I’d use is that the c5 community is a thriving one.
-Amit
Frank Bianchetti
June 15th, 2010
As a district webmaster for a public school system, I am always looking for a content management system that has high usability and low cost with easy maintenance. Concrete5 seems to be a good solution.
Fernandos
June 15th, 2010
I would use Concrete5 over Drupal because the benefit to effort ratio is brilliant. I would use Concrete5 over WordPress because I fear getting hacked, because WordPress sites are getting updated so often and I could get hacked just because I missed an upgrade.
Best regards
Fernandos
Troy Peterson
June 15th, 2010
What I’m most interested in is in-context editing.
Many of our clients can have a difficult time understanding the concepts behind a CMS, like categorization and other things. Having it in-context would definitely help.
Billy
June 15th, 2010
My only question is, when the year is up will I have to pay $300 bucks the next year? Well I guess I’d have $155 in credits so I’d have to pay about $145 bucks the next year. Still, that’s a good chunk of change when someone could use WordPress for free.
Philip Mastroianni
June 15th, 2010
Drupal: Cannot be used out of the box for deployment. Once I’ve added a dozen or more modules, the site is finally usable. It works great for developers to quickly update a site… not for clients who are not tech savvy.
Wordpress: More difficult to theme for, and works great as a blog. As a CMS it seems like it takes a lot more to get it to function as a website. The templating system is easy, but nowhere as easy as Concrete5
Joomla!: Honestly, I wished that it was easier to edit the site with Joomla!, but it’s very difficult to do even the most basic edits. Sometimes just to find the file in the admin can take 15 minutes. Updating menus is a pain. It’s easier than Drupal, but Drupal seems like it will work better for an enterprise or community site.
Why I use Concrete5: My clients want to be able to login to their site, and click edit. They want to change a few lines of text. Maybe update a picture. they don’t have photoshop, so the picnik integration makes the difference.
The community is solid, I ask a question and it gets answered. No attitude, just answers. The marketplace is growing, and though I think all of the bases are pretty well covered, they keep coming out with new modules that I know are great upsells. I don’t mind paying a little bit (15 -35) for most addons when I know I couldn’t write them in a few hours… Such a cost saver!
Its secure. It can be updated by clicking update (Drupal… you are horrible at this!)
I don’t need to use the word FTP with a client. That in itself may be enough. Also the versioning. If the client messes up a page, I can just version it back.
Wonderful system! Thanks Concrete5!
phenomena
June 15th, 2010
I’ve used lots of CMS, some of my clients think it’s intuitive and easy to work with cause of it’s wysiwyg style. Others told me, they love the features – for me it’s one of the best solutions , since it’s free, easy to handle on editing content and customizing blocks to clients needs. On my HTML/CSS based Websites it’s an absolute must have since it optimize my workflow if I have to edit contents for clients. It saves time , works great and with its big amount of customizable functionalities and the great supporting community it just makes fun developing project after project.
There is one more thing to note about: I allways run in trouble with joomla & Co. explaining the client why they can’t edit in-context as it was possible in my Flash-CMS. Also they often wasn’t willed to pay that much for something they can’t handle themselve in the end. So with that in mind I was able to satisfy the clients wishes for clarity, form and function concrete5 offers and all that for a price of 0. Since it cost nothing but installation time, the client saves money – this money most times will get spend on marketplace-addons made by the community (they wouldn’t have bought the addons if c5 would cost hundreds of Dollars…so it’s a triple win-win situation for client me and the community.
Michael Krasnow
June 15th, 2010
I currently use Concrete5 because of the active development, the clean code, the awesome community, how easy it is to extend functionality, how any client who can use Word can use Concrete5 with only extremely minor help, the security in Concrete5 is simple enough to be secure but advanced enough to be able to per user and per page permissions.
I use Concrete5 because its the best of all worlds!
Best,
Mike/Mnkras(on the C5 forums)
Ryan Vars
June 15th, 2010
I stumbled onto Concrete5 when trying to find a CMS that a non-english speaking, computer illiterate person could manage himself. Concrete5 is overwhelmingly powerful and mind boggling simple. Using Concrete5 I was able to create a site for such a person that requires regulars updates… and I don’t have to do them! Since then there has been no looking back. Amazing platform, great Forums, good marketplace, and easy theme customization for developers.
