Concrete5
Hosting
Install Concrete5 in one click on our fast, reliable UK web hosting. Fully managed with free SSL, daily backups, and dedicated expert support.
What is Concrete5?
Concrete CMS, still widely known by its earlier name Concrete5, is an open-source content management system written in PHP and licensed under the MIT licence. It has been in active development since 2003 and is now maintained by a US-based team alongside an international community of contributors and integrators.
Its defining feature is in-context editing. Editors hit edit, click directly on the part of the page they want to change, and update content where it appears rather than navigating a separate admin form. Page-level permissions, workflow approvals, and version history are part of the core, which makes it well suited to organisations with non-technical content owners.
Concrete CMS runs on a standard LAMP or LEMP stack with PHP 8.1 or higher and MySQL or MariaDB. It extends through themes and add-ons via the official marketplace, and the source is open for developers who need to customise behaviour or build bespoke blocks.
365i’s editorial review of Concrete5
Concrete CMS, which most of us still call Concrete5, is the platform I quietly recommend when an editor tells me they hate WordPress. The vendor description above explains what it is. What I want to tell you is who it actually suits, because that is where the choice gets interesting.
I see it picked most often for marketing sites where the day-to-day editor is not technical and never will be. Charities, schools, professional bodies, family-run businesses where the receptionist updates the homepage on a Tuesday morning. WordPress with a page builder can do this, but Concrete CMS does it natively and with less fragility. Editors click on the bit of the page they want to change, change it, and save. There is no separate admin screen for most edits. That alone reduces support tickets in a way I did not expect when we first started hosting it.
"In-context editing is the single best argument for Concrete CMS. Hand a brochure site to a non-technical editor and watch the support load drop. The marketplace is small, but the core is solid."
Mark McNeece, Founder, 365i Hosting
What works well: in-context editing is the standout, but the workflow engine, page-level permissions, and built-in version history are equally important once you have more than one editor. The block model is sensible. Themes are properly templated. The default text editor is more capable than WordPress's classic TinyMCE but less overwhelming than Gutenberg. Sites feel calm to edit, which is praise I do not give lightly.
What's annoying: the marketplace is small. WordPress has tens of thousands of plugins. Concrete CMS has hundreds, mostly paid, mostly competent but not always actively maintained. If you need a niche integration (a particular CRM connector, a specific shipping rate calculator), check it exists before you commit. Major version upgrades have historically been a careful affair, particularly the move from version 8 to version 9, which broke a number of older themes and add-ons. Always stage these.
Hosting-stack notes from our experience: Concrete CMS likes PHP memory at 256 MB or higher, runs comfortably on our standard web hosting plan, and benefits noticeably from Redis if you turn on full-page cache. The image manipulation extension matters because the platform does a lot of on-the-fly thumbnail work. Cron should run every minute for the marketing automation and scheduled-page features to behave properly.
If you are choosing a CMS for a brochure site that a non-technical team will edit weekly, Concrete CMS is worth a serious look against WordPress. If you need the WordPress plugin marketplace, the WooCommerce stack, or community familiarity at the agency level, stick with WordPress. Tools should fit teams, not the other way round.
Why Host Concrete5 with 365i?
Our web hosting is built for PHP applications like Concrete5. Every plan includes everything you need to launch and grow.
One-Click Installation
Install Concrete5 with a single click from your control panel. No manual configuration, no FTP uploads, no database setup.
Free SSL Certificate
Every site gets a free SSL certificate, automatically configured and renewed. Keep your Concrete5 installation secure from day one.
99.9% Uptime Guarantee
Enterprise-grade data centres in the UK, US & Asia with redundant power, cooling, and network connectivity. Backed by our uptime SLA.
Daily Backups
Automatic daily backups with easy one-click restore. Your Concrete5 data is always safe and recoverable.
7-Day Expert Support
UK-based hosting specialists available 7 days a week including evenings, weekends, and bank holidays. Real people, real help.
SSD Storage
All plans run on fast SSD storage for snappy page loads and responsive admin panels. Concrete5 performs at its best.
Where Concrete5 Fits
Best for
Brochure and marketing sites for charities, schools, professional bodies, and SMEs where day-to-day editing falls to non-technical staff. The in-context editor cuts support tickets noticeably for content owners who never quite got on with WordPress dashboards. Multi-editor sites benefit from native workflow approvals and page-level permissions. Runs comfortably on our standard web hosting plan with PHP memory at 256 MB and Redis enabled for caching.
Watch for
The add-on marketplace is a fraction the size of WordPress, so check that any niche integration you need (CRM connectors, specific payment gateways, particular form processors) actually exists and is actively maintained before you commit. Major version upgrades, particularly version 8 to version 9, broke a number of older themes and we always stage these. Agency familiarity is lower than WordPress, which can affect ongoing support if your developer leaves.
Web Hosting for Concrete5
Get Concrete5 up and running in minutes with our fast, reliable web hosting. Every plan includes one-click installation, free SSL, UK, US & Asia data centres, and dedicated expert support.
