ExpressionEngine: a solid CMS choice
July 01, 2015
ExpressionEngine: a solid CMS choice
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
2.9.2
Modules Used
- Structure, WYGWAM, Freeform, Solspace Calendar, Stash
Overall Satisfaction with ExpressionEngine
We use ExpressionEngine almost exclusively for client web projects. We've built hundreds of sites on it and have appreciated its flexibility. Clients like it because it greatly simplifies content management on their website, with very little technical knowledge needed. We like it because of the professional community that backs it and because it doesn't dictate any predefined markup or styling. We can customize it to fit most client project needs.
- 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
- We have seen increased efficiency building sites on ExpressionEngine
- Customer satisfaction is high
- Security track record has been outstanding
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 add-ons to be more polished and better supported. Although ExpressionEngine is more of a blank slate out of the box, third party extensions allow it to shine.