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.
$249
per year
Titan CMS
Score8 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Titan CMS is a web content management system (CMS) used to build public websites, intranets, extranets and portals. Powered by Northwoods, it leverages industry standard MVC for .NET Framework and provides a content management workstation interface to produce performance-driven websites.
$9,500
one-time fee
Pricing
ExpressionEngine
Titan CMS
Editions & Modules
License
$299.00
One Time Fee
Base License
$9,500
one-time fee
Professional License
Contact Sales for Details
one-time fee
Corporate License
Contact Sales for Details
one-time fee
Enterprise License
Contact Sales for Details
one-time fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ExpressionEngine
Titan CMS
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
$5,000
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Features
ExpressionEngine
Titan CMS
Security
Comparison of Security features of ExpressionEngine and Titan CMS
Feature
ExpressionEngine
10.0
36 Ratings
19% above category average
Titan CMS
3.0
5 Ratings
93% below category average
Role-based user permissions
10.036 Ratings
3.05 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of ExpressionEngine and Titan CMS
Feature
ExpressionEngine
9.0
29 Ratings
14% above category average
Titan CMS
4.0
2 Ratings
64% below category average
API
9.025 Ratings
4.02 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language
9.023 Ratings
4.02 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of ExpressionEngine and Titan CMS
Feature
ExpressionEngine
8.9
36 Ratings
13% above category average
Titan CMS
4.6
5 Ratings
52% below category average
WYSIWYG editor
10.033 Ratings
8.04 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness
9.135 Ratings
3.04 Ratings
Admin section
7.135 Ratings
6.04 Ratings
Page templates
10.030 Ratings
2.05 Ratings
Library of website themes
7.011 Ratings
8.02 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design
10.018 Ratings
2.03 Ratings
Publishing workflow
9.028 Ratings
3.05 Ratings
Form generator
9.021 Ratings
5.05 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of ExpressionEngine and Titan CMS
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Titan CMS is a good full featured CMS if users are fairly tech savvy. It is under active development and has added significant features through the years.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Utilizing a Filter to determine what shows on a page saves countless hours of configuring content that should be displayed on a page - it's been a lifesaver how easy it is to set up too.
Smart Search takes the search box and makes it magical. Common misspellings and alternate names can still send a user to the proper page!
Data nodes and filters can also be configured to Find a Dealer, Doctor, Location etc. It puts the power into a users hands and makes is easy to use.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
I would love to see a "View this Page" button after a page has been updated/published. Every time I publish a new page, I have to open a new browser window, navigate to a different tab, copy the page url "example/example/example" and paste it after "www.mywebsite.com" in order to preview the new page/content.
If Titan and WordPress were in a beauty competition, there is no way that Titan would win. Titan's dashboard, buttons, etc are dated and bland, and is in dire need of a refresh.
A drag and drop to upload feature would be very helpful.
Creating forms is very cumbersome and the pop-up window in which the form is created needs to be revamped. The font-size is much too small and it is not as customizable as it could be.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
Titan CMS had a great support system and they helped make my experience go smooth. They offer courses to help people get acquainted, offer support over the phone and are more than willing to make your experience a great one. Once I was familiar with Titan I always found myself wanting to learn more and do more to improve upon the website. Titan makes CMS fun and exciting!
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.
Everything we've needed to accomplish, Titan CMS has been able to accomplish. From multiple levels of user rights, document rights, tagging pages and documents to make filters do the work of content displayed on a page - it's all easy to set up too. Creating a content rich product detail page template and customizing a ecommerce cart to work for those using a dealer network - needing a request for quote, to go to dealers instead of a self checkout.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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
I understand that our Web Development Team is very busy, however, sometimes there is a delay in response and a followup email is needed to determine the progress of the issue/question
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It was customized to include screen shots of our site and how users can access the content that only pertains to them as well as advanced training sessions for admin duties and everything that goes along with it. Training is in small groups and can be private (your company only) if you like too.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
Talk to your project manager for Titan early on in development about minimalizing customizations. It seems obvious, but many times they do what you ask in the respect of "This is how we do it now, make that happen in Titan" vs. think of how Titan can deliver the same results within the confines of the base software. It's not a fault, just human nature.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Clients have access to the online and PDF documentation, also tips and how-tos for the most current versions of Titan CMS in the market. Check out our full documentation library! unlimited Dev/ QA/ Server install. Load balancing, and cluster support included. Upgrade options included free of cost along with unlimited CPUs per server.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Positive ROI by allowing content contributors embedded within departments with the department domain knowledge to update the site directly. More efficient and less centralized spending.
Requirement for investment in training users of CMS cuts into ROI. Would recommend a two-step workflow where department content contributors enter information into CMS and then approval step is done by webmaster team to ensure content meets standard formatting guidelines. This workflow functionality exists in the Titan CMS.
Positive ROI experienced during projects such as moving to a responsive design because much of the content can migrate untouched. Also positive when updating graphics in template to give site new look.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info