INSIGHTS Finding the right content management system (CMS) for you

A content management system (CMS) that can provide everything you need to run your site is essential. You need a CMS that’s reliable, well-established and easy to use, so you can convey your message to your users as quickly and easily as possible. When we build a site for a client we’ll evaluate their needs and use the CMS that’s best suited to their needs. One of our favourites is Concrete (formerly Concrete5), and here our dev team share their thoughts on why.

Ease of use

Concrete’s pièce de résistance is how easy it is to use. It has a drop and drag interface which clients love to build with; They just get it. Creating sections (or blocks) can be as easy as dragging your mouse. Unlike more complicated CMS’s like Umbraco or Drupal.

Highly flexible

The flexibility of Concrete means that there are very few limitations. If you dream it, it can be built. Concrete is built with flexibility right down to its core, which you will often find missing from other CMS’s. This means that fixes, updates and changes take less time and therefore cost you less. 

Open Source / Active Communities

What’s open-source? It’s software created by passionate developers across the world who’ve shared their code and made it available to use for free. So what does this mean to you? This means that the code has been battle-tested, sometimes on literally millions of websites, you get constantly updated code and, of course, there’s no additional cost to you.

Well Established / Experienced

Concrete has been around since 2003. Since its inception, the site has been updated and improved upon many, many times and due to its open-source nature, it’ll be improved upon many, many more times in future. Our developers have been using it for over 4 years and built a wide variety of websites with it. We’re even on the Concrete5 slack channel, so we can hear of any issues or updates as soon as they’re made available.

Security

Unlike some CMS’s, like Wordpress, which is well known to have security issues, Concrete is completely secure. We can even create new security workflows and integrate with third-parties like Auth0.

Concrete can manage sites both big and small, with simple or complex hosting; load-balanced and auto-scaling hosting, like with AWS or Azure. Below are some sites that benefit from using Concrete…

https://www.stanleygibbons.com/
https://www.whistl.co.uk/
https://www.sharps.co.uk/
https://www.ksaltd.co.uk/
https://www.rec.uk.com/
https://www.hunters.com/
https://www.hypnosbeds.com/uk
https://www.tracker.co.uk/
https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/
https://www.struttandparker.com/