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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Contentstack

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AContentstack headquartered in San Francisco offers an API-first headless CMS. From desktops to smart phones, from kiosks to smart watches, from billboards to jumbotrons, from dashboards to VR headsets – content is delivered with the push of a button and optimized for every screen, device and channel.N/A

    ExpressionEngine

    Score7.8 out of 10
    N/AExpressionEngine 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.

    $249

    per year

    Pricing
    ContentstackExpressionEngine
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    License
    $299.00
    One Time Fee
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    ContentstackExpressionEngine
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    ContentstackExpressionEngine
    Considered Both Products
    Contentstack
    No answer on this topic
    Open Source
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    12 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    ContentstackExpressionEngine
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Contentstack and ExpressionEngine
    Feature
    Contentstack
    7.4
    11 Ratings
    11% below category average
    ExpressionEngine
    10.0
    36 Ratings
    19% above category average
    Role-based user permissions7.411 Ratings10.036 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Contentstack and ExpressionEngine
    Feature
    Contentstack
    7.5
    10 Ratings
    4% below category average
    ExpressionEngine
    9.0
    29 Ratings
    14% above category average
    API8.19 Ratings9.025 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language6.98 Ratings9.023 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Contentstack and ExpressionEngine
    Feature
    Contentstack
    8.1
    12 Ratings
    3% above category average
    ExpressionEngine
    8.9
    36 Ratings
    13% above category average
    WYSIWYG editor8.12 Ratings10.033 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness10.01 Ratings9.135 Ratings
    Admin section7.712 Ratings7.135 Ratings
    Page templates7.78 Ratings10.030 Ratings
    Library of website themes10.01 Ratings7.011 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design6.69 Ratings10.018 Ratings
    Publishing workflow6.810 Ratings9.028 Ratings
    Form generator00 Ratings9.021 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Contentstack and ExpressionEngine
    Feature
    Contentstack
    6.4
    12 Ratings
    16% below category average
    ExpressionEngine
    8.1
    36 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Content taxonomy7.210 Ratings8.128 Ratings
    SEO support6.410 Ratings10.028 Ratings
    Bulk management5.79 Ratings6.230 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions6.58 Ratings8.035 Ratings
    Community / comment management6.16 Ratings8.132 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    ContentstackExpressionEngine
    Small Businesses
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    ContentstackExpressionEngine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.5
    (12 ratings)
    8.1
    (64 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.2
    (36 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    2.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.2
    (9 ratings)
    6.2
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.9
    (3 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    ContentstackExpressionEngine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Contentstack
    Contentstack has flexible functionality which opens up a lot of possibilities for businesses with proactive web development teams to create their own website builder app to compete with 3rd party agencies. This is especially useful in a large enterprise where non-technical teams often turn to expensive outside agencies which cost more in the long run than an up-front investment into an in-house application.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Contentstack
    • Enables us to build and architect content through the use of their easy to use software and user interface.
    • Customer service has been by far the most reliable and responsive in any vendor i've dealt with.
    • Listens to feedback and builds features and technical improvements that helps customers usability and experience.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Contentstack
    • In my opinion it's not very intuitive. I've found its difficult to understand how to best structure entries, especially if they are related
    • In my experience, entries can get difficult to understand if weren't the creator. It would be helpful to have some meta data around the entry itself and the fields within them in my opinion.
    • Integration with an A/B testing platform would be nice.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Contentstack
    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.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Contentstack
    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.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Contentstack
    No answers on this topic
    Open Source
    Never experienced an issue like this with it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Contentstack
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Contentstack
    They have an in-app chat with their support team, who is always quick to respond and provide helpful answers. I've never walked away from an interaction without my issue being solved quickly and easily. They're also very communicative over email and are sure to follow up after any changes are made to ensure we're seeing the desired result. They are always very professional and easy to work with.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Contentstack
    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.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Contentstack
    Contentstack has better international hosting support then Contentful and we found the presales and sales support people were MUCH more responsive than Contentful. The Sitecore sales process was very very slow and overly complex. We felt Sitecore had many features that were not valuable and the cost to benefit ratio was much lower compared to ContentStack
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Contentstack
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Contentstack
    • Saved significant amounts of money that would previously been spent on 3rd party agencies to build websites
    • Empowered Comms teams to create and edit the design and content of their own websites on demand rather than relying on the Dev team
    • Allowed the Development team to concentrate on building functionality rather than websites, so we can focus on improvement rather than BAU work.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots