February 2025 Concrete CMS Community Round Up

No Point Release This Month—But One’s Coming Soon

We usually roll out a point release on the first Tuesday of the month, but this time, some updates weren’t quite ready. Rather than rushing things, we’ve decided to take a step back and make sure everything is fully cooked before serving it up. Expect an update soon!

Case Study Updates—Share Your Work!

Jess is working through our partner case studies, refreshing and updating them. If you’re a partner, keep an eye out for an email from Jess (from jess@portlandlabs.com) to review any changes.

And if you’ve built something awesome with Concrete CMS, we want to hear about it! We love showcasing real-world projects that solve business problems—especially in unique verticals. If you have a site you’re proud of, reach out via the forums or connect with Jess online.

Join the Concrete CMS Partner Program

Did you know that joining our partner program is free? If you can demonstrate your expertise with Concrete’s editing experience, you get a shiny badge—and that often leads to real work. We frequently get businesses asking for help with their websites, and we prefer to connect them with qualified partners.

This month, a big THANK YOU goes out to:

GitHub activity (issues and code): mlocati, hissy, gutig, ahukkanen, lbgofast, thomas-zahner, m-kreis, marcokuoni, donaier, simonchilton, addisenterprises, khdesignverignde, aashish-aenow, mjamil4it, moriaiy, kzn-a, ahukkanen, nratering, ounziw, bitterdev, jgarc186, JohntheFish

Notable Fix—Express Entities & Caching Issues

A special shoutout to Ahukkanen for tackling a tricky issue related to Express entities and caching. These types of problems are notoriously difficult to track down, and their work helped improve Concrete for everyone. If you’ve got a fix or even just an issue to report, get involved on GitHub. Whether you post your own issue, contribute a fix, or help test and validate, every little bit helps.

Security Focus: Safer Internet Day

It’s Safer Internet Day, and that’s the perfect time to talk about security best practices. Here are some key takeaways:

• Watch out for phishing attempts. Even experienced users get fooled—some emails look shockingly real. If you receive an email about payroll changes or invoice payments, always verify with a secondary channel before acting.
• Enforce strong access controls. If we had a dollar for every hacked site that resulted from a shared FTP account with a never-updated password, we’d be rich. Use SSH keys instead of passwords whenever possible.
• Use a password manager. Tools like 1Password help you generate and store strong, unique passwords across your systems. No more sticky notes with passwords written on them!
• Update your software. Old versions of software are a hacker’s playground. Concrete CMS version 8 has been end-of-life for a while now. If your site is still running v8, it’s time to upgrade to version 9.
• Have a backup and recovery plan. Know your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) (how much data loss is acceptable) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) (how quickly you can restore service). These numbers matter when disaster strikes.

Show and Tell  

AGN Energia a renewable energy company that switched from Drupal to Concrete CMS. The site features a blog, a partner directory, and a governance section—making full use of Concrete’s enterprise-friendly capabilities like multilingual support and advanced permissions.

Site: https://www.agnenergia.com/it

Developer: Bluedog web agency Milan

It’s a great example of how Concrete CMS isn’t just for small sites—it’s trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major governments, and even the U.S. Army.

AG Energia, a renewable energy company that switched from Drupal to Concrete CMS.

See You Next Month!

That’s a wrap for this month’s Concrete CMS update. Hopefully, Andy gets his power issues sorted out soon! Stay warm, stay safe, and keep building amazing things.

Until next time—happy coding! 🎉