Overview
What is ExpressionEngine?
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.
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Website development that's simplified and streamlined
ExpressionEngine. One CMS to rule them all!
Solid, more flexible alternative to WordPress
ExpressionEngine - the CMS of Choice
Great For Novices
EE Above the Rest for Client UX.
ExpressionEngine, Affordable Comercial CMS
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ExpressionEngine: A CMS Worth Checking Out
ExpressionEngine is dream of any developer.
ExpressionEngine can do it all... For a price.
Satdaya is a creative services firm that includes web development among our services. We recommend and use ExpressionEngine to our clients …
Free yourself from convoluted CMS markup with ExpressionEngine
Powerhouse CMS great for ecommerce and large sites
Popular Features
- Role-based user permissions (33)10.0100%
- Code quality / cleanliness (32)10.0100%
- Admin section (32)10.0100%
- Availability / breadth of extensions (32)8.080%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
License
$299.00
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Entry Analytics EEDPX Demo
EE Harbor's Transcribe Add-on Demo
ExpressionEngine Demo of a Staff Section
ExpressionEngine demo door Keesâ„¢ Internetbureau
DevDemon's Channel Forms add-on for ExpressionEngine
Solspace's Calendar Add-on for ExpressionEngine
Features
Security
This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.
- 10Role-based user permissions(33) Ratings
Permissions to perform actions or access or modify data are assigned to roles, which are then assigned to users, reducing complexity of administration.
Platform & Infrastructure
Features related to platform-wide settings and structure, such as permissions, languages, integrations, customizations, etc.
- 9API(24) Ratings
An API (application programming interface) provides a standard programming interface for connecting third-party systems to the software for data creation, access, updating and/or deletion.
- 8Internationalization / multi-language(21) Ratings
The software supports multiple languages, countries, currencies, etc.
Web Content Creation
Features that support the creation of website content.
- 10WYSIWYG editor(30) Ratings
What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editing tool allows users to build pages without writing code.
- 10Code quality / cleanliness(32) Ratings
Code generated by WYSIWYG editor is clean and validates according to W3C standards.
- 10Admin section(32) Ratings
The admin page is easy to navigate and use.
- 8Page templates(28) Ratings
The CMS has standard webpage templates or types of web pages (e.g. homepage, article page, interior page, blog page, etc.); users can also build custom templates.
- 7Library of website themes(11) Ratings
A library of website frameworks or themes is available as a starting point for building a website.
- 9Mobile optimization / responsive design(15) Ratings
The CMS helps users build webpages that work well on mobile devices – whether m-dot pages or responsively designed pages.
- 9Publishing workflow(25) Ratings
The software allows users to set up a custom workflow for updating the website, including approval processes.
- 6Form generator(18) Ratings
Users can build website forms for visitors to fill out.
Web Content Management
Features for managing website content
- 10Content taxonomy(25) Ratings
Users can create multiple levels and types of content categories including tags.
- 10SEO support(25) Ratings
The CMS helps users create the right website infrastructure (pagination, page headers, titles, meta tags, url structure, etc.) to increase the site’s visibility in search engine results.
- 10Bulk management(27) Ratings
Users can change an attribute on a group of documents or sites all at once through features such as global search and replace, making bulk changes easier.
- 8Availability / breadth of extensions(32) Ratings
There is a broad library of extensions, plug-ins, modules or add-ons that allow users to easily customize their websites without building custom code.
- 9Community / comment management(30) Ratings
Users can put post/page comments through an approval process, auto-approve commenters based on their email addresses, block commenters by IP address, delete comments, etc.
Product Details
- About
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is ExpressionEngine?
With CodeIgniter, an agile, open-source framework, web professionals can use ExpressionEngine to build websites and applications. The software is meant to be useful for companies of any size and private individuals as well, and to that end it is highly customizable, and implementation may vary. Like many content management systems, various add-ons will determine what the system does, though the core features are somewhat broader than similarly classed free offerings. The Multiple Site Manager allows a user to create and manage multiple sites from a single ExpressionEngine installation. Nexcess (a partner) provides a hosting environment for an ExpressionEngine-powered website.
