you make sense, people always want everything for nothing they want high pay don't want to work want to catch fish don't want to buy a fishing pole that's the world we live in. but on the same had people don't like to feel like they are being tricked if you say something is free put behind that statement you have the option to buy bla bla bla well am going get back to making my site thanks Mr Maruna

I agree and this sounds like a great system, the only comment I have is that there should be more flexibility in the range of pricing. Would $1 or $5 really be untenable?

We're not the size of Apple so at that scale we'd be losing money on merchant fees.

Moreover good work and ongoing support go into the apps you can buy here, you get what you pay for.

best wishes,
-frz

totally agree with your point frz, the framework you guys have created is incredible for the price ;)

I, for certain, am glad that I can support the developers of this cms (and any other developers) by purchasing addon's (when I get to that stage, with my clients needs) and know that this CMS will continue to grow into something marvellous.

regards,

mmuller

could not have said it any better. Good job!


Jcolome

Gainesville, FL

Having just bought a Superfish Menu in what I think will be the first ever software purchase I have made, my tuppence worth is that you guys are doing a great job. I'm sure lots of us would like to live in a world where no one has to go without for lack of money, and where kudos comes not from what you have accumulated but from how creatively you use what you have. Until that time comes I'm just happy that my money is going to people that are providing an open and honest service to the community.

big thanks, Andy

The source code says '@license http://www.concrete5.org/license/ MIT License'. However the page on the URL shows a different license than MIT. What's up?

I find this model not only interesting, but also quite exciting as a potential means of making money from my hard work and contribution to the product.

BUT. From experience, people want to try an add-on before they're prepared to pay for it.

Is there plans to create a Try-Before-You-Buy staging area?

Yes - we're releasing a whitepaper on setting up demo servers so our 3rd party developers can do this better on their own.

Thank you, I look forward to reading that whitepaper.

Another question has raised it's head on this theme. How does Concrete5 deal with competition.

For example, I see that Concrete5 have created a Suckerfish add-on, and are selling it for $15.

Will my add-on that also provides support for the Suckerfish menu, but sells for $2 be listed in the marketplace?

The how-to on the demo has been released and is under Documentation > How-tos.

Yes, in general we approve competing add-ons if there is some value to both and they both work. You can see any number of image galleries in the marketplace.

We can't sell things for less than $15 because we're not Apple and able to negotiate merchant deals that cushy.

Thank you once again.

I missed the $15 restriction before, but I did eventually find it under http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/marketplace-submission-rules/ .

I notice the question posed by jasny a while back (in May) was never answered. In fact the license URL he points to appears to be completely different from what's commonly called an "MIT license."

Clarification, please?

I'm not sure which URL the post in may was referring to.

Here are all the legal documents around concrete5, and concrete5.org
http://www.concrete5.org/help/legal/

In short, the core and free add-ons are all MIT. The commercial add-ons are still open source, but you own your copy for one active website and can't resell it, even with modifications, without author approval.

Nothing is truly free so please, please make money and lots of it so you may keep the dream alive.

Two things, a comment and a question. First, my comment. Yep, the more people get for free, the more they want; the less they have to pay, the more they'll try to wring every last drop of sweat and blood out of you. Don't believe me? Hang around the WordPress support forums for awhile and soak up the sense of entitlement there heaped on a strictly volunteer community. If WP treated its plugin authors this way, maybe WP wouldn't have so many plugins, brilliant ones, that die on the vine from lack of interest or motivation to grow.

Now to my question. I'm a web designer who prefers to develop client sites on my own server then move then to their permanent home. If I have the client purchase the particular addon(s) desired, can they be moved or are they site-specific? This will be important to know if I plan to start developing c5 sites.

Thanks!

pixelita: The add-ons are sold on a single site license today. This means you can use a single copy of the license on an active/public website. If you need development stages of that website, that's fine. If you need to move the website around, that's fine.

If you connect your site to the community through the add functionality page in your dashboard it will create a project page here on concrete5.org for your site. That's tied to your site via an ID in your site's database, so as long as you're using the same database across all "copies" of the site, you're fine.

