I've tried more than 200 CMS's and Plone is still the best!

World Plone Day 2025: "I've tried more than 200 CMS's and Plone is still the best!" or "How to fit 4 Plonistas into an Uber" by Alexander Loechel and Astrid Beyers.

This video which we recorded for World Plone Day 2025, features Astrid's conversation with Alexander Loechel, an IT manager at a German university, about his experience with various Content Management Systems (CMS).

He explains that he has evaluated over 200 CMS options and still considers Plone to be the best choice for many use cases, especially in universities and large organizations.

He highlights Plone's long-term vision, upgradeability, security, and the fact that it provides a platform rather than just a product, allowing for extensive customization and avoiding the need for numerous add-ons.

Content is King

Echoing his own message from PloneConf 2018, and Karel's from PloneConf 2024, Alexander discusses the importance of content over the system itself and emphasizes that Plone's strengths lie in its ability to meet complex needs while offering a clean and user-friendly interface for content editors. He mentions the CMS Garden project, a collaboration between open-source CMS communities, and the "underby/overby" problem, where a system's capabilities either exceed or fall short of an institution's skills and needs. Alexander also points out that Plone's strength is in its ability to be tailored to specific needs, hiding unused capabilities and presenting a minimalist editing interface when necessary.

Enjoy the informal chat between Astrid and Alexander, and find out how they did get 4 tall Plonistas into an Uber in Brazil.