A friend of mine recently asked me, “Have you ever used Expression Engine? Do you have an opinion on it in comparison to WordPress? Is it just personal preference, or is one superior?”. I did a quick search to compare the two, and although I did find a very good article from Web Designer Depot on the matter, I thought that the post missed a few major arguments, which I’ll provide here for you.
Argument #1: Open-Sourced (Free) Beats Proprietary ($)
Expression Engine licenses costs money (here’s their pricing chart). WordPress is free (and open-sourced). Here’s a 2004 post on WordPress.org describing Movable Type’s (at that time, WordPress’s major blog publishing rival) new pricing structure for their developer brand of their software. Here’s the response from WordPress’s Matt Mullenweg regarding MT’s pricing changes:
I have been receiving emails all morning asking if I have any plans to charge for WordPress in the future. The answer is no, but my answer doesn’t matter. The license WordPress is distributed under —the GNU Public License—ensures that the full source is available free of charge, legally.
We saw how well that pricing structure and propriety licensing worked out for Movable Type (it didn’t). Three years later in 2007, MT dropped the licensing costs altogether and officially went open-source. By then, though, a lot of damage had been done to their brand and thousands of their users jumped ship to WordPress.
Open-sourcing WordPress from the beginning was a double-sided advantage for the development of the software. In the short-term, it was obviously free to try WordPress, so lots of people did. There was little commitment to give it a go. As a long-term strategy, though, being open-sourced has encouraged thousands of people to become involved in the WordPress community (see WordCamp for a great example of what community really means), which is exactly why the software keeps getting better and why there are so many add-ons to help complete a project (this is a great example of Metcalfe’s Law).
Expression Engine, by comparison, has a small community, so you won’t be able to find pre-built themes as easily (just check out ThemeForest to see how many inexpensive, excellent WordPress themes exist) or, more importantly, plugins to fill in the content management systems’ blanks. There are almost 10,000 plugins in the WordPress repository and this isn’t counting all the great premium plugins that are now becoming a viable marketplace on their own (i.e. Gravity Forms and BackupBuddy).
This also means that there is no dearth of WordPress tutorials, blogs, books, forums, meetups, workshops, conferences and consultants (wink, wink) to help you out when you get stuck.
Argument #2: Timely Updates Appease the Masses
Expression Engine is slow to ship.
The EE developers been working on version 2.0 of the software for almost two years now. When I first heard about this big software upgrade, I was like, “Oh, I’m so gonna become an Expression Engine guy”. Well, where the f@#k is EE version 2? Apparently, it’s still in public beta and at this point, it should be done around 2045.
In the meantime, WordPress will have had 50 major upgrades and it will probably be able to cook your toast by then (WordPress averages 2-3 major feature upgrades a year). And somehow, Expression Engine expects its customers to pay for its software when it seems to over-promise and under-deliver.
And did I mention WordPress is free?
I know there have always been a lot of great features in Expression Engine, but WordPress refuses to stand still. The WP 3.0 release is scheduled to be shipped in May 2010 and it will contain all kinds of great changes and features, including multi-site capability, menu editing on the fly and–a long-held Expression Engine feature–custom post-types with custom taxonomies.
Remember, though, even if WordPress is/was missing a killer feature that other CMS’s may have had, plugin developers could usually be counted on to provide that functionality in a stellar manner. Again, the community ensures timely updates, new features and when it needs to, it fills in the gaps through plugins and creative theme development.
With all these great additions to WordPress, I’ll be amazed at what comes next in version 3.1 (due in August 2010). I’ve heard rumors that dynamic image resizing will be included in that release (goodbye TimThumb). And what’ll be included in version 2.1 of Expression Engine? Who knows–I guess we’ll have to ask our grandchildren…
Conclusion
I think that should clear up any questions about the WordPress vs. Expression Engine debate. The clear winner: you (right after you install WordPress through Fantastico–it takes less than 60 seconds). WP is better supported and loved by millions because of (and through) its community.
Expression Engine may someday overtake WordPress as the defacto self-publishing web content management system, but not without first converting all those talented WordPress developers and users.
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I think you’re missing the boat completely:
ExpressionEngine is a CMS, WordPress is a blogging tool. People who build EE sites don’t need themes because they are building custom implementations, not cookie cutter blogs, and their requirements typically far exceed what you can do with a blog engine. Can wordpress do multiple channels on a single page? Relationships? Discussion forums? Etc.? Really, you’re comparing totally different animals.
You mention community. It’s the quality of community that matters, not the quantity of users. I’ve been online since 1991, and I can say without hesitation that the EE community is one of the most helpful, intelligent, and friendly I’ve ever encountered.