If you need to wipe your database, or if your site goes away and you want to use your add-on licenses somwhere else, you can release the licenses from projects and reassign them as well.

We're really not trying to get in the way with some annoying level of copy protection that a bunch of open source developers would be able to break anyway. We're trying to just show people how to do the right thing by tying support to your purchase + site information.

If you're deep into wordpress matters, you should also note that concrete5 is MIT license. All of the add-ons we sell here are covered under a single commercial open source add-on we wrote for simplicity sake, but if you want to make your own application that requires concrete5 and sell it on your own site in some other way (like Thesis) you're welcome to do so.

Here's more thoughts on that debacle and why the GPL isn't helping:
http://concretethestudio.com/?p=223

I found Concrete5 in a newsletter from HotScripts, and at first it looked like a great item for me to provide some of my clients who are on a budget, mainly volunteer fire departments, club, and other small non profit organizations. The spending money part of me would love to see it to be all free, but the web designer part of me that understands people have put a lot of time into these add-ons can relate to wanting to charge for them.

My personal thoughts on this however is that these items are priced kind of high for a single website use. Someone above mentioned if your site is generating revenue, then they person buying the addons should not mind spending more money. This may be true, but many people looking for open source scripts, are doing so because of a tight budget. I feel that there should be multiple licenses. Have an lower cost license available for personal and other non profit sites, and more expensive one if your site is making money, and another one for developers like me that would allow me to use it on multiple sites.

Totally agree with last post by "jtladue".

I look forward to being able to use add-ins for free, or at a lower cost, for first-time users (like me) who are trying to learn the concrete5 system. No harm to anyone if add-ins were available for a practice site, right? Once everything is working and the site is ready to transfer to a hosting account (for profit, of course... why most of us are here... then we gladly pay for all the add-ins required for each site. Costs are transferrable to our clients.

Franz, you're absolutely right! thank you and your team for your great work!

I agree with you 100%!

Yeah, addons are waaaay too high in price for what they are...

its interesting you say that immediately after posting a fawning testimonial about how great the core CMS is..

Wish everything could be free, sadly this isn't star trek.

I come at money from a stewardship understanding. I am way new to building my own site, but am excited about the potential offered in Concrete. I, for one, gladly pay the small fees for addins because I understand money as "negotiable you." I do my work by investing time in it. I am paid, which allows me to buy someone else's time investment. I have very little expertise at all this stuff, but can offer my expertise in other areas in exchange. The exchange medium is the bucks. Just not a huge issue to me; I am grateful for the time and love folks have put into doing the development here!

I do like the Developer license; seems to make sense to me to charge a significantly higher amount for the right to use the plugin on any site a developer creates. Just seems simpler. But then, I'm not a developer, I am a charitable fundraiser. Thanks for all you do!

problem i see with the dev license is that if its too expensive, devs will just create their own and screw the system. (and also not contribute addons- you'd be punishing the people that make the marketplace work- does that sound like fair?)

we now offer 5 pack licenses so developers can get a discount. We also will be having a special deal of the day before long to provide further discounts to our dedicated audience.

Franz,

As a fellow CEO, I can understand the value in a better life to all. What you've done really took a lot of thinking I am sure. You've made a terrific choice but with that choice came a surreal variance on what your original vision was. I'm where you used to be. I've invested tens of thousands into my own CMS project which is in dire needs of help. I just found you today and am very appreciative of that find.

Thank you,

Scott.

Scott, glad concrete5 is helping you.

I don't see our marketplace as a juge variance in where our thinking was in 2008 when we first went open source.

To be frank, in 2007 we were working for angel investors and big brands - so I cant really claim the beefiest of FOSS cred. I really think the idea of selling someone a car with the hood welded shut is prett skeezy. I have no moral quams with the fact that money exists and people sell software.

Surely theres a middle ground.

Hey Franz,
A BIG THANKS! to you and all those who work to provide Concrete5 to the world. This is THE best CMS product I have discovered (and I've worked with quite a few). The best part about it is the "ease of use" factor for the non-technical site owner that wants to self-edit content. The second best part is the pricing model. I hope it makes you enough money to motivate you and others on the team to continue to grow C5, far into the future.