Bartek
June 16th, 2010
Easy to use, a lot of options, and it’s not so popular as for example Drupal, so the client will feel more personalized :) In this case, less popular, better efect :)This CMS is really nice.
Bartek
knico
June 16th, 2010
Although I’m a WordPress guy, sometimes a CMS like this is ideal for projects. A few days ago I lost a project because the client wanted to be able to edit the content in the way that concrete5 does. Concrete5 would have been ideal! If I only new!!
Dud34lfred
June 16th, 2010
I’m a freelancer and have a computer-repair, computer classes and personal website business. I alos do a little free consulting for NGO’s on the side. The concrete5 CMS would be perfect for setting up Websites easily for my clients, and for them to maintain and update easily. I am currently using WordPress, but Concrete5 seems to be far easier for the end user and the whole “testing plugins before releasing” is the best idea ever. It would take the need for me to solve plugin-related issues when my clients design to “ameliorate” their site by themselves.
For the NGO’s I actually do most of the maintaining of the couple of websites, and with Concrete5 I think I could considerably reduce my workload.
thanks for listening ;-)
Regards,
D.A.
Kev | Befall the Aftermath
June 16th, 2010
I would use it for my band’s website. It would allow the other less tech savvy band members to edit the pages, taking the work load off an otherwise very busy lead singer!
Darlinton
June 16th, 2010
Cause my clients are not geeks like me, they do not understand how to edit a content in others CMS, but concrete5 seems to put that info in their brains..
Heidi Olsen
June 16th, 2010
I just started using Concrete5 and I’m excited to offer it as a better content management solution for my clients. Getting to test out all the fun things Concrete5 has to offer will definitely help my ability to hype it up with confidence.
Yay for cutting down production time!
George Fehr
June 17th, 2010
I use concrete5 because it’s easy to use, but still very powerful and flexible.
Katie
June 17th, 2010
I’ve had clients manage to break their Drupal and WordPress installs. Anything that can minimize this sort of thing happening is a winner in my book.
Joelji
June 18th, 2010
Ease of use for Client’s with less technical knowledge, Quality (Tested, secure) Add-ons impress me for using concrete5. All the best Guys :-)
Galinos Giaglis
June 18th, 2010
Well it seems that Concrete5 is at least very honest. It talks straight to the developer and to the end consumer with its ease of use. It distinguishes clearly itself from what Drupal and Joomla offer. Anything that makes our clients’ life easier is definitely worth trying. Finally, I respect people and companies that do talk early on about security, which is nowadays a must.
Herna Silva
June 18th, 2010
For me the reason to use concrete5 is as simple as this: ease of use. The features are so powerful yet so easy to use and implement that anybody know what to do.
Thanks for the contest.
Stephanie Hider
June 19th, 2010
I would use concrete5 over other CMS choices because it functions as a website CMS (not a blog), is easy to develop/design for, my clients can (and do!) edit their own site once handed off to them and the community is top notch.
If your client is not technically inclined or web savvy but still wants to update their own site this is the choice hands down. Most backend admins scare a client to the point that they won’t update, this is not the case with this CMS.
Thanks for the article and contest!
Steph
Brendan C
June 20th, 2010
Concreate5 is more simple, end-user friendly, and powerful then other polular conten managing systems. Not having to deal with teaching your clients how to navigate and use the CMS is always nice.
Kishore Mylavarapu
June 20th, 2010
Context editing and add on feature are the most promising features …
Michele BC
June 21st, 2010
I’m looking for a CMS with advanced permission groups I can set up easily and let my users have at it. This could be a great match!
Hector Lee
June 21st, 2010
User interfaces are changing with the touch screen. It is only intuitive to be able to click on what you want and start editing, just like a touch screen, and not navigate through menus. Concrete5 throws the learning curve out the window and reduces the time needed to sit down with a client and teach them how to use wordpress.
Juan Mendoza
June 21st, 2010
I would use Concrete5 for made a better experience on a CMS for my customers, actually use Joomla & WordPress, but none can compare with the better back-end and user-friendly of Concrete5. Like a web developer we want better CMS more friendly and powerfull. It’s great it the managment of permission groups.