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
WordPress
Score8.7 out of 10
N/A
Wordpress is an open-source publishing platform popular with bloggers, and a content management system, known for its simplicity and modifiability. Websites may host their own blogging communities, controlling and moderating content from a single dashboard.
$3
per month 6 GB storage
Pricing
ExpressionEngine
WordPress
Editions & Modules
License
$299.00
One Time Fee
Personal
$4
per month 6 GB storage
Premium
$8
per month 13 GB storage
Business
$25
per month 50 GB storage
Commerce
$45
per month 50 GB storage
Enterprise
Contact for pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ExpressionEngine
WordPress
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
Pricing for Business and Commerce plans vary on number of GB.
Web Developer in Information Technology at Pedrera Web Development (Marketing & Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
We do use WordPress for very small, simple websites. However, we dislike WordPress' approach to having content types (pages and posts) and themes running at install. We have to "override" the WordPress assumptions about the website, which is time-consuming. We also find that …
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
Principal in Marketing at Versa Studio LLC (Internet, 1-10 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
While everybody loves WordPress because it's cheap, fast, and ubiquitous, we prefer ExpressionEngine for its flexibility, security, and open approach to content structure.
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
Verified User
Chose ExpressionEngine
I feel ExpressionEngine is on par with the major CMS systems, WordPress, Drupal, and Craft. It's used by many companies exclusively and is trustworthy. Lately, I've been building more sites with WordPress and still prefer how ExpressionEngine handles certain aspects, such as …
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
Partner in Information Technology at Satdaya LLC (Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
WordPress has millions of users. Millions! It also has thousands of plugins and add-ons, both free and premium, an easy, automatic updating system, and a user-friendly control panel. It also has numerous installable themes that can fit a wide variety of website needs, from the …
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
Web Developer at Big Sea Design + Development (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
We tend to prefer WordPress over ExpressionEngine, primarily for ease of set up out of the box. ExpressionEngine has its strengths, but for our company, this isn't our first choice.
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
Verified User
Chose ExpressionEngine
In the right environment, a good amount of time, and for long-term use to grow in to, ExpressEngine is a great choice. Especially for large, growing businesses. Comparing this to WordPress, ExpressEngine is more of a long term solution than a quick, easy CMS setup that relies …
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
CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in Corporate at tripleNERDscore (Marketing & Advertising, 1-10 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
EE offers a much more flexible experience content experience while still keeping the content intact. Other CMSs have really become more "page builders", which is great to start but does not scale in either speed or functionality. EE, though rigid in the content structure, gives …
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
Verified User
Chose ExpressionEngine
As previously mentioned, the UI/UX of EE is leagues beyond any other CMS I have used before. This is essential for client 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
Web Developer in Marketing at Cleveland State Community College (Higher Education, 201-500 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
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 …
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
Graphic Design / Marketing Specialist in Marketing at Bacterin International, Inc. (Biotechnology, 51-200 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
ExpressionEngine was selected prior to my hiring. We are likely switching from ExpresionEngine to WordPress or Drupal in the near future to save money on custom modules.
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
Verified User
Chose ExpressionEngine
We have experience with Wordpress and Joomla. ExpressionEngine compares favorable to both in terms of security, as we've experienced many security problems with both Wordpress and Joomla. We find the community behind ExpressionEngine to be more professional and the level of …
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
Verified User
Chose ExpressionEngine
We felt WordPress could not handle a large site such as USG. We also didn't want to deal with the constant security updates WordPress receives often. Drupal is very robust but hard to learn compared to ExpressionEngine. We didn't feel the other CMSs offered anything that …
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
Verified User
Chose ExpressionEngine
It stacks up well. Issue is that it costs too much money. I could do the same thing, a little unorganized, with WordPress.
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
Lead Web Developer at Trout Unlimited (Internet, 1-10 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
Before finding ExpressionEngine, I'd always been frustrated by the shoddy, convoluted front-end code created by other content manage systems or their plugins. ExpressionEngine does a fantastic job in separating the content from the code, allowing you to build custom templates …
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
Partner / Web Developer in Engineering at Dative (Internet, 1-10 employees)
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 …
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
Editor & Publisher at Chartio (Media Production, 1-10 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
WordPress: When I bought Expression Engine, WordPress didn't have the member management features of EE. They've now caught up on that score. EE still beats WP on templating and design options. WordPress has a much strong community. WordPress is more likely to be a hacking …
Verified User
Chose ExpressionEngine
Expression Engine is certainly for more advanced website development than a templated site such as WordPress or SquareSpace. But for this reason, it allows you to have freedom in the creation of your website and still maintain a very user-friendly management system. It is not …
Web Developer at Creative Arc, Inc (Internet, 1-10 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
The learning curve on EE was less intense than those for Zend Framework, drupal or WordPress. Setup and config for highly-custom sites is quicker and quite simple. Having the ability to quickly make the control panel UI look nice for end-users is a huge plus and is often …
Verified User
Chose ExpressionEngine
I didn't select EE, it was the tool that was used by the company when I came in. However, I do have some experience in WordPress and would much prefer to work with EE over it.
