CodeIgniter vs. ExpressionEngine

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
CodeIgniter
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
CodeIgniter is a free and open source PHP framework, developed originally by EllisLab.N/A
ExpressionEngine
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
ExpressionEngine is a content management system from EllisLab in 2002, a successor to pMachine Pro, a blogging system, which is written in object-oriented PHP and uses MySQL for data storage. ExpressionEngine is their flagship Content Delivery Platform.
$299
One Time Fee
Pricing
CodeIgniterExpressionEngine
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
License
$299.00
One Time Fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CodeIgniterExpressionEngine
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CodeIgniterExpressionEngine
Considered Both Products
CodeIgniter
Chose CodeIgniter
We chose CodeIgniter because although it has a steep learning curve, ultimately it suited our needs better in terms of how well it scales for larger applications.
ExpressionEngine
Chose ExpressionEngine
Systems presented to us by our integration partner were comparatively quite expensive, required a different infrastructure than currently in place, as well as different technology skills that were not currently present in house. With ExpressionEngine we were able to have a …
Chose ExpressionEngine
Again, for most of our customers' projects, ExpressionEngine is a great solution due to its flexibility, extensibility, and ease of use. We rarely come up against a situation for which EE is not a suitable solution.
Chose ExpressionEngine
It isn't fair to compare WordPress and ExpressionEngine. In my opinion they are solving different problems. Both are well-documented, trusted and professional CMS solutions. I believe ExpressionEngine is more scalable, and has a better architecture for complex data storage and …
Chose ExpressionEngine
We've spent sometime reviewing WordPress, but we found that the it didn't have the same flexibility that ExpressingEngine offered. We also reviewed other promising CMS products that have similar template features, like CraftCMS and Statamic. Both looked great but weren't mature …
Chose ExpressionEngine
EllisLab is doing a great job of adding "missing" features into the ExpressionEngine core which were previously only available through the use of third-party add-ons.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
CodeIgniterExpressionEngine
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
CodeIgniter
-
Ratings
ExpressionEngine
10.0
35 Ratings
21% above category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings10.035 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
CodeIgniter
-
Ratings
ExpressionEngine
9.0
28 Ratings
17% above category average
API00 Ratings9.024 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings9.022 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
CodeIgniter
-
Ratings
ExpressionEngine
8.8
35 Ratings
14% above category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings9.532 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings10.034 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings9.534 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings8.029 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings7.011 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings9.517 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings9.027 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings8.120 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
CodeIgniter
-
Ratings
ExpressionEngine
9.4
35 Ratings
24% above category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings10.027 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings10.027 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings9.529 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings8.034 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings9.531 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CodeIgniterExpressionEngine
Small Businesses
Laravel PHP Framework
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 8.7 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Laravel PHP Framework
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 8.7 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

RWS Tridion Sites
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CodeIgniterExpressionEngine
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(14 ratings)
10.0
(63 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(36 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
5.3
(6 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
2.8
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
6.2
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
6.9
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
CodeIgniterExpressionEngine
Likelihood to Recommend
Open Source
The input class makes it easy to provide server-side validation and scrubbing of user input. Setting Error messages. It doesn't require constant command-line access, It's great because it has a strong community and excellent documentation, but the problem is that it tries to retain backward compatibility with PHP 4 and therefore lacks a lot of "standard" features modern frameworks have such as auto-loading.
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Open Source
ExpressionEngine is a very powerful and flexible content management system. It can handle a simple small business website all the way to a large corporation's website. If you are a business with multiple websites ExpresionEngine can handle that as well with it's Multiple Site Manager. I think ExpressionEngine would be less appropriate for a global large scale business with a magnitude of sites with different regions and languages.
Read full review
Pros
Open Source
  • CodeIgniter is an excellent tool when a simple database API is needed. Postgres, MySQL, and SQLite are all abstracted into a simple-to-use
  • CodeIgniter's simplicity is truly its best feature, because you are able to create controllers and methods based on the http://www.example//, and immediately being developing the application.
  • Flexibility is also another developer-friendly feature, because developers are able to design their application in any way - controllers, models, libraries, and helpers can be located anywhere or not used at all.
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Open Source
  • Content structuring. You can set up channels and fields to hold just about any kind of information imaginable; text, images, videos, numbers, code, etc. You can structure this information any way you want and in any order. You literally create your own information database just the way you want it using a clear, easy online interface.
  • Template system. Utter freedom. Need I say more?
  • Exensible. There are a lot of add-ons, extensions, and other external modules that extend the core functionality of ExpressionEngine. Need a user management system? Check out the User module at http://solspace.com.