As far as open source vs. commercial, that’s a tired debate at this point. Most people use the best tool for the job, and in nearly all cases, the best tool is a commercial app (I assume you use a Mac or Windows computer? I assume you use Photoshop, Illustrator, Word, etc. etc. I’ll bet that 99% of the apps you use are commercial. If open source is so great, why don’t you run it for everything? The fact is, open source with few exceptions, ain’t so awesome).
Lastly, check the security record of WP vs. EE. It’s not even close. EE is a professional tool, built by pros and implemented by pros. WP, not so much.
Harsh words and fallacious logic…Again, here’s WordPress’s newest answer to custom channels: http://wpengineer.com/impressions-of-custom-post-type/ . I know it took too long to implement but that’s how software development goes sometimes–there’s always a list of competing priorities.
I noticed you decided not to pursue my second point about Expression Engine failing to ship regularly, though. That is my personal reason for not developing in EE. I really don’t do well with under-delivering products that miss their release dates (I’m looking at you, Microsoft).
I’ve not used EE, but I know it’s backed by one of the largest and established opensource communities on the web (Code Igniter). I’m an avid codeigniter developer, and I’m a pretty good wp developer. And I’ll tell you that tehre are some things you do not want to use wordpress for at all and EE being built on the same principles codigniter is would make a perfect fit.
There’s been numerous debates about ExpressionEngine in comparison to WordPress—considering you’ve never tried ExpressionEngine (my assumption from your post), how can you write a comparison in earnest?
The article that you link to from Web Designer Depot has a lengthy amount of comments from people who have designed, developed, and have used both. I think the overwhelming support for a commercial product from professionals who have used them both speak for themselves.
Perhaps you should give it a try? Feel free to email me if you want some consultation on the de-facto add-ons to make your install all it can be.
Two words: learning curve. EE, like Drupal and Joomla, has a much more rigorous ramp up than WordPress.
If a novice can’t use software comfortably within a day or two, that really hurts adoption rates–the key to a great community.
Even though this is clearly a trolling post to get some traffic, I can’t help post a couple things. I tried out a few CMS’s looking for one that felt right to me. WordPress was one of the first I tried. I am a designer, not a developer. The PHP syntax and the “loop” confused the hell out of me. It was nearly impossible for a noob like me figure out how to get more than one chunk of content on the same page.
WordPress does have MANY plugins, I found the majority of the ones I needed to be buggy or no longer supported by the author. Even simple form plugins were buggy and unsupported. This was a big fault for me.
There are thousands and thousands of WordPress users, and an official support forum. Nearly every time I posted a question or needed help I received zero responses.
As a designer, I can design an awesome site, build it entirely in CODA, transfer my html and css to EE and add a few easy tags and have a complete functioning CMS in days, not weeks. If I do need help, with my paid license, I get official support. I ALWAYS get help with questions the same day.
About the updates. Why would you want to update something every other day? EE works fine without updates so why would I want to update every other day? Seems like an odd bragging point.
All that said, The upcoming versions of WordPress do look pretty nice, but it is still mainly a blogging platform. I’m sure WordPress is powerful to a PHP developer, but to a designer who wants build sites as well, EE gives me a lot of power without turning me into a programmer.
After a month of frustration of trying to make WP into a non-blogging tool i have ditched it from my vocabulary. Better to pay the cms costs as in the end both me and my clients will be happier and more productive. As for shipping updates. who really cares? I still have two sites running on pMachine Pro, EE’s precursor. And it too is way easier to template and customize than’ today’s WP! EE 1.6.9 is solid and will be solid for years to come. EE2.0 will mature and we’ll migrate as we need to. Monthly revisions means “nada” to me. In fact it is a big bother to have to update sites every month… who needs that!
As the others have suggested: you have no real basis on writing a comparison/ review if you haven’t tried it.
cheers
PS I can spot a WP site in an instant… the vast majority of them all have the same look. cookie cutter layout. …rare is the totally unique WP site.
The learning curve for EE isn’t as bad as you say. I built my first site in under 2 days. I must admit, it wasn’t the most elegant setup I put together in the 2 years I’ve been using EE, but it works.
I’ve never used WordPress so I can’t really comment on that part, but from what I’ve seen in the documentation, you’re required to know a good portion of PHP to successfully put together a WP site. So that’s all good if you’re a developer, but a designer (which is what EE is aimed at) can’t be arsed to learn a programming language. EE’s templating system is pretty simple and intuitive, so that’s a small investment to learn.
If you really want to get all you can get from EE you need to get into a bit more, but usually you won’t have to for a basic site.
