Zope is a free, open source web application platform used for building
high-performance, dynamic web sites.

The Zope architecture competes in the web application server market
against products such as Cold Fusion, Silverstream, Netscape Application
Server, and the like.  These products are aimed at systems programmers
and relational databases.  Zope, however, contains a powerful and simple
scripting object model and high-performance, integrated object database. 
Thus the term "platform".

Zope is divided into a number of systems, each described below.  First,
the Z Publisher provides object publishing that integrates with common
web servers using a number of protocols, such as Zope's Persistent CGI. 
The Z Framework contains the foundation for the environment and builtin
objects such as folders, documents, and images.  The Z Template system
provides dynamic page generation.  The Z Object Database gives an
advanced storage system that integrates tightly with Zope's web object
model.  Finally, Z SQL Methods and Z Database Adapters provide
object-relational integration of data in popular SQL servers