Read full review
Cons
Open Source
  • Faced some issue of session management, so that's why we used the Core Session library for that. It would be great if we could improve it a little bit.
  • Frameworks provide the option to setup all getters/setters, so having this option in it is a great idea.
Read full review
Open Source
  • For me, one of the greatest strengths of ExpressionEngine is also one of their weaknesses. There are so many add-ons available (some free, some not) for ExpressionEngine to allow you to do just about anything you want. However, the more add-ons that you use the more you have to deal with when performing updates. For instance, is the add-on compatible with the new version of ExpressionEngine - or even another add-on? What if that add-on gets abandoned by the developer - is there another that can perform the same functionality?
  • I think that ExpressionEngine needs to offer more out of the box than it does. Yes, you can get add-ons for just about anything but this adds to the cost. I have a list of add-ons that I use on almost every site which can raise the cost of getting started with a new site by $100-300. So add that to the cost of a license and you're at $400-600 and you haven't even started working on it yet. For instance, I shouldn't have to buy an add-on to allow me to customize the menu for my end-users.
  • The membership management feature is seriously lacking. Fortunately, there are add-ons (for an additional cost) to allow you to manage things better.
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Likelihood to Renew
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Open Source
I'm satisfied with the way that my site runs on EE. My primary concern is that support is now a profit center for EE's publisher and so they've consequently gutted their community support boards. However, a good EE community is developing at StackExchange. At this stage, I don't think that EE is a good choice for an individual site owner. WordPress or SquareSpace would be a better choice unless you have a budget for support.
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Usability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Open Source
ExpressionEngine is very powerful and flexible. With this flexibility comes a bit of a learning curve. There are some great online resources for getting up to speed with EE, but the control panel can be a bit daunting. A lot of EE's installation process involves settings, configurations and flipping of switches. It is tedious, but well worth it as you ultimately have a very robust, secure and scalable CMS. Also, as of version 2.9.2, the control panel isn't responsive natively. You'll want to have a big enough screen to see the full control panel UI. Personally, I think the control panel would benefit from a major overhaul. It would be nice to see the colors and UI controls "modernized" and be able to more effectively customize the layout. Yes, some of this is built-in, and there are third-party add-ons to help, but maybe we'll see more refinement in future versions.
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Reliability and Availability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Open Source
Never experienced an issue like this with it
Read full review
Performance
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Open Source
The admin section would slow to a crawl the larger the tag section grew. There were many areas where better pagination would've helped improve performance. Nothing complicated, which made the lag so frustrating
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Support Rating
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Open Source
I have personally never found any complications when trying to receive support from EllisLab in regards to ExpressionEngine when using the support plans they offer. I have always been responded to promptly and received satisfactory help with whatever my needs were in an extremely timely manner. This makes rating the support offered an easy job for me
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Implementation Rating
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Open Source
After installing the system a few times, you can see a pattern of things that have to be done to work the way you want them (settings, paths, etc.). By knowing what you want, you can put together some scripts that prepare the file system for installation, adjust post installation configuration settings, and install initial templates.
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Alternatives Considered
Open Source
CodeIgniter has a very small footprint. The source code is very small sized. Setting up a project is very easy. Follows MVC pattern. Consumes low memory and CPU. Well documented. Has a built-in forum for users to discuss and get the solution for issues. Periodically updates versions and patch fixes etc.
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Open Source
ExpressionEngine is vastly more flexible than any other content management system I have used to date and the quality of the add-ons are significantly higher than what you find in other directories. The ExpressionEngine community is also very willing and helpful with if you have any questions or run into any issues.
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Scalability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Open Source
Maybe it's scale-able from the content user perspective, but it was very limited from the programmers perspective. So many custom hacks were necessary that it reached a point it would be impossible to upgrade to a newer version
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Return on Investment
Open Source
  • Because of quick turnaround on portals/intranets, it was easy to offer this as an option to clients.
  • As there is no cost associated with this framework, it was great not having to worry about purchasing or licensing. (MIT License).
  • Community support helps in that there are no ongoing support contracts or costs.
  • No direct representative for one-on-one support, if needed. This can cut into time used on projects.
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Open Source
  • Being able to be recognized as a leader within the ExpressionEngine development community has led to us being sought out by those customers seeking expert guidance.
  • We tend to specialize in using ExpressionEngine for our customers, so it has been easier to ramp new resources up on our development process, as well as be able to seek out independent experts to use as sub contractors or freelancers.
  • As we have been using ExpressionEngine almost exclusively for a number of years, we have built a reusable repository of proprietary code that makes our development process much more efficient and decreases the effort required for our projects.
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