Greetz,
Wouter
Please provide an example of the EE templating structure.
You can’t compare two totally different systems if you haven’t used both of them. You should know that just searching for features won’t work out. Would you consider shop A better than shop B just because somebody told you so?
I’m a WordPress guy, but gave EE a try. The main reason for me not to use it is the price tag and the fact that WordPress is powerful enough for me.
I found the learning curve for EE to be much less than WP; with WP, you need to know .php to some degree, and get much more involved with the templating system – with EE you need to know HTML and click a few links to get a structure up and running, what you do afterward is down to how far you want to take it.
If a novice takes DAYS to use software comfortably, it’s failed – it should be MINUTES – that’s where I prefer EE over WP – the custom labelling and layout of the edit/publish screens is more straight-forward than WP (ignoring the bleeding edge 3.0 upgrades).
At the end of the day it’s what you’re comfortable with – if it takes me longer to build something in WP, why shouldn’t I just charge the client the £137 for EE and build it quicker? If you can do the opposite, knock yourself out- one isn’t better than the other.
First and last post I’ve made on the “debate”.
Hardly an objective comparison.
Why all the hostility?
People use whatever works for them. I used to use WordPress, and it did a great job at being an entry-level publishing system. However, after a series of significant compromises through it’s security holes, staying with it simply wasn’t an option.
I moved to ExpressionEngine and I think, although it’s not as easy to jump in to as a complete newcomer, and it suffers somewhat for sites with high levels of traffic – it’s an exceptionally flexible web publishing and management system. It’s great for building complex relationships between large sets of content quickly.
I’m not a huge fan of its pricing model, particuarly for third party add-ons and the like, but for it’s my go-to platform for commercial projects.
Both WordPress and ExpressionEngine are far from perfect.
Use whatever works best for your projects.
You should try both platforms thoroughly though before being negative about either one of them.
heh, if I were to set up a blog I’d choose WordPress to
But if you want to build a community site with a news section, a wiki and forums – sure you could hack something together for free using WP, BBPress or whathaveoyu and then integrating some open source wiki .. and follow the release cycles of those and update your site accordingly.. but why bother?
It’s all about choosing the right tool for the job.
My current setup:
Blog – WP
Larger sites – EE
Minisites – Perch (or something similar)
EE has a great community; just ask anyone who has actually used it.
Anyone with any sense would have stopped reading after that. What’s the point of writing a comparison post when you haven’t actually used one of the things you’re comparing?
While several points are valid, it really does boil down to preference of use. There are two main angles here – client and developer. Some clients take well to using WordPress, Joomla, and/or EE depending on their level of CMS experience. And ultimately any costs of system should be absorbed into the project cost.
From a dev point of view, most dev’s with a background in web apps would tend to steer to towards EE/Joomla (my experience) as they both operate on MVC(model view controller) like patterns. Most dev’s will choose a platform and specialize to optimize dev time etc. Me personally? I switch between WordPress, Joomla, and CodeIgniter fairly easily.
This subject is always going to rock the boat. I’m use EE pretty exclusively, sometimes dip into WP when there’s little budget available.
A quick Google search on security of WP tells me all I need to know, whereas EE has a team there ready to fix any security issues that appear.
With a paid product also, you aren’t at the mercy of a forum for support, Ellislab are liable for the support of that product.
Like someone else said, quantity doesn’t beat quality so to use that as some sort of justification is just useless.
As has also been said, EE is not intended to be a cookie cutter option, it’s for customised websites and apps and this is where EE2.0 will come into its own built on top of CodeIgniter.
The learning curve thing is also a matter for preference. I looked at Joomla and Drupal before EE and got to EE and it smoked both in terms of (emphasis for this part) my own learning curve.
Use the right tool for the job. If you can build a great site in WP, great. If you want paid support and solid product then use EE.
It’s not that hard.
One needs to not consider the price or cost of the software being used but the value gained from it.
The Value I get from ExpressionEngine is paid support staff, an incredible security record, and incredible flexibility.
What I get from WordPress is a blog and zero support (the forums are next to useless). I will continue to use WordPress for clients that want a blog, but most clients that I work with are building more complex sites than what WordPress can currently handle.
From my personal experience, the quality of WordPress blogs and add-ons (the code they output) is poor. ExpressionEngine outputs clean and efficient code.
I think wordPress is great, I use it sometimes, but often I feel like I’m fighting it to do what I want.
People using EE don’t want to use themes. They want clean and efficient code. Learning curve isn’t a bad thing. There is value in increased skill. Most people using WordPress want a “just add water” product, and it shows. I went to WordCamp recently, and it was a poor experience. Most of the sessions were spent talking about what plugins to install. No discussion of developing for WordPress, no discussion of creating great things.
