Concrete5 VPS Hosting

About Concrete5

Concrete5 is an open-source content management system (CMS) known for its intuitive, in-context editing interface. It enables users to build and manage websites with ease, featuring drag-and-drop design, flexible page structures, and a permissions system for managing user roles.

The Bitnami Concrete5 v9 Stack offers a ready-to-run environment with all dependencies pre-installed, allowing you to launch and manage a Concrete5-based site on your VPS quickly and securely.

1. User-friendly editing directly on the page interface.
2. Customizable templates and flexible layout options.
3. Built-in SEO, forms, and version control tools.
4. Granular permissions for team collaboration.
5. Pre-configured stack by Bitnami for fast deployment.

Running Concrete CMS on a VPS: a practical guide

Concrete5 is now called Concrete CMS; it is the same product. This image ships version 9.2.1 on Debian 11; the current upstream release is 9.5.7. Here is what the site needs from the server, which plan to start with, and how to avoid the usual problems.

What Concrete CMS needs from the server

Concrete CMS is a PHP application with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Version 9 needs PHP with the curl, dom, fileinfo, gd, iconv, mbstring, PDO (pdo_mysql), SimpleXML and zip extensions. All of this is already set up in the image.

Public pages are light once full page caching is on. Most of the load comes from editors working in the page editor and from image processing, so the number of people editing at the same time matters more than the number of visitors.

Which plan to start with:

• 1 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM, 30 GiB: development, testing a theme or add-ons, $4/mo
• 2 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 60 GiB: a business website with a few editors, $8/mo
• 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 120 GiB: several sites, a busy site or a large media library, $20/mo
• 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM, 240 GiB: high traffic and many editors at once, $40/mo

Treat these as starting points; resizing keeps your data, and a free snapshot before the change gives you a way back.

Where to put it

Put the site close to its visitors. For the UK, choose London; for the rest of Europe, Frankfurt or Paris; for North America, the city nearest to most of your audience. We run servers in 14 locations across the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and France.

Getting started

1. Deploy the Concrete CMS image from this page. The server is ready in about a minute.
2. Connect over SSH and read the application credentials from the bitnami_credentials file in the home directory.
3. Sign in and change the administrator password straight away.
4. Point your domain to the server and set up HTTPS with a free Let’s Encrypt certificate.
5. Turn on pretty URLs in the SEO settings and full page caching in the cache and speed settings.

Tuning and common problems

• Slow pages with images. Upload images close to the size the theme displays and let Concrete CMS generate thumbnails, instead of scaling large originals in the browser.
• Contact form e-mails do not arrive. Outbound SMTP can be blocked on new accounts. Ask our support to open it, or send mail through an external SMTP service.
• Add-ons and themes. Check that an add-on supports version 9 before installing it, and take a snapshot first.
• Upgrades. Moving from 9.2 to 9.5 is worth doing for fixes and security updates. Take a snapshot, upgrade, test the site, and roll back from the snapshot if something breaks.

FAQ

Is concrete5 the same as Concrete CMS?
Yes. The project was renamed; version 9 is Concrete CMS.

Can you move my existing site?
Yes. INET.WS engineers migrate existing servers for free; open a ticket after ordering.

How do I back up the site?
Snapshots are free and cover the whole server. Weekly backups are included; daily backups cost 20% of the plan price.

Credentials for Concrete5 v9 by Bitnami on VPS

Once deployed, access the Concrete5 admin panel:

• Admin URL: http://your-vps-ip/
• Use the credentials set on first boot via Bitnami launchpad or console. It’s strongly recommended to change the default password.

Documentation

• Official Concrete CMS Documentation
• Bitnami Community Support

SSH / SFTP / SCP Connection

Connect to your VPS using the following:

• SSH Host: your-vps-ip
• Port: 22
• Username: bitnami
• Private Key / Password: (available via your VPS panel)

Use tools like WinSCP or PuTTY to securely access files and services.

Disclaimer:

This VPS image includes Concrete5 v9 preinstalled via Bitnami, provided as-is.
All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. Concrete5 is distributed under the MIT License.
Ensure you apply updates and configure secure access post-deployment.