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A great CMS if you have a budget for development and support
January 16, 2015

A great CMS if you have a budget for development and support

Barry Parr | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

2.9.2

Modules Used

  • Forums

Overall Satisfaction with ExpressionEngine

I've published a community news site, Coastsider.com, since 2004, using Expression Engine and its predecessor, pmachine. I built all the site's templates, managed the data, upgraded the software, and produced the vast majority of the content.

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
  • Faster designs and redesigns
  • Better customer/audience relationships
  • WordPress,Drupal
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 target because of it's popularity.

Drupal: Drupal is too complex and harder to upgrade.

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.
Expression Engine is a good choice if you're building your own site and plan to maintain it, but don't want to acquire the expertise in PHP required by Drupal, Joomla, or WordPress templates.

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.