The novice-ness of the WordPress community will eventually catch up, I think. At the WordCamp I was at, one of the WP representatives gave a talk that basically said “a lot of people complain and give their opinion about what they want. We’re kind of tired of hearing it. Why don’t you get involved and contribute to the code?”. Problem is, all of these people don’t know how to contribute to the code.
When you take something that is technical (building websites) and try to make it nontechnical (installing plugins and themes), you end up with a mess, code-wise, and many frustrated people with the delusion that all they need is for someone to give them 5 lines of PHP to fix everything, not to learn it. That starts to wear on the community after a while. The people who have no technical knowledge feel entitled to have it working correctly, and are loud and obnoxious until someone fixes it for them.
Call me elitist, but I don’t want to be a part of a community of entitled novices…
CMS arguments are the new “Mac vs. PC” argument, and are just about as valuable (which is to say not at all). That being said, here are a few thoughts regarding this particular attempt at comparison.
1) I’ve never understood the whole “free is better than paid” argument, specifically with regards to EE vs. WP. Don’t get me wrong: I love open source software (and EE is built on open source software). However, I’m not at all opposed to paying for things that make my life better, and EE definitely makes my (professional) life better. So the “ExpressionEngine sucks because it isn’t free” just doesn’t hold any water with me.
And let’s not forget that, if you’re creating a personal/non-profit site, EE does have a free “Core” version that contains all of the necessary functionality to create a solid site.
2) The EE community may not be as large as the WP community, but I have to agree with an earlier commenter when I say that the EE community is fantastic, and one of the best that I’ve encountered online. It’s very professional, very passionate, and very supportive, regardless of whether you’re a novice or a seasoned pro. What’s more, the actual EE programmers are very active in the community, providing feedback and support in a very direct and timely manner.
3) On the topic of themes, EE has never tried to be a plug n’ play CMS when it comes to designs. Its templating system is incredibly robust and in-depth, which doesn’t easily allow for the sort of quick theming that WP does so well. Whether you think that’s bad or not is a matter of perspective. Personally, I don’t see it as a liability. Does it mean that it takes a little longer to implement a design? Perhaps, but the amount of power and flexibility I get in return is a trade-off I’m willing to make.
4) You note that there are more WP add-ons than EE add-ons, which is true. However, EE does more than WP out of the box, so that right there lessens the need for many third-party add-ons. Also, the quality of add-ons for EE is, in my experience, uniformly better than WP’s. That’s not to say that there aren’t great add-ons for WP, just that the general standard for detail, functionality, and design is higher with EE add-ons. There are a host of third-party add-ons, both free and commercial, that are simply stupendous. But let’s not forget that it’s still possible to build an incredibly powerful site in EE without any add-ons.
5) As for EE2, the developers have been very forthright when it comes to addressing the delays with bring EE2 to market. And as someone who has built and re-built a CMS from the ground up, I can sympathize with their frustration. It’s a herculean task to completely rewrite a CMS on a brand new framework while still developing and supporting the multitudes of people who use the previous version of your CMS.
And while I’m eager for EE2 to get out of public beta, it doesn’t prevent me from creating awesome EE sites because the current version is still a very viable (and supported) solution, and will be for several years to come. (I liken it to OS X 10.5 and OS X 10.6. While I certainly want to upgrade to Snow Leopard eventually, my Leopard-powered Mac is still just as great and productive as it was before Snow Leopard came out.)
6) I’ve used both EE and WP over the years, and while EE is my CMS of choice (I’ve been consistently using it for about four years now on both personal and professional projects), there are times when WP is my choice. WP is a solid product: I’m very excited about some of its future developments and honestly, I think there are some things that EE could learn from WP. It’s a good tool, as evidenced by the number of great developers using it to build great sites. It would be foolish to blithely and snarkily dismiss WP. And yet, that’s basically what you’ve done with EE even as your entry gives every indication that you have little to no first-hand knowledge of EE.
I can’t say this from a considered and experienced point of view of having used both, but I would highly recommend EE to anyone.
The primary reason I can’t use WP is because I don’t know any PHP. What I like about EE, is that’s in no way a barrier to using EE on large and complicated sites with a lot of content and complex relationships – eg, http://www.wirelessbollinger.com
Maybe someone else could’ve built that in WP, but I never could have.
The cost issue I find a bit of a non-issue – on a project worth £5-6k what is £200 of licenses and add-ons? A day’s work on a project that otherwise would take 20 days to design and develop?