ExpressionEngine Video
ExpressionEngine Technical Details
Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Unspecified |
Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(86)Community Insights
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Reliable Performance: Many users have praised the product for its reliable performance. Several reviewers mentioned that the product consistently meets their expectations and performs well in various scenarios. Ease of Use: The ease of use is a common pro mentioned by several customers. Users appreciate how intuitive and user-friendly the product is, making it easy to navigate and operate without any hassle or confusion. Great Customer Support: Some users have expressed their satisfaction with the great customer support provided by the company. They have found the support team to be responsive, helpful, and efficient in resolving any issues or inquiries they had.
Cons:
- Quality Issues: Some users have experienced quality issues with the product, including defects and malfunctions. Several reviewers have mentioned receiving damaged items or products that broke shortly after purchase.
- Lack of Customer Support: Many customers have expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of responsive customer support. Several users have reported difficulties in contacting the company for assistance or resolving issues related to their purchase.
- Limited Features/Functionality: Some users feel that the product lacks certain features or functionalities they expected. Reviewers have mentioned specific features missing from the product, such as advanced customization options or compatibility with other devices, which have impacted their overall experience.
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ExpressionEngine is recommended by many users as a great and promising update in the CMS market. It is praised for being free, open-source, and supported by a helpful developer community. Users suggest exploring extensions in the market to enhance its capabilities.
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Improvement is needed in areas such as help and support, as well as managing SEO. Those concerned about security should consider alternative solutions. Reading the developer documentation thoroughly is advised, along with using EE Harbor extensions.
3.ExpressionEngine is suitable for creating different channels and effectively managing website content. It is favored by confident HTML and PHP developers seeking customization options. The platform is considered user-friendly and secure, with the ability to handle large data or databases through proper caching.
While some express concerns about the direction and progress of ExpressionEngine, many still regard it as a leading commercial offering. It is advised to carefully consider project requirements and customization needs when choosing between ExpressionEngine and other CMS platforms like WordPress or Drupal. The value of the EE support plan and the helpfulness of the community are also mentioned as factors to consider for web agencies.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(26-50 of 61)- Customizable
- Independent subsites
- Easy to use and to learn (it took me a little bit to learn about this CMS and start doing my own plugins)
- The variety of plugins is not that big, besides the database is the best one in performance
Is ExpressionEngine the best form of expression?
ExpressionEngine was also used as the CMS for a corporate presence site for a well known cloud storage company.
- What you're given is a CMS with a strong database schema to group and deliver contextual data with fantastic ease of development. Accessing data from a table is an easy scripting language in which the results read like English language sentences yet still powerful enough to adapt to infinite design needs.
- No need to amend a template system. Build the templates on the fly and let ExpressionEngine deliver them. This resulted in an easy front end development with no learning curve. It was like having a blank slate in which the CMS would exist to mainly feed the data to the front end.
- ExpressionEngine can deploys the entire site as flat files for an extremely fast loading product which also pleases the SEO nerds.
- At it's base, all of the site, HTML, CSS, javascript, data, etc... , are stored in a sql database. If you have a site that needs to be dynamic: IE a site that has a blog, or comments, or customer contributions, you'll find that each and every page load would result in thousands of database calls. Queries to a database is some of the slowest transactions a page load can have. If the entire site is loaded through said transactions you'll find it's impossible to break any speed records. ExpressionEngine would not be my choice if those are a requirement. Though there are work-arounds. As of 2.5.5 there was no option to render part of the site as flat file and part of the site as dynamic.
- Because the development of the site is saved entirely in the database it became somewhat cumbersome save versions of the site to a git repository. The only difference between one install of ExpressionEngine and another is the database itself. You could make a SQL dump from one site and load it into another and have completely migrated the site. This sounds great if you need to migrate sites all the time, but backing up versions of an existing site meant backing up sql dumps.
- In EE v.2.8.1 you can now export template files to flat files so that database connections will be reduced. This addition will help the CMS greatly.
- This is actually in part and parcel with the last point. Being that git repository back up is difficult, collaborate development would also be a challenge. I was lucky to be the sole developer on my projects, but if you have multiple developers working on one product and they have branching code sets, the merging of this code would be time consuming, being that the developers would have to manually add the code to the same install rather than an easy deploy script. Why would this be? Because until the product is rendered to flat files it's all in the database. Of course this could all be overcome by having a dev environment that is shared by all developers. Then deploying to staging or production would just be the act of dumping then loading SQL files. But that is not the current work flow that developers have grown to appreciate.
