On a conventional Web site, maintenance and security can quickly become problematic. Zope addresses these issues with its strong object-based design that enforces separation of data and presentation, and a flexible security model designed specifically to handle the unique business models of the Web. Several Zope add-ons are available that provide extended types of User Folders that get their user data from external sources such as relational databases or LDAP directories. Objects in Zope provide a much richer set of possible permissions than a conventional file-based system.
Permissions vary by object type based on the capabilities of that object.
This makes it possible to implement fine-grained access control. For example, you can set access control so that content managers can call SQL Methods, but not change them or even view their source. You can also set restrictions so that a user can only create certain kinds of objects, for instance Folders and DTML Documents but not SQL Methods or other objects. In addition to strong encapsulation and security, Zope also provides other useful collaboration features. This standards-based approach allows users to work with Zope using existing Web authoring tools.