As other more considered comments here have said, they’re just tools, and you pick what is appropriate to the project, the client and the developer.
I would also like to say the EE community is absolutely top notch. It’s not massive like WP may be, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a good twitter following, a lively and active bunch of add-on developers making high quailty, professional standard modules, as well as superb customer service on the forums from tech support that are paid to know what they’re talking about and help anyone out.
PS For small sites or pure blogs I use Textpattern. For me it stands heads and shoulders above WP. But this is not necessarily the case for many and hence why some folks have moved from TxP to WP. But I think going forward that TxP will get more robust… or so I hope
TxP or WP or EE… they all have their strengths and weaknesses
@Jason Pelker
If you ever want to experience the EE community, just come to the EECI conference end of May in San Francisco (www.eeci2010.com). I bet you’ll write a whole different story here afterwards.
I’ll even give you a discount to attend. Just e-mail me.
I love WP because it’s regular updated, and the updates often go with many new features. I’ve tried EE on my localhost, but it’s not very easy to use as WP. Anyway, the database of EE is much bigger than WP. So I always choose WP for my websites.
Like others have said, you really can’t do a comparison article when you’ve not used both products in the comparison extensively.
From the time you wrote that you had to do a quick search to compare the two, to the heading of the first point; I knew the article was going to make the same old tired points that everyone else tries to make that has never actually used ExpressionEngine.
I find it interesting that the only people who seem to have a problem with EE’s prices are the people who have never used it or haven’t used it long enough to truly understand it.
You also make the point about EE’s lack of timely updates. It’s true they’ve been working on 2.0 for a while but really, there’s no need to release any other updates as the product does everything it needs to do. You made this seem like a downfall of EE in your article, but at the same time in a comment reply, defended WP’s inability to quickly release custom channels functionality and chalked it up to “that’s how software development goes sometimes.” So it’s OK for WP to take too long to release a small feature, but not OK for EE to take a while longer releasing a completely brand new from-scratch version of their CMS? OK…
Why not download the FREE “Core” version of EE 1.6.9? Try it out for longer than 30 seconds and I’m sure like most, you’ll see the benefits.
two posts relevant to the discussions herein:
http://twitter.com/FlipBoing/status/13257268250
and
http://designpepper.com/blog/post/expression-engine-vs-wordpress/
Again, as the post author, I was really just trying to answer a friend’s question about comparing the two software packages. She was unfamiliar with both EE and WP and if I’m teaching someone to swim, I wouldn’t throw them in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
If you’re a world-class PHP developer, heck, you could just build your own CMS, so the argument wouldn’t even matter. Unfortunately, most of us start out (or maybe never move past) copying and pasting bits of code that we like from other developers’ efforts. And that’s okay because, well, programming isn’t for everyone.
So, for anyone new to programming or CMS’s in general, WordPress is difficult to beat. If you like EE better, that’s fine, too, but I’ve tried a lot of CMS’s and guess what? WordPress was the first (and only) that I understood intuitively.
Usability is the most undervalued quality in production, and I think the WP guys and gals knew what they were doing when they established their low cost of entry philosophy. Adoption rates seem to be the very important in the quality of a software community and WordPress has made a science out of converting first time users.
I’ve been waiting over two years for EE 2.0 to be released. When it [finally] does, I promise to put my money where my mouth is and properly build a site using EE. I also promise to then publish my thoughts right here on this blog for you guys to read.
For the record, EE 2.0 was released on Dec. 2, 2009.
EE 2 beta has been out since December, so you’ve had a lot of time to “put [your] money where [your] mouth is.” In fact, you had more than 4 months to do that before writing this.
I double-checked, and EE 2.1 will be considered the release version of the 2.0 trunk.
Two points; 1) 2.0 beta was private for months and only open to those with the most expensive licenses. 2) If 2.0 was released in December (and in production for 1.5 years before that), how many months does it take to launch a final product? It’s been five months already.
I’m not willing to put my money where no defined product time line exists.
>> 2.0 beta was private for months and only open to those with the most expensive licenses.
Oh really? That’s news to me. Where did you read that? The private beta was first open to developers and then to a small group of users. As far as I know there was no decision made based on license.
>> I double-checked, and EE 2.1 will be considered the release version of the 2.0 trunk.
It will be the final release but that doesn’t mean you can’t try it out. Hell, just download the free trial and test it out. But please, don’t go blathering on about something you’ve never tried.
>> I’m not willing to put my money where no defined product time line exists.
I bet you are and have. Just not in this case.
Ryan, I blather as much as I like. This is my website, not yours.
Don’t be an ass, especially in someone else’s domain (pun intended).