EE - The Peak of CMS Functionality.
We use ExpressionEngine to create bespoke, powerful, and secure websites for our clientele. It allows us to create highly extensible sites …
Starting at $299 One Time Fee
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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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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%
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$299.00
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- No setup fee
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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ExpressionEngine Demo of a Staff Section
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ExpressionEngine demo door Keesâ„¢ Internetbureau
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DevDemon's Channel Forms add-on for ExpressionEngine
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Solspace's Calendar Add-on for ExpressionEngine
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What is ExpressionEngine?
ExpressionEngine is an open source content
management system developed by EllisLab in 2002 as a successor to pMachine
Pro, a blogging system, which is written in object-oriented PHP and uses MySQL
for data storage. EllisLab closed in 2018, but ExpressionEngine is still available, as an open source CMS.
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.
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
10-Minute ExpressionEngine Primer
ExpressionEngine Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Reviewers rate Role-based user permissions and WYSIWYG editor and Code quality / cleanliness highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of ExpressionEngine are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings
(86)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- 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
(51-61 of 61)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
April 25, 2014
User Review
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We used it for our entire website. Marketing mainly used it, but other employees were granted access to make edits to web pages
- I really enjoyed the future entries and expiration options. I mainly used ExpressionEngine for posting jobs, so it was very convenient to be able to post a job and have it go up and expire without me having to manually go in and take it down.
- I wished sometimes that the clipboard function worked a little bit better; it seemed to get jumbled at times
April 23, 2014
A Happy Designer With Happy Clients, The CMS That Works
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use ExpressionEngine as a CMS (Content Management Platform) for clients seeking small to medium sized marketing websites. ExpressionEngine is a cost-effective solution for most clients seeking an easy way to manage content of their website in-house. ExpressionEngine is primarily used by our User Experience Design department when a custom software solution is not needed on a project, which sometimes may be part of a larger digital product.
- Easy to use: ExpressionEngine is a platform that takes little to no training with my clients, regardless of their technical proficiency.
- Easy to manage: ExpressionEngine can be easily hosted and updated at very little cost.
- Well supported: We choose ExpressionEngine because it's a commercial product. Our clients have purchased a license (an affordable one at that) and have a company they can contact for support or to report issues or ask questions (though issues are rare).
- Robust: ExpressionEngine has an impressive amount of functionality as-is, which solves the majority of a company's needs for their website. This sets it above other open source platforms that require a variety of third-party add ons in to get the desired functionality (leading to difficulty in updating and managing the website). If a third-party add on is needed they tend to be commercially supported as well.
- Potentially Limiting: This isn't a flaw, but eventually a company may outgrow the needs of a CMS website and need something with robust functionality, especially in regards to e-commerce.
- Two-way communication: ExpressionEngine as a CMS does not implement user-interaction well. If a company wants a way for their audience to interact with or manage content on their website ExpressionEngine will struggle. This doesn't reflect the ease our clients have from updating the site content from the ExpressionEngine administration.
- Lagging technology stack: ExpressionEngine lacks some of the more robust features for updating a codebase. Larger updates to a website may require downtime or "content locks" where our clients cannot add or edit content on their websites. Modern websites should be able to add larger updates seamlessly with a live website. Minor updates aren't a problem.
April 22, 2014
Thoughts on ExpressionEngine from a small-time developer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
When I worked as a web developer, I used ExpressionEngine (EE) to build custom websites for various clients. EE was a platform that was used company-wide on several projects, because it offers some distinct advantages compared to other platforms. EE is an extremely robust platform that offers solutions to all kinds of business problems. Most notably, it offers extensive customization both in form and function, has a substantial development community behind it, and handles social networking and custom content better than its competitors.
- The user interface is extremely well designed. It's clean and super easy to navigate—this is so valuable for training clients and for regular use. I haven't seen any content management systems that have a better UI.
- From a programming standpoint, the EE markup is amazing. It is SO clean and simple! Your code will look marvelous. The markup is intuitive and responsive. It saves so much time and effort.
- We used EE largely because of how it handles social networking and custom content types. There are literally no limits to how you can categorize your content. No more "posts" and "pages" ... everything is customizable based on the content you're working with and the goals of the project. This is such a great value for clients/users/developers.
- Most people point to the licensing cost as a point of friction. While $299 seems steep compared to free, open source alternatives like WordPress, I will say that the investment is worth it. I'd still like to see the cost of the license come down, though. It would make this platform more accessible.
