Zope's flexible component architecture allows it to provide solutions to many different problems. Zope is composed of components which work together to provide a complete web architecture.

Zope Architecture Diagram

Zope Components

ZServer

ZServer provides flexible internet connectivity supporting many network protocols including HTTP, FTP, XML-RPC, FastCGI, and PCGI. ZServer can operate in tandem with existing web servers.

Zope Core

Zope includes a web ORB, search engine, security layer, membership, and dynamic information sharing.

Object Database (ZODB)

Zope's object database, ZODB, supports transactions, undo, private versions, and scales to gigabytes of data. There is also an optional enterprise option available which provides scalability and failover.

RDBMS integration

Zope offers easy to use and powerful connection to industry leading databases including: Oracle, Sybase, MySQL, and PostgreSQL, as well as ODBC drivers.

Zope Products

Zope Products extend the Zope core by adding new object types and custom facilities written in Python.

ZClasses

ZClasses extend the Zope core with new objects types which are created through the web. ZClasses do not require any programming and can be easily distributed and installed.