ExpressionEngine vs. PrestaShop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
PrestaShop
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
PrestaShop is a free, open source e-commerce solution available under the Open Software License and officially launched in August 2007. The software is written in PHP and based on the Smarty template engine and is currently used by 165,000 shops worldwide. The PrestaShop group was founded in Paris, with a second Headquarters opened in Miami in 2011. PrestaShop is translated into 63 languages, with English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Russian having full…N/A
Pricing
ExpressionEnginePrestaShop
Editions & Modules
License
$299.00
One Time Fee
PrestaShop
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ExpressionEnginePrestaShop
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
ExpressionEnginePrestaShop
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
10.0
33 Ratings
22% above category average
PrestaShop
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions10.033 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
8.5
27 Ratings
10% above category average
PrestaShop
-
Ratings
API9.024 Ratings00 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
8.6
33 Ratings
12% above category average
PrestaShop
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG editor10.030 Ratings00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness10.032 Ratings00 Ratings
Admin section10.032 Ratings00 Ratings
Page templates8.028 Ratings00 Ratings
Library of website themes7.011 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design9.015 Ratings00 Ratings
Publishing workflow9.025 Ratings00 Ratings
Form generator6.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
9.4
33 Ratings
25% above category average
PrestaShop
-
Ratings
Content taxonomy10.025 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO support10.025 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk management10.027 Ratings00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions8.032 Ratings00 Ratings
Community / comment management9.030 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
-
Ratings
PrestaShop
7.3
5 Ratings
5% below category average
Product catalog & listings00 Ratings9.75 Ratings
Product management00 Ratings7.75 Ratings
Bulk product upload00 Ratings5.04 Ratings
Branding00 Ratings5.04 Ratings
Mobile storefront00 Ratings9.75 Ratings
Product variations00 Ratings5.04 Ratings
Website integration00 Ratings9.85 Ratings
Visual customization00 Ratings6.04 Ratings
CMS00 Ratings7.85 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
-
Ratings
PrestaShop
6.9
5 Ratings
9% below category average
Abandoned cart recovery00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
Checkout user experience00 Ratings7.95 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
-
Ratings
PrestaShop
7.8
5 Ratings
6% below category average
eCommerce security00 Ratings7.85 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
-
Ratings
PrestaShop
6.6
12 Ratings
12% below category average
Promotions & discounts00 Ratings7.95 Ratings
Personalized recommendations00 Ratings5.14 Ratings
SEO00 Ratings6.912 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
ExpressionEngine
-
Ratings
PrestaShop
9.0
5 Ratings
14% above category average
Multi-site management00 Ratings7.85 Ratings
Order processing00 Ratings8.85 Ratings
Inventory management00 Ratings9.65 Ratings
Shipping00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Custom functionality00 Ratings8.75 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ExpressionEnginePrestaShop
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ExpressionEnginePrestaShop
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(61 ratings)
7.6
(13 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(36 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
5.3
(6 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
2.8
(2 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.2
(4 ratings)
2.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.9
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ExpressionEnginePrestaShop
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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PrestaShop
This is a great system for small and medium businesses dealing from 1 product to 100,000 products. It is elegant to use and very stable. The system may not be great for converting into a marketplace and the handling of > 1million products. The system is also not suitable for services selling like events, registrations, subscriptions and ticket bookings etc.
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Pros
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
PrestaShop
  • The PayPal button modality was integrated with the PrestaShop system, which helped our clients to complete payments digitally in just a few seconds, this integrated button allowed to streamline many transactions.
  • Performing inventory reviews and modifying the PrestaShop catalog was one of the things that I liked the most, I could make changes to the catalog, make changes to the conditions of the products in the catalog and all those changes were reflected on my website in a instant, no need to wait some time.
  • The PrestaShop system created a digital invoice for each client who made the advance payment of a property, which made it even easier to complete the property negotiation. Customers came to our company with the digital invoice for the advance payment and it was easy to identify the property that was paid, thanks to the digital invoice.
Read full review
Cons
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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PrestaShop
  • Not a lot of free templates.
  • Images can sometimes be too compressed and lose their full quality, so better settings for that could be introduced.
  • Being able to change the look of your automatic emails via default settings can also be introduced.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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PrestaShop
Considering the problems we had and still have, 0.
Read full review
Usability
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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PrestaShop
The lack of performance and the unstable system make it very hard to use it for a serious e-commerce application.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Open Source
Never experienced an issue like this with it
Read full review
PrestaShop
100s of implementation and so far no major security breaches.
Read full review
Performance
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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PrestaShop
Some caching and optimization is definitely needed. However, it is not as bloated as other CMSs with lots of plugins needed.
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Support Rating
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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PrestaShop
Since we use PrestaShop OpenSource there is only community support. What we found is that many other users fight with the same problems and there seems no solution or input from the PrestaShop developers' side.
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Implementation Rating
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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PrestaShop
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
PrestaShop
It's a no-brainer for e-commerce stores. BigCommerce and Magento both far out-distanced PrestaShop in every major category. If you're just getting into e-commerce, I would highly recommend either BigCommerce or Magento. Their online documentation and support far outweigh any advantages you'd have over going with an open source software like PrestaShop.
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Scalability
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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PrestaShop
This is the best example of "If it's not broken, don't fix it!".
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Return on Investment
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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PrestaShop
  • It slowed down our Hosting service. Our website took a long time to fully load on our clients' devices due to the high consumption of the integration with the PrestaShop service.
  • It provided us with a fast billing service, where our clients obtained invoices in PDF mode for the electronic payments they made for the properties. These digital invoices helped us to recognize the property they wanted faster and streamlined the negotiation process.
  • The templates that had an optimized design, were too expensive, this caused that our catalog design was very simple and did not capture the interest of customers.
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ScreenShots

PrestaShop Screenshots

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