- With a proprietary platform like EE, training resources are a must—since there are a lot of nuances within the platform that are unique to EE. These things need to be explained clearly in a way that "mere mortals" will understand. While EE does have a ton of documentation (i.e. User Guide) and learning materials, I would say that even more learning materials would be nice. Video tutorials, walkthroughs, etc. Give us more!
- So EllisLab (the creator of EE) has decided to sell its open source CodeIgniter framework (CodeIgniter is the framework EE is built on). This is alarming to many EE developers, who at this point are not sure whether CodeIgniter will remain the backbone of EE, or if that will change in the near future. So this is an important development that has some negative potential impact.
April 19, 2014
High-end CMS features, great community!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
ExpressionEngine (EE) is being used for our two major brands, The Human Element® and LIFO®, training and occupational development systems we market in the US and manage worldwide. We use it for both public websites, http://thehumanelement.com, and http://lifo.co. We manage mostly static pages, with some dynamic elements that take advantage of EE's database underpinnings.
- Content management: very easy to log in and add pages or make changes.
- Managing global elements and implementing them site-wide. Need a new logo or sidebar element? Change one "embed" and it's implemented throughout your site.
- Dynamic content that needs sorting by date. From the obvious such as blogs, to the less so, such as event listings, EE's extensive category management, display options and sorting make it relatively easy to flow dynamic content into your pages.
- Simple commerce: yes, it's unsophisticated, but it's a breeze to set up and manage.
- Image management isn't as effortless as other solutions, but it's getting better ... plus, there are a myriad of third-party tools that add more features in this area
- Updating to the latest version of EE involves a lot of technical work in FTP, and can get messed-up easily if not done exactly right. It is a far cry from a typical OSX or Windows update experience, to be sure.
- This is not an in-page editing scheme, such as Barley — you will be managing content from a separate, back-end admin site, and so it feels less "hands-on" than the in-page CMS's out there. That said, there is way more power to EE than these other offerings.
April 18, 2014
ExpressionEngine Excels.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
ExpressionEngine is used to run our entire website. It's used across the whole organization with various people submitting articles, for blog postings, news updates, etc. For us, ExpressionEngine shines in its flexibility. Right out of the box, ExpressionEngine doesn't assume you want your website structured in any specific way, unlike other Content Management Systems, and allows us to build out our website as we see fit.
- Flexibility out of the box.
- Offers considerable add-on capabilities through its use of modules and plug-ins.
- Low entry price compared to others (such as Sitecore and Ektron), for all it offers and enables you to do.
- Updating - We purchased a module to take care of this (only 15 dollars), but easy updating should be built in
- Relationships - again, something that can be purchased but should be available.
- Default Admin color scheme. Nit-picky for sure, but shades of grey with hot pink highlights doesn't say professional. Again, something you can change.
April 16, 2014
Past Experience with ExpressionEngine
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I am not presently utilizing ExpressionEngine with my current job. However, I did use it to update the website for my former employer, the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA). I shared the responsibility with my colleague in the Development department. At times, I did have to refer to a manual that the web designers created. One problem that arose was not knowing where a coding error was. I have some basic knowledge of this type of tech language from an intro level computer science class I took in college. However, we needed the assistance of an IT technician to pinpoint the exact location of the formatting error, as the text was very long to review.
- ExpressionEngine allows users to plug information into forms, which then updates the corresponding webpages with ease. I have a basic knowledge of web coding, so this format makes it easy for most people to update their website hassle-free.
- I particularly like the way ExpressionEngine links registration pages with Eventbrite, another web platform that MOBIA uses to promote events.
- ExpressionEngine works well with listing prices for Membership and items in the Bookshop, successfully linking to MOBIA's online storefront via Shopify.
- ExpressionEngine should provide a manual for new users. The folks that redesigned MOBIA's website back in 2009 had to write one to successfully train the staff so they could make future updates to the site.
- I often times had problems creating slideshows to highlight works of art in the temporary exhibitions.
- Some edits could easily be made by re-accessing the different forms that comprise of the software, but others can only be changed by rewriting code. I would recommend sticking to the former for the sake of ease and consistency.
April 12, 2014
Developer review of ExpressionEngine
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We have used ExpressionEngine as a low cost solution for small websites. As a freelance developer, it is my go-to tool for CMS's due to its small size and compatibility with my server.
- Entries - Sites with multiple entries for data work very well.
- Works with your code - you don't need to have a bloated install and a pre-built setup to make EE work with your code.