I'm just getting up to speed in working with C5 and loving it more with each additional site I create. I still have a lot to learn but I hope to some day be an Add-On contributor and be able to help support people in the Community Forums like I've been helped. You've personally helped me with a number of questions getting started and I'm very thankful for that.

All the best to you and the C5 team!

Steve

I totally agree with the business model for concrete5. Hahah, its a shame Microsoft don't take it up. Then again i think i will stick with Ubuntu.

As a developer, I just want to renew the call for a developer license option that's not limited to a certain # (5 right now). I'm in the process of automizing my business as much as possible (including site installation/deployment) and I really don't want to have to manually order all these packs of plugins every 5th site. That's a bottleneck that I'm willing to pay more to eliminate.

Honestly, my thought when I saw the "5 pack" option was:

'That's still not addressing the root issue (which is eliminating the need to continually purchase plugins). Fine then, I'll just have make the plugins myself.'

And that's exactly what I'm doing now - remaking several of the premium plugins that already exist. Really, I wish I didn't have to, but automation of my business model is that important to me.

I would guess that I'm not the only developer thinking this way, so not having an "Unlimited-site Developer License" option is just causing these premium plugin developers to lose out on potential revenue.

Concerning the free/paid dynamic of Concrete5, I have several thoughts:

1. First and foremost, I'm very grateful for the core Concrete developers and this amazing tool that they've made available. When I found it, I thought it was too good to be true - exactly what I was looking for and had failed to find in the other CMSs (Wordpress, Drupal, etc.).

2. I think having both free and paid plugins is fine and cool.

3. That being said, when I browse the marketplace I can't help thinking that the balance is really off. That is, the amount of premium add-ons and the scope of those said add-ons is not very conducive to growing the community. So some developer whips out a block that that performs some little, simple function and there it goes on the mp for $15. There's so many premium plugins here that would be offered for free on another CMS. I think it gives the impression that this community is really short-sighted and desperate for cash.

Imagine going out and planting 1 corn plant and then when it comes to fruition, taking that one ear of corn and just eating it for dinner. That's it - that's the extent of your harvest. However, what makes sense to me is to take that one ear of corn and rather than consuming it, sowing those kernels out in the field. Now that one plant becomes a small plot next season. Do this for a while and soon you'll have a whole field to harvest from instead of just one plant.

The fact is that the Concrete5 community is relatively small, yet so many developers (in my opinion) are trying to squeeze pennies out its few members and choking its appeal and, in turn, the community's growth. What we should do is contribute more free add-ons to the community and try to limit the premium add-ons we offer to those that appeal to those who are actually motivated to pay for them (typically those who are using Concrete5 to make $$).

Actually, the corn illustration breaks down a little in that the target market (those being harvested) is still the community itself. I would love to see the community members helping eachother more in mutually and freely providing better tools that we could take and use in our own respective markets, rather than having such a cannibalistic business outlook. Would I benefit from this if developers did this? Of course! And so would those developers benefit from other developers' free contributions.

I know this kind of selfless, mutual help sounds communistic and tends to break down in reality due to one's tendency to put the individual above the community, but I for one (as my Concrete5 developing skills improve) plan on following the example of those who made this awesome CMS freely available.

I've read all the comments and I can see the arguments on both sides.

On the commercial side, I run my own company and I know what it means to need to earn to pay for food etc.

On the other, and assuming it does what I need it to do, then Concrete5 will be used to develop a community website for our Scout District and possibly one for my own Scout troop. We are a charity and have no funds to speak of.

Looked at on this basis, then frankly, the plugins are way over-priced compared to other CMSs. This diminishes Concrete5's value for our use.

Now this may not bother the Concrete5 community, but it must inevitably deter many people who would otherwise build sites in Concrete5.

Well Concrete5 is free and easily one of the best CMS's we've used. A design and development firm could potentially charge $100's or $1,000's to build a website integrated with C5, so I really don't see a couple of add-ons per project costing $15 each being an issue.

