Zope - the power plant for the web

"Experience, Expertise, Extensibility"

What is Zope?
-------------

Zope is an open source web application platform for building web
applications, such as content management systems, intranets, portals,
and custom applications. Zope provides a rich set of reusable
components that can be used as building blocks to develop
applications.

Python_ comes with batteries included. Zope is a power plant.

Mature platform
---------------

Development on the platform that was to become Zope started in
1996. Zope's open source success story started in 1998, when it was
released as open source software. We haven't stopped developing Zope
since, so the platform represents a very deep experience with web
application technology.

Zope is mature technology, and so is its community of users,
developers, organizations and companies that surrounds
it. Collectively, we have a very deep experience with web
technology. We are professionals that know what is involved in
building web applications.

Today, Zope is in use by thousands of companies and organizations,
large and small, supported by a large community of individual
developers and companies.

[more on community infrastructure with links]

Going forward
-------------

We are applying our hard-earned lessons by making Zope better. The web
is evolving and so is Zope, continuously striving to further increase
Zope's power, flexibility and functionality.

A visionary project was started in 2001 to build the next generation
of Zope software, `Zope 3`_. Zope 3 uses powerful component technology
to further increase the already strong extensibility and flexibility
of the Zope platform. The Zope 3 project is benefiting in this from
the deep experience of a large community of Zope 2 developers.

Zope 2 is not being left behind however: the Zope community initiated
a project called Five_ (2 + 3) to bring Zope 3 technology, where
mature technology is ported back into the Zope 2 platform to obtain
the best of both worlds. Zope 2 now contains Zope 3 technology and
will go forward on this path with every release, while Zope 3 is
forging ahead to explore new possibilities.

Zope 2 and Zope 3 are evolving together this way, both benefiting from
each other's strengths, until the differences between the two
eventually disappear.

Zope 2 and Zope 3
-----------------

Zope comes in two flavors, Zope 2 and Zope 3. Zope 2 is a mature,
compatible and reliable platform that supports an enormous amounts of
features. It's the workhorse of our community. Zope 3 provides a
powerful component architecture and a clean, elegant architecture that
is a developer's dream. It's our community's thoroughbred.

It can be hard to choose between the two. Eventually you won't have to
as they're evolving towards each other [Going Forward]. But how do you
choose now? Here are some rough guidelines:

If you are a hard-core developer, looking for power and flexibility in
a clean architecture, and if you are building a new web application,
you may want to consider Zope 3.

If you want to make use of the rich variety of powerful Zope 2
software, need community, support and stability, consider Zope 2. And
don't forget that with the Five_ (2 + 3) project, you can already
start using Zope 3 technologies from within the safety of Zope 2.

Whether you choose Zope 2 or Zope 3 for your project, you will reach
the same future, just by a different path. Which path is better for
you we leave up to you.

Zope-based CMS applications 
---------------------------

Zope is particularly successful as a platform for constructing
powerful content management systems (CMS). Well known content
management systems written in Zope are Plone_, CPS_ and Silva_. [more]

Zope technology
---------------

[more on zope technology: link to the 'about' section]


.. _Python: http://www.python.org/
.. _`Zope 3`: http://dev.zope.org/Zope3/
.. _Five: http://codespeak.net/z3/five/
.. _Plone: http://www.plone.org/
.. _CPS: http://www.cps-project.org/
.. _Silva: http://www.infrae.com/products/silva/
.. _SQLObject: http://sqlobject.org/

.. _CPS: http://www.cps-project.org/
.. _Silva: http://www.infrae.com/products/silva/
.. _SQLObject: http://sqlobject.org/

.. _CPS: http://www.cps-project.org/
.. _Silva: http://www.infrae.com/products/silva/
.. _SQLObject: http://sqlobject.org/
.. _gettext: http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/
.. _WSGI: www.python.org/peps/pep-0333.html
.. _Twisted: http://twistedmatrix.com/