For whatever reason, ExpressionEngine has left me with the impression that it is a Cadillac CMS.
ExpressionEngine doesn’t force you to work a certain way or impose limitations on your site design, structure, or content. Its flexibility allows you to build a website that not only fulfills your needs and creative vision today, but will grow and scale as your business needs change in the future.
ExpressionEngine is a business built on an interesting model. It isn’t open source, nor is it completely corporate.
It’s both:
The commercial product that is called ExpressionEngine, is built on an Open Source foundation. The idea behind the concept, is that you get the best of both worlds. Although, I’ve heard it both ways. I suppose you could also be getting the worst of both worlds, too.
ExpressionEngine is supported by a team of committed developers and technical support specialists. With its Open Source foundation, ExpressionEngine’s codebase is 100% open, transparent, and extensible.
It sounds good and seems to have been put to the test with having used this model for a decade. Not too shabby.
The money from purchasing ExpressionEngine funds the development and support team, so you can always count on good support. Meanwhile, ExpressionEngine runs on the Open Source PHP framework, CodeIgniter, which has become the application framework of choice for many of the premiere PHP developers in the world.
Here’s a quick overview of the features provided by ExpressionEngine:
- Web Publising
There’s plenty of publishing features for flexibility.
Multiple Channels/Site Sections, Custom Entry Fields, Search Engine Friendly URLs, Custom Statuses, Multiple Categories, RSS and ATOM Syndication, Moblog Publishing, Relationships, Entry Versioning, Multi-Entry Editing, Entry View Tracking, Ping Servers, HTML Formatting Buttons, URL Titles, Sticky Topics, Future Entries, Expiring Entries, Pagination, Article Pagination, Image and File Uploading, Image Resizing and Thumbnailing, Image and File Browsing, Emoticons, and Bookmarklet. - Template Engine
Build dynamic, content driven sites with ExpressionEngine tags.
Full Page Modeling, Conditional Operators, Custom Global Variables, Sub-Templates, Template Access Control, PHP in Templates, Custom SQL Queries, Template Exporting, Template Library, Versioning System, Customizable Workspace, and Template Notes. - Add-Ons
ExpressionEngine is ready with 22 add-on modules and 100+ plugins.
Discussion Forum, Moblog, Wiki, Channel, Member Manager, Mailing List, Simple Commerce, Blogger/MetaWeblog API, Recently Updated Sites, RSS, Email, Search, Referrer, Blacklist/Whitelist, Statistics, and Query. - Communications
You can manage your mailing lists and send them out in different ways!
Multi-Protocol Support, Flexible Email Options, Mailing List Manager, Mail Caching, and Batch Processing. - Member Management
Build a community with robust and flexible membership tools.
Multi-User System, Member Groups, Custom Member Fields, Member Activation, Profile Management, Subscription Management, Member Localization, Member Communication, Email Console Logs, Member Quick Links, and Note Pad. - Commenting
Full commenting system.
User Commenting System, Comment Membership, Comment Moderation, Comment Expiration, and Comment Pagination. - Search
Powerful search and query tools.
Search Engine, Search Term Log, and IP Searching. - Data Caching
Reduce your server load!
Template Caching, Query Caching, and Tag Caching. - Spam Deterrents
The most tools you’ll get from any CMS.
Blacklist, Captcha, Comment Time Interval, Rank Denial, Secure Form Mode, Duplicate Data Denial, and Site Membership. - Typography
A writer’s dream.
Auto Typographic Formatting, Auto Convert MS Word Characters, Auto Convert High ASCII to Entities, Automatic Linking, Email Anti-Spam Encoding, and Typographic Plugin Support. - Tracking
Know your numbers!
Referrer Tracking, Hit Tracking, Statistical Tracking, Online User Tracking, and Search Term Log. - Utilities
Tools to help manage your site.
SQL Manager, Extension Manager, Admin Logs, Search and Replace, Data Export, and PHP Info. - Security
ExpressionEngine has the most comprehensive suite of security features of any publishing platform on the market.
Session Management, Secure Form Processing, Captcha, Throttling, Duplicate Data Denial, Multi-Password Denial, IP and User Agent Logging, Password Lockout, Secure Password Mode, IP Banning, Email Banning, Username Restriction, and Word Censoring.
Like I mentioned before, ExpressionEngine has a price.
Here’s the price scheme:
Visit the ExpressionEngine website to see a video on the front page of their website that shows ExpressionEngine in action!
If you have any experience using ExpressionEngine, your comments are most welcome!
Is ExpressionEngine a Cadillac CMS?
Benny Fontillas says
Our church, http:\\www.NewHopeWindward.org uses ExpressionEngine. We outsource our webmaster work and our volunteers make the weekly changes to add the weekly sermons, articles, and announcements. It is VERY easy to make these weekly additions and changes with the EE backoffice. Email me at [email protected] with any questions.
Ian Callender says
When I first discovered ExpressionEngine about 5 years ago, it was a game changer for me. I not only use it, but I use it almost exclusively. It has been really great. The flexibility of the CMS framework is unmatched by any other system currently and I have used a few. (WordPress, Drupal, Modx, Sharepoint, Joomla, Squarespace and more).
It really just stays out of your way and you are able to be a creative as you need to be. Also the community has grown quite a bit over the years and the addons available really allow you to do some amazing things all within the CMS
Eric Dye says
Great feedback, thanks Ian!