I don't mind paying $15 for something that saves me time and a feature I need. What I don't like is any product without a basic users manual.

Evidently, by the statements in this article and the comments written, Concrete5 is nothing more than a glorified ladder company. Don't get us wrong, the product is amazing and well put together, but the marketing strategy based on this article is extremely, wrong. A few statements that completely send us to a zone of failed confidence:

1. I want us to make our living off of selling software, not fixing it. ~ Everybody knows that 'fixing' is an ongoing process that will never end. If you don't want to fix it, you're better off not selling it, otherwise you're only screwing your customers.

2. You can make money at this. ~ Of course you can. Thousands of propaganda books are written every year about "how to get rich quick and make money on the internet". Is this concrete5's strategy? That's an epic fail into our pockets.

I've heard people say "Concrete5 is nice", when actually it's a community of developers who are trying to get in the money game like everybody else. We know another company that did this, called Magento. They started off with the same concept, made millions of dollars, and then screwed over all their smaller clients because it wasn't paying for their luxury lifestyles. Now, everyone hates them, they are paying for it, and bankruptcy is a constant table issue.

It's one thing to open a world for developers to sell their software. It's another thing to open a world for BAD developers to sell their software at ungodly prices and ruin your product and marketplace. $30 for a contact form??? $90 for a slider??? These are basic add-ons that take less than 10 minutes for any developer!

$15 per addon? Try around $30! $30 per addon not an issue? Send us your clients when they wake up screaming about simple functionality, after forking out $30 for 10 subpar addons and realizing they could have saved $300-$3500 by using WP, Joomla, Drupal, SimpleCMS, or any other CMS on the market.

CLOSING REMARK: First, If Concrete5 wants to be the best, don't ever mention "selling > fixing" again. Secondly, don't state the obvious about financial intention. Thirdly, marketplace evaluation and monitoring would probably be a good idea. Just a few notes from our perspective.

Oh yes, and get a manual together.

Wow. Okay so someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.. Let's see what I can do to address these concerns, if anything:

1) Manual - well Packt has a book on us now, we have a new editors guide section to our docs coming out. Writing manuals is hard work but it's happening slowly.

2) Selling > Fixing. There's two points I'd like to make here. I'm not interested in only making money by the hour. Sorry, but we were doing that just fine as a services shop a decade ago. It means you're always focused on the next client and not your core software. I'm not saying our marketplace model is the only good one, I'm just saying we've gotta make money somehow or concrete5 dies.
The other point that is important here is the possibility of forking the core. Frequently business types will ask us why we don't have concrete5:AwesomeEnterprise for $x,000 a year. Add a bunch of features for bigger organizations and make concrete5 as it is today the "free version". This is actually exactly what Magento did, and my belief is this is a dangerous road and tends make the team focus on the "good" version and abandon the throw-away free one.

3) We don't fix it. Uhh, I think you mistook my statement. We want nothing more than to continually improve the core and we get that software always has improvements to make. We're talking about how to pay for them, not if we're going to do them.

4) Ladder thing. I really don't know what you're talking about there. We're not selling anything fake, we're not taking advantage of anyone, we gave away a great free product and now we're asking you to pay for some of the optional extras. You don't want em? Cool enuf, don't buy them. Enjoy the free core that is by your own admission "amazing." Since it only takes you 10 minutes to write an add-on, why are you even spending the time making this post?

5) Magento. Well, I'm not so sure I agree with that one... Magento has a marketplace but they don't mange anything in there and sales are all direct through 3rd parties. Its a forwarding directory at best. It's obviously not a revenue stream for them. They also went down the road of enterprise version like I mentioned above. They also raised a lot of VC (around 40m I believe) and they are owned by the same crew that owns paypal at this point. I'm sure they have their troubles, but what they've done and what we're doing is pretty completely different.