- 1 website
- 10 GB SSD storage
- Free SSL certificate
- 80+ 1-click installs
- Unlimited LVE resources
- Autoscaling cloud platform
- UK, US & Asia data centres
- 5 websites
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Free SSL certificate
- 80+ 1-click installs
- CDN included
- Unlimited LVE resources
- Autoscaling cloud platform
- UK, US & Asia data centres
- 10 websites
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Free SSL certificate
- 80+ 1-click installs
- CDN included
- Timeline Backup/Restore
- Unlimited LVE resources
- Autoscaling cloud platform
- UK, US & Asia data centres
- Priority support
All prices exclude VAT. No contract, cancel any time.
Need More Power for Concrete5?
For high-traffic sites, large catalogues, or mission-critical deployments, our fully managed cloud servers give Concrete5 dedicated resources and enterprise-grade performance.
- Dedicated CPU, RAM & SSD storage
- 99.99% uptime SLA
- Fully managed by our team
- Choose 365i, AWS, or Google Cloud
Servers
Servers
Servers
A Concrete5 case from our books
A Yorkshire-based independent school with around 750 pupils came to us three years ago after their existing WordPress site had become unmanageable for the marketing officer. She was responsible for weekly updates across a 90-page site and was raising support tickets almost daily for issues she did not have words for. We rebuilt the site on Concrete CMS on our standard web hosting plan, configured Redis for full-page caching, raised PHP memory to 384 MB, and set up workflow approvals so the head's office could sign off any change to fees pages before it went live. Editor-side support tickets dropped from roughly twelve a month to fewer than two. Time-to-publish for a typical news post fell from around twenty minutes to under five.
What we would tell anyone in the same spot: a CMS that fits the editor will save you more in support time than any plugin will save you in features.
Anonymised at the client's request. Industry, scale, and timeline preserved.
What we look for in cms hosting
A content management system is a long-term tenant on your hosting, not a quick install. We tune for what CMSs actually do day to day: an opcache configured to survive plugin and theme upgrades, PHP memory at 256MB or higher because page builders chew through it, daily backups that include the uploads directory and not just the database, and free SSL enforced from day one. We also keep an honest opinion about which CMS suits which site and will tell you when something would run better elsewhere.
Concrete5 Hosting FAQ
Common questions we hear from people running Concrete5 on our hosting.
Concrete CMS 9 needs PHP 8.1 or higher, MySQL 5.7 or MariaDB 10.3 or higher, and the standard PHP extensions for cURL, GD or Imagick, JSON, MBString, OpenSSL, XML, and Zip. The image manipulation extension matters because the platform does a lot of on-the-fly thumbnail work. Our web hosting plans ship with PHP 8.3 and the right extensions enabled, so you can install and start editing in minutes.
Concrete CMS is a one-click install on our web hosting plans. From the My365i control panel, open Software Installer, search for Concrete CMS or Concrete5, choose the domain, and click Install. The installer creates the database, sets the file permissions, and walks you through the initial site setup wizard. You can pick a starter theme, set the admin user, and start adding pages straight away.
For most marketing and brochure sites, our standard web hosting plan is fine. Concrete CMS is lighter than WordPress on a bloated plugin stack and runs comfortably at typical SME traffic levels. If you are running a high-traffic site (over 50,000 monthly visitors), serving a lot of images, or running heavy marketing automation, a small managed cloud server gives you dedicated resources and predictable performance. Tell us your traffic numbers and we will recommend the right tier.
Our support covers the hosting platform: PHP and MySQL tuning, SSL, backups, cron, Redis, and migrations. For Concrete CMS application work (custom block development, theme work, complex permissions setup) we will help where we can but we are not your Concrete CMS developer. The PortlandLabs team and a network of community integrators offer paid application work, and we are happy to recommend integrators we have worked with.
Yes, free of charge on any of our hosting plans. We move the Concrete CMS files, the database, the application directory, and any custom themes or add-ons. Most migrations finish within a working day with no downtime. We run the new install on a staging URL first so you can test the editor experience, confirm any custom blocks work correctly, and check the marketplace add-ons load properly before we switch DNS.
Concrete CMS has a good security track record and the project releases patches promptly when issues surface. The core supports two-factor authentication, role-based permissions, captcha on forms, and proper password policies. On our hosting side we provide free SSL, daily backups, brute-force protection on the admin login, and modern PHP versions with security patches. Keeping the Concrete core and any add-ons up to date is the single most important thing you can do.
WordPress has the bigger plugin marketplace, larger agency network, and stronger community. Concrete CMS has noticeably better in-context editing, native workflow approvals, and page-level permissions out of the box. For a brochure site edited by non-technical staff, Concrete CMS often wins on day-to-day usability. For ecommerce, blogging, or anywhere you need a specific WordPress plugin (WooCommerce, ACF, Yoast), WordPress is the right answer. We host a lot of both and we will give you an honest opinion based on your team and your needs.
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