Need advice
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Hello,
I am web manager/webmaster for a fairly large corporate website.
We currently use SiteCore commercial CMS, and I hate it and we are changing (far to many reasons to list, but it sucks for us). While searching for a new system. I had meetings with developers of the the big 3- Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal, and in my searching, C5 kept coming up as a great system. I am not a developer or programmer, so I have contacted some developers designers who specialize in C5.
After 10 minutes of our meeting, I was sold on C5. It had so much built into its core, which Joomla or WordPress could probably do after the right add ons were added and tweaked.
I love how easy it will be for my non tech savy web editors to update/create information.
Before I decide I have some valid worries in my organization:
1) What if C5 community loses interest and C5 development just sort of dies. It is not one of the largest communities yet. What is your opinion on this worry?
2) How does it actually work (Open source CMS)- How are improvements made to the core for new releases. Who actually adds to the core. Who approves and implements and what happens if this person or people go in a different direction.
4) Do upgrades to new versions of C5 happen pretty easily if we have a lot of customization done. (Big problem for us in SiteCore)
3) What happens if Andrew and/or Franz suddenly stop their involvement in C5, is there a strong enough community to keep developing?
4) Can C5 handle a site in 11 language variations, where we can easily share media images/objects throughout the site.
In all, there are problably about 300-500 web pages for each language. We also have 6 separate extranets and one Intranet. We may also have a couple separate microsites, using different design templates for our special products. Is this too much for one installation of C5. We also have different domains for almost all our sites.
5) Is it possible to set up C5 so if I upload a PDF to a certain set, then that PDF will automatically get added as a link to a certain page in our site. I am interested in alot of features like this, so alot of stuff just gets automated after being uploaded. The same goes for a big Image gallery. (Maybe I would give the media items a Title and description or something similar, and that data would show up on the site along with a link to the media item). Just wondering if C5 has been thoguht out in a way so this kind of thing can be handled.
5) With this many sites in the backend, will the backend be fast enough? SiteCores backend sucks.
6) Can I limit web editors to only be able to see their site when they log in.
7) Here are the specs of the dedicated server we have been recommended, any comments if the specs are good for my sites.
HP ProLiant DL380 G7, 18Gb RAM, 4 x 300Gb SAS HDD - running Solaris OS
Regards,
Scott
I am web manager/webmaster for a fairly large corporate website.
We currently use SiteCore commercial CMS, and I hate it and we are changing (far to many reasons to list, but it sucks for us). While searching for a new system. I had meetings with developers of the the big 3- Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal, and in my searching, C5 kept coming up as a great system. I am not a developer or programmer, so I have contacted some developers designers who specialize in C5.
After 10 minutes of our meeting, I was sold on C5. It had so much built into its core, which Joomla or WordPress could probably do after the right add ons were added and tweaked.
I love how easy it will be for my non tech savy web editors to update/create information.
Before I decide I have some valid worries in my organization:
1) What if C5 community loses interest and C5 development just sort of dies. It is not one of the largest communities yet. What is your opinion on this worry?
2) How does it actually work (Open source CMS)- How are improvements made to the core for new releases. Who actually adds to the core. Who approves and implements and what happens if this person or people go in a different direction.
4) Do upgrades to new versions of C5 happen pretty easily if we have a lot of customization done. (Big problem for us in SiteCore)
3) What happens if Andrew and/or Franz suddenly stop their involvement in C5, is there a strong enough community to keep developing?
4) Can C5 handle a site in 11 language variations, where we can easily share media images/objects throughout the site.
In all, there are problably about 300-500 web pages for each language. We also have 6 separate extranets and one Intranet. We may also have a couple separate microsites, using different design templates for our special products. Is this too much for one installation of C5. We also have different domains for almost all our sites.
5) Is it possible to set up C5 so if I upload a PDF to a certain set, then that PDF will automatically get added as a link to a certain page in our site. I am interested in alot of features like this, so alot of stuff just gets automated after being uploaded. The same goes for a big Image gallery. (Maybe I would give the media items a Title and description or something similar, and that data would show up on the site along with a link to the media item). Just wondering if C5 has been thoguht out in a way so this kind of thing can be handled.
5) With this many sites in the backend, will the backend be fast enough? SiteCores backend sucks.
6) Can I limit web editors to only be able to see their site when they log in.
7) Here are the specs of the dedicated server we have been recommended, any comments if the specs are good for my sites.
HP ProLiant DL380 G7, 18Gb RAM, 4 x 300Gb SAS HDD - running Solaris OS
Regards,
Scott
C5 can definitely handle larger scale sites, with pretty decent speed. seehttp://pimasheriff.org/ &http://whatcom.ctc.edu/ as 300-600 page site examples.
The jobs board here is great and very responsive. The developers can quote you on doing anything you want. For the people that have been digging into C5 for a while, there's almost nothing you "can't" do.
With the downloads pdf...there are several addons that would meet this need, and if they don't quite work the way you want, but are close, you can pay someone to modify it.
The biggest complaint I see is "paid addons". As I have 20+ products that I sell, I'm obviously in the paid is good camp :-).
But the fact of the matter is...if for some reason your blog or event's calendar botch up, you simply come to my support area...and then it's my problem to figure it out. In my mind...this is WELL worth the one time fee of $20 - $50 you pay. sooo....cheap insurance? lol You get good products with good people standing behind them.
best
ChadStrat
The jobs board here is great and very responsive. The developers can quote you on doing anything you want. For the people that have been digging into C5 for a while, there's almost nothing you "can't" do.
With the downloads pdf...there are several addons that would meet this need, and if they don't quite work the way you want, but are close, you can pay someone to modify it.
The biggest complaint I see is "paid addons". As I have 20+ products that I sell, I'm obviously in the paid is good camp :-).
But the fact of the matter is...if for some reason your blog or event's calendar botch up, you simply come to my support area...and then it's my problem to figure it out. In my mind...this is WELL worth the one time fee of $20 - $50 you pay. sooo....cheap insurance? lol You get good products with good people standing behind them.
best
ChadStrat
As developers become more familiar with the core, someone could literally take the core and work on it.
If a big app is written correctly concrete5 will be able to to be upgraded essentially seamlessly assuming the developer(s) stick to the API.
Big Sites? Sure..I am doing work for one of the largest Zoological Parks in the US.
Yes to both of your "5"s :)
If you need a developer let me know.
-Scott
If a big app is written correctly concrete5 will be able to to be upgraded essentially seamlessly assuming the developer(s) stick to the API.
Big Sites? Sure..I am doing work for one of the largest Zoological Parks in the US.
Yes to both of your "5"s :)
If you need a developer let me know.
-Scott
2)the way it works is that concrete5 has a github repo, from which you can submit pull requests, fork it, etc. This was a recent change, and already there have been several submissions that have been incorporated, whether its teaks for wc3 or it its adding classes, fixing bugs, etc. Andrew is the one that imporves and implements it into the c5 repo, but if for some reason he stopped developing you could always look at a for.
3) core updates are really easy, if you've built your site right. Basically whats in the root/concrete folder gets overridden, but all the folders there have corresponding folders in the top level that you can override files with (like if you have a file in root/concrete/elements/blah.php you can override it in root/elements/blah.php) and the top level does not get overridden.
4)Multiple Languages are possible with c5, but its a bit clunky. There are several tutorials about working with multiple sites.
5) I believe that if you added a file set then new additions to it would show up, but I'm not positive.
6)c5s backend is a bit slow, but its still relatively fast.
7) haven't built with multiple sites on a central install, so don't know.