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ExpressionEngine: Effective Content Management for the SMB
April 30, 2014

ExpressionEngine: Effective Content Management for the SMB

Ryan Bentz | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

2

Overall Satisfaction with ExpressionEngine

We use EE for our public facing marketing websites to communicate company service offerings, news and industry insights. As the central comms department, we recommend it for other departments throughout the organization as well as our spin-off companies as a good platform on which to get their feet wet on the web.
  • 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.
  • Cheap licensing.
  • Decreased employee training/ease of use.
  • Security for decreased incident response.
  • WordPress,Drupal,Joomla!,Sitefinity
While other options can be cheap or free, EE costs a bit. However, it isn't as expensive as a product like Sitefinity. It's secure. Reliable. Stable. Has a very supportive and talented community of developers and designers. And it's very scalable. I call it the Honda of content management systems because you simply don't have to worry about it and it will get the job done.
Our team has been extremely pleased with EE and the business is satisfied with the outcome of the websites the system runs. It meets our business and communication needs for the time being and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future so we intend to renew our existing licenses as well as use EE for near-future web properties as they come about.
For very large sites, EE will be difficult to maintain. If you're building an average corporate site, it's a good option. In order for EE to be strong, you need solid developers to build it. Don't rely on junior or inexperienced talent to build.