Modern Campus CMS vs Plone

Modern Campus CMS is a web content management system marketed exclusively for higher education. It provides editorial workflows, custom roles, SEO tools, a media library, and custom content types. Editors can use WYSIWYG tools, drag-and-drop interfaces, forms, and surveys, while Layout Builder offers low-code page creation for non-technical users. Workflow management and page health checks support review before publication. Automated testing can check accessibility against WCAG 2.2, and the CMS supports on-brand webpages and search-optimized blog posts. It operates as a cloud-based solution, with browser access and publishing to institution production servers. Hosting includes DDoS protection, a web application firewall, and regular operating system patches. Authentication options include LDAP, CAS, Shibboleth, and SAML 2.0 SSO with validated identity providers. Modules and managed services can extend the system; modules are available for purchase. An August 2026 release added AI help for page titles and descriptions, requiring an institution OpenAI API key. Pricing is available on request. Modern Campus no longer sells self-hosting, but continues supporting existing customers.

Plone is a free, open-source content management system for websites, intranets, and custom applications. Plone 6 provides a block-based editing interface for text, images, video, maps, forms, and search; its layouts can create flexible multi-column pages that adapt to different devices. Editors can define content types through the web without code and build forms by drag and drop, with submissions sent by email or stored as CSV. A faceted search block filters results by facets. Plone also supports editorial workflows, custom roles, multilingual content, SEO tools, and a media library. A React-based frontend and REST API are supported, and the ecosystem includes more than 100 add-on products. It can run on UNIX-based systems, Windows, and macOS, on premises or in cloud deployments. The site says users retain control of their data. Each major version receives five years of security support; Plone 6 support is listed through 2027-12-31. Service providers offer development, training, customization, and deployment help.