6) Marketplace Quality. Well we do have a pretty detailed review process, run by the community, and our CTO reviews each and every add-on that is approved personally. Of course there's stuff of different qualities in there, but everything works and everything does what it says, which frankly is a lot more than you get out of just about any other open source extensions directory. We also have built and monitor a support system so you can get help on add-ons you purchase, and yes sometime we do pull add-ons for lack of support or because they're not working as well as they did with earlier versions. The fact that you suggest we should have some evaluation and monitoring when we totally do leads me to believe you might be jumping to conclusions here.

7) Price. There's a lot of stuff that's free. There's a lot of stuff that's $15. There's some stuff that's hundreds. Today there's nothing in the thousands.. From my prospective, that's pretty cheap when it comes to software that real businesses use. I don't care about blogs. The idea that you could build any add-on in 10 minutes is laughable. I don't want to be crass here, but common man. We wrote the thing and it takes us more than 10 minutes to build an add-on. Comments like this make this feel more like a rant than a well thought out argument for some path we didn't take.

Regardless, thanks for sharing and I hope the free core is something you and your clients can enjoy using. If the marketplace concept rubs you the wrong way, don't participate. We will still use what revenue we generate there to improve the core.

-frz
ceo.

Don't listen to the haters! They know not what they speak :) The value of having addons that are supported and also WORK without a ton of tweaking and debugging is huge and your prices are more than fair.

Drupal sucks balls! Their logo reminds me of a tear drop from what I imagine are all the developers crying over how convoluted and retarded the whole thing is. Wordpress may be cool... but whenever I show a client who already owns a Wordpress site Concrete5 they like c5 better instantly. I do like modx :) but still way too complicated for my average client and the free addons are hit or miss and usually required loads of tweaking / debugging.

Although there are a few third party add-ons that are sorta over priced for what you get but I only say that because I know I could probably build the same thing... not in 10 minutes that's a joke, but for someone who doesn't feel comfortable aka the client, the money is well worth it. There are loads of good free stuff that I can make money on and I do believe you guys deserve money and have gone about it in the best way possible.

When everything is free it seems like everything becomes a hack job and you're right no love results. The few saints who do make quality free stuff don't really get compensated for the headache of dealing with peoples questions, issues, bugs, whatever so I'm all for investing in the talent.

The karma thing is awesome! A great incentive to help each other, nothing lamer than a forum that is full of stressed out people who feel like they don't have any time for anyone but themselves.

Overall, people don't remember what you say... or what you do... they only remember how you make them feel. You and your team have created a great vibe here at concrete5.org and a great vibe using your free cms!

When you build a house you have to buy materials... why are developers not willing to buy add-ons? Besides our tools we use i.e. computer & software what are the other costs are people incurring that make purchasing an add-on too expensive? Besides, web work takes a lot of time, if I can buy an add-on for $30-100 bucks, but it saves me 20-50 hours of development time... do the math! no brainer.

Come on people, stop thinking you can't afford anything... that's just going to make it harder for you. It's called the law of attraction and it's real. The more you focus on the wackness the more wackness you get... stop it. Instead of pointing out problems, how about you contribute to the solution. Otherwise, I'm afraid you're only contributing to your own bad karma. (with all due respect)

-Ao

frz, Maybe the audition for comment was a little bit forward "from the wrong side of the bed", lol, but you explained and detailed the concerns into a wonderful progressive. Thank you, despite any unintentional pessimism. :)

MrNiceGaius, Some of your comment can be related to an adolescent bias from a struggling 'designer'. We've seen this a lot in the past 22 years... it's nothing new.

Karma mods (off topic, but why not) have no purpose except keeping a cliche of close-minded mice trapped in a bubble. We have seen communities stretch to hundreds, add karma, and end up failing with less than 10 users. Why? Because in reality, if you give a kid a button who fails to comprehend constructive criticism and professional opinion, he's going to click it. Personal opinion vs Professional criticism = failure.

frz, again. Thanks!

happy to clarify.

Just for any brave soul who is reading these comments, let me be clear. This decision was made years ago and it's working well. I don't want to close this guestbook as I think that sends the wrong message, but I'm also not eager to see it turn into a forum of heated debate.