ExpressionEngine: a solid CMS choice
- ExpressionEngine has a very good track record on security
- It doesn't dictate markup or styling or use predefined templates--100% of the outputted code is developer generated
- It is extremely customizable to fit a proejct's specifications
- Non-technical users find it very easy to use for managing their site content
- Performance can be an issue on complex pages--nested conditionals can result in slower load times
- A fairly powerful server is required to generate the many SQL statements in order to generate complex pages
- Many of the back end database tables are not normalized
- There is room for improving some of the base functionality (EE has done better with this recently--e.g. Grid)
- Corporate communication to users has historically been a mess
It's reliable, extendable, and has been a core part of our business for years.
- You design what is best for your client, and then build the dynamic features in. Other CMS products approach this backwards.
- It's easy for our clients to manage their sites, even on complex builds.
- It has a strong, helpful community of users and developers.
- Developing is fast and straight forward.
- Having common field sets that are independent of content channels would be a welcome change.
- It's control panel could use some streamlining and design updating.
- The process of updating the system needs over hauling.
ExpressionEngine for non-profit
- Website Organization
- Quick info replacement
- Form Building
- Database/information management
- Exports
- Customized templates
ExpressionEngine - A highly recommended CMS.
- Allows our content owners to easily edit and publish their content.
- ExpressionEngine has a large amount of community provided add-ons allowing you add the needed functionality you need to your website.
- The user base is large and very helpful. You can usually find your answer to a question quickly in the Ellislab forums.
- Upgrading ExpressionEngine can be a hassle especially when you have MSM sites.
- Add functionality to be able to easily export and import your MSM sites.
ExpressionEngine Review from a Backend Developer
- Custom Fields
- Custom Post Types
- Syntax
- Cost
ExpressionEngine: The BIG Reliable.
- Flexible Templating
- Caching
- Custom Content Types
- Underlying framework based on codeigniter, could move to a more modern framework
- Could make use of Composer
- Better testing for add-ons.
EE stands for Exceptionally Excellent!
- My favorite thing about EE is the ability to easily create custom content input/edit forms that are easy for the business user to navigate and fill out.
- With EE, there is very little need for a WYSIWYG as you are able to easily target user inputted content with stylesheets. Making the site more consistent and avoiding the frustration WYSIWYGs can cause.
- The templating system is easy. You stick your CSS in a CSS template and your HTML in an HTML template. No zipped packages. No PHP to sift through to create a new look and feel of the site.
- I would really like to see the ability to customize how the content forms (channel entry forms) display. In other words, I would like to be able to hide certain fields if a certain field is equal to a certain value and create more specific validation based on what has been inputted in the form.
- I currently do not like how the channel entry form fields are ordered. A drag and drop interface would be much easier than inputting the sort number.
- The checkboxes in the channel entry forms are too easily checked, all you have to do is click within the checkbox area (which is easily done when scrolling).
An honest review of ExpressionEngine
- It has an extremely flexible front-end templating system, unlike most of the other CMSs that I have used.
- The community is very helpful and supportive. You can almost always get an answer through the Stack Exchange or Ellislab discussion forums.
- The third party add-on developer are very talented and you can find an add-on for just about anything you would need.
- Since it is a licensed product and not open source, it is not as widely used as other CMSs. I believe this is a benefit because it creates a niche for the developer.
- It's also more secure because it's not targeted by hackers and malicious scripts as much as the more popular CMSs.
- Pricing - At $300 per site, I feel like EE should come with a certain level of built in support from Ellislab. They just recently made support tickets a separate membership cost ranging from $50 to $2000 per month, it simply not an option for me. I've had to seek support from the Stack Exchange community instead.
- There are some built in features that and enhancements that I feel are missing in EE. I almost always have to install a third party add-on like Structure to help with building and maintaining pages and navigation throughout the site. This should be a core feature of any CMS.
- The built in search function is not very robust. I usually have to buy a third party add-on to enhance this function.
- The pagination function needs improvement. It just doesn't work well and it's very limited in the options and styles that can be applied.
- A responsive back-end would be helpful. Many other CMSs have adopted this approach in the last few years.
