I have not produced a website in many years, but have had the dubious pleasure of using many CMS systems through work; I have since chosen to use ocPortal for a personal project and the power, flexibility & simplicity of this software has blown me away.

There are now rumors coming from the development team, suggesting a new release is imminent ... I can't wait for the upgrade, so I can't see what version 5 has in store!

You can even perform an upgrade straight from the administration area; what more could you want?

ocPortal is an incredible CMS product. Personally I am redesigning my 12-1/2 year old website which, over the years has not kept pace with the changing web standards and has other problems. It badly needed to be brought into the 21st century web experience.

I had found ocPortal about a year ago in my three year search for a €˜perfect€™ CMS platform. I am finding that ocPortal enables me to produce a web compliant, fully featured website that has community and other cool features which will make my website so much better than I could have done on my own. Usually, I am a do it yourself kind of guy but since ocPortal comes ‘out of the box™ with excellent technical support and a creative and helpful user community, I am enjoying having help in my endeavor.

I read so many good reviews in this column and tend to agree with them that ocPortal is the best.

Unbelievable! I'm still checking to make sure I have not died and gone to heaven!

I am very fortunate to have several web sites that have become very popular with thousands of visitors per week. Unfortunately, success does have it's downside - especially when the foundation was not built for such a load.

I have spent weeks and weeks evaluating everything I could find that might be suitable for a new foundation. Without a doubt, I have found it in ocPortal. Using the features already built-in, I had replacement sites up in less than one hour.

I am abandoning Drupal, Joomla, ModX, Wordpress for ocPortal.

ocPortal and it's team is a delight to work with. It's developers work tirelessly to produce a CMS that simply WORKS! ... Out of the Box. The comments above regarding needing FTP access, etc are simply bogus. If you want ocP to install it for you( in about 3 minutes) sinply create a database / user and dedicated FTP user/password and you'll be running in now time.

My experience is with Miva 5.5, Joomla, MODx, Magento, WordPress and SilverStripe. All CMS and ecommerce solutions have their + and -. ocPortal seems to place most of the checks on the right side of the isle, and no need to download buggy 3rd party modules, etc.

ocPortal is extremely well planned, well documented, and even has helpful tips WITHIN the CMS. The videos are extremely helpful to the newbie since its logic is not logical... at first. After a few hours playing around with ComCode and dropping in your own css styles, you'll start to understand the power and potential it has. My next project will use its ecommerce functionality... I'll post more when I get some hours behind it.

Have a look at http://ocportal.com/docs/tutorials.htm kelechi, they helped me out lots when i first started using ocPortal.

I've used loads of CMSs over the years and never found one I could really get along with. ocPortal was the first one that had everything I needed without having to try and import third party modules which would then need tweaking to fit and look right. I'm not a programmer so i struggled and finding ocPortal made my life a lot easier to what i was using before.

I am New user of ocportal.I need a guide or manual with which i can use it with out difficulties.any 1 can help.my email knwuba@yahoo.com

For me, this CMS was crash (I work on it for about 4 month) after the first try to upgrade without possibility to upload the back-up. Doesn't work!. Was very complex but moving slowly and very complicate set-up!
I don't recommend!

Really the most powerfull and the most feature rich free CMS in the whole wild world. Nothing compares to it.
The only bad thing is very little custom themes.
But that can be fixed by making your own

The previous poster needs to relax and not get so nurotic. The need your ftp address and password if you want to use the auto install. That simple, they don't force you to do that it's your choice. And yes you can upload it to your webspace and install it because I have. Before you go crazy with comments, just try it out for yourself. Jeex....

The above post is why I came here.
WHY DO THEY WANT YOUR FTP AND PASSWORD?
CAN ANYONE ANSWER THAT?

It seems there is a Problem here?

You can't just Install it from a Browser? - The Download section of their web site is weird ...

Install Options...

1.) They want you to give them your FTP site name AND PASSWORD ...??? so their server can Install the CMS for you! ...Don't do it!!!

2.) They will send you a self extracting Install File for your Web Site!!! - ...Don't do it!!!

3.) You can down load a ZIP [or TAR Ball file for a Manual Install] ...But, It reads; You then have to set the CHMOD of thousands of files???...

This all seems VERY WRONG!...

its very buggy, try searching a catalog via listbox entry. can't do it, it never gets results

This is a complete web system for anything. You can even create your own databases and forms about anything through the admin panel, choose what filename your cookies should have and debrand everything with 2 or 3 clicks...

In Joomla and many other systems, when permitted, you have to edit the module or component's core files to get rid of third party addons... by the way, I'm sure there are addons for everything in the Joomla and alike worlds, but that's exaclty the problem: too much time to find what 'could' suite your needs and then customizing and often editing core files.

ocPortal has everything built-in and is probably the most flexible yet robust system out here. I've read complaints about its server resource needs and difficulties in the installation method (below). I have a few observations about these:
1 - ocPortal creates about over a 160 database tables, but if you add all of its functionality to Joomla through add ons (after months of searching within the 'joomla world', for instance, you will most problably get about 190 tables...
2 - server systems are rapidly getting far faster and more robust everywhere, whereas the costs and dropping steadily for maintaining a cms hosted. I have a shared host account where I maintain 11 websites, 3 of which using ocPortal as their backbones and all goes quite normally. In the same shared account I also use and test several systems (Joomla, impress, e107, wordpress, etc) and everything have always kept working all right.
3 - Regarding the installation, just upload the manual extraction file option and do all the rest just as the same way you would do for most of the rest of the cms here. Although ocPortal's team is polite enough to warn you might have to chmod many files, actually you do not have to do anything for most of the standard apache/mysql server configurations around. I have never had to do this.

Having said all this, it is true that there is a learning curve to customize and specially to adjust your design to the system, but even this is much easier and more flexible than many other options.

It seems there is a Problem here?

You can't just Install it from a Browser? - The Download section of their web site is weird ...

Install Options...

1.) They want you to give them your FTP site name AND PASSWORD ...??? so their server can Install the CMS for you! ...Don't do it!!!

2.) They will send you a self extracting Install File for your Web Site!!! - ...Don't do it!!!

3.) You can down load a ZIP [or TAR Ball file for a Manual Install] ...But, It reads; You then have to set the CHMOD of thousands of files???...

This all seems VERY WRONG!...

I've been using OCPortal for years, nearly since the beginning, and I can tell you that this is one of the best CMSes on the market today. It has more ability, flexibility, and just raw power, while maintaining a real friendliness; this is something that is the mark of true excellence. Bravo Chris, Philip, and everyone associated with developing this product.

I currently work in the ClanTiger project, so I would usually be slightly biased.

However...

This CMS is absolutely, positively, the BEST CMS IN THE WORLD!!!

When I saw the options in the set up for the different types of modules etc, I couldn't believe it!

Great work guys, keep it up!

James Milligan / Lake54