- Easy to setup the architecture as you wish
- Hard to use for social sites where users create their own pages and content
- Rich text CMS doesn't play well with dropping images in like wordpress or umbraco
- godaddy hates it, but i hate godaddy, so that's ok.
April 12, 2014
ExpressionEngine? Hmm... Only if you like making your job easier and your clients happy.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
ExpressionEngine has been chosen as the primary CMS of use for our company when we begin a new project here at Black Belt Designs. If the customer comes to us with a previously existing base, we will evaluate it and determine if a change is either one, necessary, or two, feasible. So far, each client has been extremely happy with the change over to ExpressionEngine if they were previously using another CMS.
- If you know HTML and CSS, you can begin using ExpressionEngine. Unlike other CMS products out there, you don't necessarily need to know PHP, C#, .NET, or any other language.
- If you DO know PHP, you can extend ExpressionEngine to limitless usages. The 'hooks' provided within the code base allow you to further stretch ExpressionEngine's capabilities to whatever needs you might have. You can think of ExpressionEngine as a 'development environment' that allows you to define the needs.
- ExpressionEngine allows you, the developer, to establish guidelines for your clients during the development process. There are no boundaries or limitations that bind you to specific realms.
- ExpressionEngine's control panel is clean, simple, and allows users to create, edit, and find their entries with ease.
- Maybe not a weakness per se, but one thing that tends to 'get' people in the beginning is the understanding of the parsing order. There are many thing that ExpressionEngine can do. One thing you will find yourself questioning is "Why aren't my variables rendering properly?". Many times it is due to a parsing order issue. One thing that can help with this is properly mapping out your development prior to beginning your code.
- The use of third party addons is a great extension to ExpressionEngine. However, you definitely want to keep a development version of your project on ice for any updates to, not only your addons, but ExpressionEngine yourself. There is not a good way to 'roll back' your project once you update your version.
- Multiple environment development scenarios can prove to be problematic. This is to be somewhat understood though due to the reliance of the database driven nature of the CMS itself.
April 12, 2014
ExpressionEngine: Flexible & Robust!
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We used ExpressionEngine to build small to large marketing websites for clients who wanted to easily update the content themselves. ExpressionEngine is easy for a novice to manage but robust and flexible enough to allow for modifications. The documentation and community support is amazing. There is an add-on solution that will solve most of your development problems or you can build one to fit your needs.
- ExpressionEngine does not modify your html.
- The template system is one of the best I have ever seen.
- It is flexible but robust enough to handle small and large sites.
- The community support is amazing.
- Tons of add-ons!
- Over the years the control panel has not been the best user experience but it has improved immensely with version 2.x.
- With flexibility, comes great responsibility. Be sure to choose a good team to design, develop and support your ExpressionEngine website, or it could get messy!
- Probably not a great solution for an enterprise level website.
April 11, 2014
Expressions on ExpressionEngine
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
ExpressionEngine was used as a CMS option for clients of the business. We would take sites from concept to completion, utilizing the best CMS for each clients needs. ExpressionEngine was used for medium to large e-commerce web sites that required much more user interaction than a traditional e-commerce store front.
- User Management -
- Robust user management system that allows for a very flexible account configuration.
- Content Management -
- Extremely customizable content management, with a very in-depth configuration. This can be done by a non-technical person with very little training, but with more technical knowledge, a more robust system can be developed.
- Front-End Templating -
- The templating system that ExpressionEngine has is by far one of the best out there. Very straight forward tags and logic, but with the ability to be very robust.
- Module Development -
- There are third-party modules for ExpressionEngine that can really take this CMS to the next level. Built on top of this very solid core, the modules are only limited by the developers skill level.
- Software Updating -
- To update the core files in ExpressionEngine, it takes a lot of manual work and time. There are a lot of moving parts, and it can be very nerve wracking to update the system.
- Content Building Error Checking -
- Right now, ExpressionEngine does not have anyway to let you know when you are missing a piece when it comes to building the actual content management piece. It would be nice if there was a more stepped approach to this, and with visible error messages to let administrators know where things might be wrong.
April 08, 2014
What I think of ExpressionEngine
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
ExpressionEngine is used by myself and by a number of my clients to make managing the company website dead simple.
- Accommodates any custom design
- Ease of use for non-technical clients
- Scalability and flexibility for future growth
- Third party modules aren't always up to date with current version.
- Updating process is a bit cumbersome.