- It's really difficult to update the core system and plugins with ExpressionEngine. There are third party plugins that make this process easier like DevDemon's Updater, but I feel like EE could follow the lead from Wordpress and make updates and installs a built-in system feature.
Satisfied Project Manager - Expression Engine Enthusiast!
- Expression Engine is flexible so you can mold it to your specific needs. This is useful because you can utilize the platform for all your projects and continually improve on it and re-purpose features that you've built out.
- It's extremely user friendly so clients love it!
- As a Project Manager working with great developers, I never had any complaints with the way the CMS was built out. It was always really simple for me to work with.
EE is supported by a team of developers and support professionals at EllisLab and the online documentation is easy to read, thorough and extensive.
The developer/user community is extremely helpful and there are many online community support channels including EllisLab support forums, the ExpressionEngine Answers channel at Stack Exchange. And there are tons of third-party training resources, tutorials and blogs related to ExpressionEngine.
There's also an official marketplace where third-party add-on developers offer their modules, plugins and extensions for sale or free download.
I personally love the platform because I can usually meet all of my clients' requirements with EE core and a few third-party commercial add-ons. And EE's modular architecture allows me to create my own custom add-ons if I need to.
- Custom data modeling - you define your own content structure with custom fields and "channels" to hold your pages, blog entries, portfolio items, etc.
- Separation of presentation from content - you have complete control over how your data is displayed
- Product support - official support channels, community resources and helpful user/developer community
- Templating syntax is a little quirky for beginners
- Steep learning curve for creating custom add-ons
- Keeping docs updated, especially for add-on development
A great CMS if you have a budget for development and support
This was basically a one-user part-time business, but it gave me pretty broad experience with the product.
- The template language is powerful and easy to use
- The user management and access controls are very good
- The back end control panel is very good
- The community and support is not as strong as it used to be
- Software updates are difficult and risky
- Most applications will require additional commercial add-ons
It's a better choice than WordPress if you require highly customized templates.
It's a good choice if you require strong member and access management.
Expression of Awesomeness with ExpressionEngine
- Control Panel customization. With the ability to install addons in mere minutes to help with tweaking the UI for the user, it removes much of the learning curve so even those not versed with a CMS can learn quickly.
- Flexibility. Not just for blogs! EE has the power to run full-featured blogs without a blink or make short work of forum websites, but that power can be used for any number of situations easily (simple pages, product lines, listings, etc.)
- Extendability. For those developers that like to get their hands deep into PHP coding, EE allows for easy extension of classes and creation of your own custom modules to do tasks that the core system doesn't already do.
- Community. If you don't opt for the official support (which is very good in my experience), there is a community of users that are available to answer questions you may have. There is also a great repository of add-ons (both free and commercial) to help you customize your project easily.
- Documentation. Some of the documentation on the website lacks clear information. However, support and community make up for this if you can afford to wait for an answer.
ExpressionEngine: Ellislab's side project.
This fact is important to remember because it's fundamental to how you implement and use it long term.
A few things to note:
- Copy and Paste development is actually expected.
- Versioning can be difficult.
- Upgrading IS difficult.
We migrated to Drupal and WordPress.
The community of EE has dwindled in recent months and with the announcement that the core framework is up for sale, it looks like the product is on its last legs.
It is still good for:
- Design Shops.
- People not maintaining it themselves.
- Small companies.
* All of this is based on my experience with the product, my interactions with other developers with extensive experience, people that I respect and encounters in the field.
- Once you understand the "ExpressionEngine way" of things -- it does what it set out to do, very well.
- It's not widely used, so one COULD consider that to be a security strength. (Note: we have seen it hacked before.)
- It's a common brand with design shops, so it's an easy recommendations as a solution to them.
- The community, is just no longer there. With most projects, this is one of the most important areas.
- Maintenance, upgrades, versioning, etc is a nightmare.
- It is NOT for developers. Thinking that will set you up for failure.
- Short lived projects.
- Design shops.
- Small companies.
ExpressionEngine, It's awesome. But it's not as flexible as Drupal with User Management.