Different people have different needs and desires. Clearly MrNiceGaius really connects with the Karma system at concrete5.org, while dravekx has had some other personal experience with a karma system somewhere that didn't work for him. Similarly, some people find our most expensive add-ons laughably cheap, some find them expensive, and some wouldn't spend a dime of their hard earned money on software, ever. Who are any of us to say the other one is wrong?

I am always open to thoughtful discussion around business models for open source companies, as I now have a fair amount of exposure to the challenges and I like a good philosophical debate. The best place to start that is in the Chit-Chat forum at this point. It's certainly possible we will explore additional ways to produce revenue, but the Marketplace is always going to exist here. You can buy commercial add-ons for every other CMS (including Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla!) we just took the extra effort to have a marketplace with some moderation, auto-installation, and support mechanisms built in..

Moving right along...

C5 add-on pricing certainly does not appeal to everyone, but make no mistake nothing is free. Any CMS will take time to setup and work with. $15 may be steep when compared to, say Apples app store, but in the smaller scale of the real world... programming is expensive. I work for a web dev company and we charge $115/hour for services. So $15 would cover about 10 minutes of my time so Id say the blocks are not unreasonably priced at all.

Other CMSs may have this/that/other feature out of the box, but c5 doesn't aim to be a swiss army knife out of the box. It aims to be an amazing platform for editing web pages and content. For that and some other things it is amazing. If you need an uber blog maybe wordpress is the answer for you.

The project leaders had to make some choices that would enable them to continue the project. Would folks prefer C5 die due to lack or realistic business model?

Personally, I would like Concrete to successful. What is successful? Good up to date core code that is being worked on actively for improvements and fixes, easy install, easy updates.

Special features and addons are the price we pay for this free tool. I do not mind paying for the addons and I've found the tools for managing those addon licenses acceptable.

I picked Concrete CMS because the project needed a robust set of features, I am not a heavy duty programmer, and the organization had limited funds. It was nevertheless a significant amount of volunteer learning and work for me to implement. Concrete plus several addons meet the needs very nicely.

Unfortunately the organization decided not to use the fully developed site, choosing to have a crippled site and complete control instead, even though they had edit access! I was astounded. I have hopes that this political situation with change sometime and the structure of what I set up can be revived. In any case, I now know Concrete sufficiently to use it again and would recommend it to others!

A note about addons, I know that Concrete management reviews all addons before introducing to the marketplace. Sometime there are gliches which are not discovered until later. I've noticed how helpful and responsive the developers are and hopefully this will continue because that is the foundation of the marketplace, a key element in earning the $$ needed to maintain the core.

Therefore the Concrete team has to have their head in BOTH sides of the business, the Core and the Addon Marketplace. This is a tall order, perhaps requiring similar skills but different focus. I wish Concrete every success.

It all makes sense.
The $15 minimum.
The often $100+ dollar price tags.
Every bit of this model is absolutely logical.

Why do web site builders need plugins for their Concrete5 installations? Because they need to do something that is outside of the scope of responsibility of the core product. Concrete is obviously intended to be what you make of it. You piece it together and define your site paradigm. You can make it whatever you want it to be, until the C5 team decides to make that decision for you, then you'd be up the creek. So instead they do not lock you in to anything, but give you the flexibility that you need to be creative and don't force anything into the core product that shouldn't be there. If you have issues with creativity, coding ability, or maybe just time... those are your responsibilities. They are happy to solve some of the most commonly encountered problems for those that need them solved.

If you take an honest look at the pricing then you will quickly see how reasonable their numbers are. How long would it take you to implement the solution provided in a $50 plugin? One hour, two, a day? If you are building the site for yourself then you have the ability to make time to solve the challenge on your own, if you can't in this framework then you probably just don't have the skills and should pay for implementation help anyway. If you are building the site for a client then they would be paying you for the time spent. Roll the price of the plugin into your implementation bill. You don't make that money that you have to charge, but you also didn't spend the time on the feature that you had to have.