Webmaster in Information Technology at Grooveshark (Education Management, 51-200 employees)
Chose ExpressionEngine
Before using EE, I had experience with WordPress and Acquia Drupal. ExpressionEngine, in my opinion, is easier to learn and use than Drupal, but not more than WordPress. Additionally, it is more secure than either of the other two. However, I also found it less well documented …
Automattic
Verified User
Chose WordPress
I personally prefer WordPress after using ExpressionEngine and Craft CMS. The ease of getting a site up and running quickly far exceeds the other two. Plus, deploying a site from my local environment to staging to production is much simpler. WordPress is also more flexible out …
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
Owner at DuPont Pioneer (Computer Software, 1-10 employees)
Chose WordPress
ExpressionEngine 2 is the main other CMS I have used and I really like it. WordPress wins over it because it has a cost of 200 dollars. I very much dislike Joomla and Drupal - not even options in my book. I have been interested in flat file CMSs like Kirby but haven't used them …
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
Verified User
Chose WordPress
WordPress was an excellent balance between allowing options for customization and giving us reasonable efficiency in development and content administration. We still use other tools for certain cases, such as when we need to launch a smaller site quickly or when we need very …
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
Digital Marketing Analyst in Marketing at Orbis Education (Education Management, 51-200 employees)
Chose WordPress
We selected WordPress because of the community, flexibility, and cost. With the main reason being the community and support system that exists. This means we can find talent to make custom plugins, customize themes, and maintain the website easily and on a reasonable budget.
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
WordPress Developer in Information Technology at Ackmann & Dickenson, Inc. (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)
Chose WordPress
ExpressionEngine is built on an MVC framework which is fairly good. The problem is it isn't open source. Meaning you're paying hundreds of dollars for it, which most clients with a budget don't want to deal with. Drupal is alright, but personally, I don't like it. It's awful to …
Verified User
Chose WordPress
Joomla - which did not have a stable product. HubSpot - which says it has a CMS but does not.
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
Wordpress is a great solution for a website of nearly any type. It may not be as suitable if a fully custom solution or app is needed, and it does have some limitations when it comes to connecting it to external products (especially if the product doesn't have any support from a native system), and it does require a lot of testing. Multiple plugins in one install are common but also increase the risk of conflicts, and when those do occur, it can be exceptionally time-consuming and tedious to identify what is causing the issue. As third parties create many plugins, you're also at risk with each potential security breach, which needs to be kept in mind. I would be cautious to use WordPress to store any sort of sensitive PPI. That said, it's a wonderful, easily customizable solution for many, many different types of websites and can allow even inexperienced client users with low-tech knowledge to update basics.
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
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
WordPress breaks often so you need to have someone who understands how to troubleshoot, which can take time and money.
Some plugins are easier to customize than others, for example, some don't require any coding knowledge while others do. This can limit your project if you are not a coder.
WordPress can be easily hacked, so you also need someone who can ensure your sites are secure.
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.
The complications we have and the lack of support. Every plugin has a differente team of support in charge and make one plugin work with the other one always affects the website performance. It's a thousand times better to have only one provider with all functionalities included unless you are an expert web developer or have a team dedicated to it
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 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.
Extremely easy to use and train users. It took very little time to get everyone trained and onboarded to start using WordPress. Anytime we had any issues, we were able to find an article or video to help out or we were able to contact support. The menu options are well laid out so it is easy to find what you are looking for.
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
Anyone can visit WordPress.org and download a fully functional copy of WordPress free of charge. Additionally, WordPress is offered to users as open-source software, which means that anyone can customize the code to create new applications and make these available to other WordPress users.
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
Mostly, any performance issues have to do with using too many plugins and these can sometimes slow down the overall performance of your site. It is very tempting to start adding lots of plugins to your WordPress site, however, as there are thousands of great plugins to choose from and so many of them help you do amazing things on your site. If you begin to notice performance issues with your WordPress site (e.g. pages being slow to load), there are ways to optimize the performance of your site, but this requires learning the process. WordPress users can learn how to optimize their WordPress sites by downloading the WPTrainMe WordPress training plugin (WPTrainMe.com) and going through the detailed step-by-step WordPress optimization tutorials.
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 give this rating, which I believe to be a great rating for a community based support system that's surrounding it. Most platforms and products have their own, and as WordPress does have their own team that help here and there, a lot of it's handled by community involvement with dedicated users who are experts with the system who love to help people.
Varies by the person providing training. High marks as it's incredibly easy to find experienced individuals in your community to provide training on any aspect of WordPress from content marketing, SEO, plugin development, theme design, etc. Less than 10 though as the training is community based and expectations for a session you find may fall short.
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.
WordPress is not a great solution if you have: 1) A larger site with performance / availability requirements. 2) Multiple types of content you want to share - each with its own underlying data structure. 3) Multiple sites you need to manage. For very small sites where these needs are not paramount, WordPress is a decent solution
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
WordPress isn't as pretty or easy to use as certain competitors like Jimdo, Squarespace or HubSpot, but it makes up for it with its affordability, familiarity and the ability to find quality outside help easily. The same can't be said for certain competitors, as you might need to find an expert and it could get costly.
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
WordPress is completely scalable. You can get started immediately with a very simple "out-of-the box" WordPress installation and then add whatever functionality you need as and when you need it, and continue expanding. Often we will create various WordPress sites on the same domain to handle different aspects of our strategy (e.g. one site for the sales pages, product information and/or a marketing blog, another for delivering products securely through a private membership site, and another for running an affiliate program or other application), and then ties all of these sites together using a common theme and links on each of the site's menus. Additionally, WordPress offers a multisite function that allows organizations and institutions to manage networks of sites managed by separate individual site owners, but centrally administered by the parent organization. You can also expand WordPress into a social networking or community site, forums, etc. The same scalability applies to web design. You can start with a simple design and then scale things up to display sites with amazing visual features, including animations and video effects, sliding images and animated product image galleries, elements that appear and fade from visitor browsers, etc. The scaling possibilities of WordPress are truly endless.
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
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