- Templating
- Conditional Comments
- Content Management
- Member (User) Management
- Easier Update Process
- Free Support
- Updates with ease
- Cookies for our site are easily added
- Reusuable template
- Depends on the department you work in and how quickly you will grasp it
- Lacking in themes
- Too many menus to distinguish between
Used EE, Prefer Wordpress or Rails
- Content management
- Asset management
- Clean php code
- E-commerce
- Templating
- Blogging
- Very user friendly for both IT as well as other departments using the software.
- Has everything necessary for running a website for a University.
- Laid out in a way that it's easy to describe to someone through email or over the phone how to do something.
- Making the icons a little bit better to understand, bigger.
- Copy and paste functionality a little bit better.
- A bigger section to write in so you don't have to scroll as much.
How easy of a process is it to create a new webpage?
How will this benefit the company?
Easy to use; difficult to develop
- Easy to use. We can train up new employees on how to use the system to perform all basic tasks in under 30 minutes.
- Effective interface design. The interface is surprisingly uncluttered and makes navigation easy. Additionally, they provide easy ways to customize the navigation and options available to each user.
- Secure. There are far less vulnerabilities using ExpressionEngine than the other CMSs we considered, such as WordPress or Drupal. We have never had an issue with security on our site.
- Convoluted development. Starting developed is a bit tricky, as the idea of channels, fields, field groups, etc. is not very intuitive. Takes building a site and then rebuilding to fully get the hang of.
- Poor support. Since there are many free alternatives, ExpressionEngine often lacks documentation that you'd expect it to have since there is not as large of an online community.
- Lacking default features. ExpressionEngine allows you to customize and expand it a lot, but out-of-the-box it has a lacking set of features. It is usually better to install plugins to help meet your needs. For instance, Structure is an almost required module if you plan on having to manage many pages.
ExpressionEngine Evaluation
- ExpressionEngine (EE) is highly customizable and flexible.
- EE allows you, the developer, to drive the decisions about the architecture of your site/blog rather than having those decisions made for you by the CMS.
- EE syntax is dynamic, easy to learn, and has a good amount of functionality built in.
- If you are new to web development, EE has a greater learning curve than some other popular CMSs like WordPress.
- Because it does not make architecture decisions for you, getting an initial site created will take longer than other CMSs. (You, the developer, will have to create the channels, choose form fields, and code the HTML/EE templates yourself)
- EE is based on an open source codebase, but you have to pay for the product itself.
- Secure. Built on CodeIgniter, EE has very few vulnerabilities compared to similar content management systems (e.g., WordPress, Drupal and Joomla).
- Flexible. The system is as strong or as weak as you make it.
- Easy to use. I've found that little training is needed to get team members and clients up and running in the system. I can set and forget it.
- Learning curve. The ideas behind EE can be confusing to some starting out building websites. And even for those who are used to using other CMS's, the terminology can be strange.
- Navigation. Native EE functionality doesn't support navigation very well. I'm always hunting for add-ons to help. Structure works in some instances. Taxonomy works in others. And then in some instances, I end up just using the template/snippet system which isn't ideal for clients who need to edit.
- Workflow and preview. Better Workflow as an add-on is really the only way to implement workflow in EE. It would be great if it could be natively supported at some point.
- Expression Engine is really easy to setup.
- Expression Engine is really simple to manage.
- Expression Engine community support is really helpful.
- There are limited numbers of add-ons
- There are limited numbers of plugins
- There are limited versions of plugins or add-ons
EE CMS Overview
- Bends around website design instead of the other way around.
- Good solution for large customers with different permission groups of users.
- Excellent for managing multiple websites under the same 'hood'.
- Be sure to discuss maintenance options with your customers - the update process is not difficult, but can take a bit of effort.
ExpressionEngine user review
- ExpressionEngine is easy to use. It is not hard to navigate, even if you are a beginner. It is easy to create new pages, edit templates, and post blogs.
- ExpressionEngine updates your webpage instantly. Anytime you click update or save, the change is made right away. I have never had any problems updating and maintaining our website using ExpressionEngine.
- ExpressionEngine is reliable. The website has never had any issues, and I have always been able to log in easily.
- If you are not experienced in using the interface, it can be hard to find things such as uploads. It is hard to find the directory to where I have uploaded images. You really need to do some searching to find the little things.
- Troubleshooting. ExpressionEngine has practically none - if your website goes down, and you need help from ExpressionEngine, you need to purchase their package of assistance.