I didn't feel like paying $15 for a superfish menu. That code was available for free elsewhere, all I needed to do was plug it in. Of course, grabbing the latest code, figuring out the best way to roll it together, then tweaking it to be what I wanted and testing it... all that took a couple of hours. In the end I had about the same thing that the plugin would have given me, except I spent 2 hrs of development time. $20/hr is about the cheapest you could possibly ever find even a high-school geek to program for. Even at that rate a $15 implementation cost beats $40 by better than 50%.

Take complex and more expensive plugins like eCommerce or Domain mapping for example. Performing those tasks yourself would likely end up taking far more billable hours than the Price-tag even approaches, especially going through a QA process.

They spend a lot of time doing things the right way here, and keeping it right. They spend even more time filling niche needs. They should be paid like any other developers for their time. Especially when they provide an option for skipping through critical taks that may be necessary to a profitable outcome on your project.

I think you'll find that by buying these man-hours you are saving far more than the price tags have you thinking. These aren't songs on iTunes, they really do provide lasting functional value. If they make you money at all then they are worth it.

While I wouldn't buy a superfish menu, I would certainly buy the eCommerce package if I needed it. Each developer will have his own requirements or efficiency threshold, but try matching man-hour costs against the the prices on these plugins. I haven't seen one yet that wouldn't end up being worth it.

Much gratitude to all of the C5 devs. You make my life easier and more fun :)

I think people have come to a conclusion that a person not doing a physical labor job, is some how deserving less or that their contributions are some how sub par, Labor is labor. Labor of love like what I see with concrete5 CMS, I will tell you something on a student budget this is awesome no matter what. The drawback is there is no draw back as from what I can see. So stop before you say something that you know better for saying here or in any comments. Think, how much have you done for your community for free or other wise.

Those complaining about $15-50 modules have been spoiled by wordpress it seems. I won't dog them out because I use wordpress as well for my blog. Of course, many of those WP plugins have huge security holes, in fact - there are some that are built specifically with that purpose in mind, so free isn't always the best choice in every instance.

I also have the great displeasure of working with DotNetNuke, Microsoft's free CMS (though they do offer a paid version with support now), and can tell you that C5's module prices are very reasonable in comparison. Like someone else has mentioned, there is nothing stopping you from developing and implementing your own solution if you want some special functionality.

Where Concrete5 shines above the rest is in how clean the backend code is. This is a huge help for anyone trying to optimize a website for search engines. Wordpress is better than most, but doesn't hold a candle to C5. DNN and Joomla? laughable out of the box, without having to install additional costly modules and hours of tweaking.

I don't think any CMS is going to a perfect solution for everyone, but I'm really liking what I see so far...

I wanted to thank you for the candid hilarity of your final paragraph, Franz Maruna, i.e.,


So let's get to it. A website should be as easy to use as a pen and paper. That's doesn't mean it's evil if we can actually make a living at this too. Does it?


May I add that using a, or this question at the end to make your point really packs a wallop of a punch because of its almost entirely (apparently) humble tone--really almost prepubescent in its quivering befuddlement. (Were you about to break into tears, Franz (if I may), upon, "Does it?" Its (apparent) honesty and humility caught me off guard.)

Thank you again for the (perhaps unintended) hilarity. I do appreciate it, and I appreciate the evident sincerity of your query, as though perhaps you yourself are not sure whether or not "making a buck" "at it" is indeed "evil," or not.

Matt B.

Ha!

Thanks for your kind words. My experience has been that hard problems are best discussed tongue firmly in cheek and ears wide open. I think you'll find the tone of our community pretty approachable, and the CMS itself solidly constructed but with a hint of whimsy here and there.

Thank you!

Well...
Most people here, concern about paid addons,
while they don't offer any software, services or ANYTHING for free...
Developers work hard to make these addons. It's their work...
When something is free, it's usually someone's hobby...
But these addons, are professional... They are WORK.
I don't concern about paid addons and themes, you get what you pay for.

Stelios. P,
xExit Networks Administrator

As a director of product strategy for the 3rd largest software company in the world I have a little bit of experience with building, selling and supporting software. I basically work for a non-profit organization in my spare time. I have some very basic web skills so I offered to build and maintain the web site for free.

The site I'm running right now is based on Joomla and I'm not happy with it. It's been a maintenance nightmare from the get-go. Plus we got hacked recently through one of the plug-ins so I decided if we're going to do more things like put up a "store" then it was time to switch.

After doing a lot of research and playing with a bunch of different CMS and website builders I selected Concrete5. It's been an absolutely joy to work with. The 100's of hours I spent customizing the bleep out of Joomla I could do in minutes with Concrete5. What's been challenging is trying to explain to the management team why we have to pay for add-ons with the "new system" when we didn't with the Joomla one.

To me it's a no brainer. It's the basic adage of you-get-what-you-pay-for. The free Joomla modules/plug-ins have been so crappy that to spend $30 - $50 for software that is professionally written, works and is supported isn't open for argument. Are there free plug-ins for Joomla that work great? Yes. Are there overpriced add-ons for Concrete5 that suck? Yes. But by and large these are exceptions and not the rule.

Finally, per my opening comment, my billing rate for 1 hour of my time far exceeds the cost of the software in the Marketplace. I'd rather spend a little money than spend a lot of time building it myself. Simple business equation. Keep up the great work!

Alexander

Wow, if someone from Oracle cares to praise Concrete5 it must be a seriously good solution ! Kudos Alexander.

Getting back to the title of this somewhat old post, "what does free mean" ? Well, Concrete5 is as free as free can be, and there is a ton of very useful addons that would cover the needs of anyone, for free.

Now if you want some specific features, for instance eCommerce, you'd have to pay a few bucks. From the in-house full featured solution at $125 to the simpler ecommerce express at $35, it's your call.

And if that proves too much for an ecommerce website, clearly the investor (read : website owner) needs to move to another business : fruit picking in Sunny Cal, or pizza delivering.

After 3 years with Concrete5 and well over 50 websites built with it for various industries and NGOs, our clients response is always the same : "excellent product" or "we love it". Followed by a "thank you".

I do not recall having received that much praise for Joomla, Mambo (yes those were the times) or Magento or TomatoCart or whatever.

Concrete5 is a good and versatile solution, period. And version 5.5 is awesome.

A while back, I found Concrete5 I was sick of Joomla and so was everyone else. Wordpress, just wasnt powerful enough. Because I run the largest Scout Forum in the UK www.escouts.org.uk , most of UK Scouting has heard of Concrete5, and many many Scout sites have sprung up powered by Concrete5.

I cant thank you all enough for Concrete5, it has benefited UK Scouting hugely. I have just been asked to install 5 more Scout sites!!

We find Concrete5 very easy to use, but very powerful.

As for the charging for some of the add-ons, we happily pay for the ones we need they are a bargin. I'm glad you can eat, and Concrete5 continues to be developed and extended.

Keep Up the excellent work

Richard Fairbairn

To the comment "people want to catch fish but not buy a fishing pole" some people don't have money for a fishing pole so they can't buy one but their stomach is still screaming for that fish regardless. And as for people wanting high pay and not wanting to work, I personally don't know anyone like that. I do know two people who train their soon to be managers instead of them getting the job themselves. And as for free, if you say something is free but it actually costs money then you are lying plain and simple. If you want people to buy it but think the prices of your merchandise is pretty cheap then the least you could do is add an asterisk behind it so people know that you don't actually mean free of any charge whatsoever otherwise, like I said before, your just lying and that is not a good business practice.

A man, (or woman), is only as good as his, (or her), word.

I agree.

Happily, the core CMS is free as free gets. Free in cost, free in terms of unlimited use. Free to everyone, non-profit and big corporation alike. That's well over half a million lines of code, which does a whole lot more than most of our competition.

Concrete5 is free, and there's no reason you have to pay a dime to use it.
There are free ways to integrate paypal, so if you want to build a simple store you can do that for free as well.

I reject the idea that because there's a very visible marketplace of add-ons and themes, half of which cost something, that we are somehow con men and liars. The core is free, there are other things within the ecosystem that are not free. Its up to you to decide what you want and how you want to spend your time. We're not giving away some crippled application with an upsell, and we're not hiding the fact that things cost money.