Expression Engine vs WordPress
By Joshua on January 22 2010
As I've mentioned before, the Design Pepper site recently switched from WordPress to Expression Engine. So I thought that I'd put together a high level overview of the differences between the two systems.
1. EE requires a lot more configuration
With a typical WordPress installation, you don't really have to think about configuration. Other than setting up a permalink structure, pretty much the only thing that you need to do is install a theme and a few plugins. Both of which can now be done entirely from the control panel.
This isn't the case with Expression Engine. In EE, everything requires configuration, from your control panel path to whether you call your data containers "weblogs" or "sections." The most infamous example, though is that removing index.php from EE URLs requires either handwriting a .htaccess file or installing a plugin to manage it (which requires yet more configuration).
2. EE is a lot more flexible
Just reading the above, you might wonder why anyone would bother using EE at all. The answer is flexibility. With EE, you can define your own data types both on a macro level (blogs, pages, portfolio items, events) and a micro level (date fields, file upload fields, wysiwyg fields, tabular data fields).
While plugins like Flutter and Pods help fill this gap in WordPress, I've found EE's implementation much more straightforward and easier to manage, since it was actually intended to be a full-featured CMS.
3. EE uses a simplified template language
The templating language is one of the things that I love about Expression Engine. Unlike PHP it isn't a complete programming language. Instead it is a collection of EE tags that are designed specifically for building templates. PHP gurus may find this confining, but I actually found it quite freeing to be focused purely on generating content rather than keeping my programming language in line. (Incidentally this is one of the thing's I like about Shopify's Liquid.)
However, it is entirely possible to use PHP in EE templates. Once again, that's a configuration choice you can make.
4. EE isn't free (and neither are the best addons)
For some people this is a dealbreaker. But personally I find the idea of paying for a solid product appealing. The price tag of $99-$300 plus addons, is quite reasonable for projects with a decent budget.
Which should I use?
If you're building a simple site with a blog and a handful of pages, WordPress is probably the way to go. But if you're building a site where you need to construct your own data types, then I'd definitely recommend Expression Engine.
One other thing to keep in mind is that Expression Engine offers a special "freelancer" price of $99 for web designers building their own site on Expression Engine. (It's listed under the 2.0 Beta program, but also includes a licensed copy of 1.6.8 if you need to work with the older version.)
What about you? Have you used Expression Engine and/or WordPress? What did you like? What did you dislike?
What our readers said
Great Article there… I think you’ve summarised it quite well - from my point of view Wordpress is a blogging engine where as ExpressionEngine is a full-featured CMS application.
I run my very own blog in wordpress, but all my ‘websites’ are built in ExpressionEngine. It allows me significantly more flexibility than I have time or effort to advance in my wordpress skills.
Regards,
Carl
@Carl I totally agree with you. Most of my experience is with WordPress, but I have no interest in fighting with WP when I can just buy an EE license and get exactly what I need.
I also find Wordpress pretty tough setting up theming, and content managing as well. I don’t have any experience with Expression Engine, but I’m interested. However, Modx also gives you all of the features listed (data types and such), plus it is free and easy to setup (almost as easy as a 5 click wizard). How are these 2 CMS’S/CMF’S compared?
@A. Jilderda: I’m not familiar with Modx, so I can only give you my general impression. It looks to me like Modx is aimed more at back-end developers, where EE is aimed more at front-end developers that want the power of back-end development. I could be wrong, but that’s the vibe the documentation gives me.
WordPress is great for a lot of people who just want a cookie-cutter blog, but EE allows for so much flexibility that it’s really hard to compare the two. Apples and oranges.
I really consider WP just for blogging, even though it _can_ be used as a CMS. Granted, EE has a steeper learning curve, once you pick up the syntax it truly does blow WP out of the water.
Really looking forward to seeing EE2 mature a bit more, especially since I started off with CI and find that to be a superior PHP-based MVC framework compared to what else is available.
The price is certainly a deterrent, but you do get what you pay for, and EE is worth every penny.
We just finished our site using EE and CI as well, and it’s made things so much easier, especially for staff that aren’t as tech-savvy:
http://cwhurl.com/vm2e
Configuration isn’t really a big deal if you work with it often. Simply configure to a base specification, export the database, then reimport for each new project.
I have developped over thirty sites using CI (which I love) however the price has detered me from using EE (client budget already on shoe string). Wordpress does the job well of CMS/Blog, but admittedly needs a good developer to theme it. My only other issue with WordPreas is that it is now so popular that it is a frequent target, meaning it is always needing an update. Again though, it works and is free, big advantage.
I’ve used both EE and ModX. Maybe because I used EE first and was already biased towards it but ModX just didn’t do it for me. The method for of customising fields and working with templates, chunks etc. just didn’t seem that intuitive to me.
EE can be used as a CMS and a blog. WP, a blog tool, can be “stretched” by using plugins to be a CMS.
Because EE has more features out of the box. That’s quite a difference.
EE nor WP have multilingual support out of the box. For EE there are a few setup approaches to solve this. For WP there are a few plugins of which I only consider WPML (an exceptional good plugin) a valid option, but it should be noted that not everything will be translated by WPML.
EE lacks a tag module and a auto-generated navigation module, this is quite a downside compared to WP, even if there are commercial solutions for EE available for this. (Solspace’ Tag module and Structure)
WP has several gallery plugins of which NextGen is well known. EE has a built-in one that’s not so great, there are solutions for EE for that but they require more effort to setup (but once setup, they can be pretty nifty).
EE has a smaller but very helpfull community, less plugins but they work nice together. WP has a far larger community and more free plugins available, but also a lot of plugins competing in the same area. Which plugin is best fit for the job?...you’ll only know by trying out a few. This can be very time consuming. I think with WP we will also see a transtion towards more and more commercial WP plugins.
EE has a well organized control panel. WP has a control panel, but especially with plugins that add to the UI, it can be very confusing for site owners how to use the CMS. With EE everything can be found under Publish, Edit or Modules.
Having worked both with WP and EE, I must say EE is my favorite despite some features I really miss that re available for WP. But I’m biased. I have spend learning time equally, but was able to pick up EE a lot faster.
It all comes down to the specs of your project. If you need a simple blog, then WP is excellent. If you need a simple brochure type website, WP is also fit for the job. If you need a multilingual site or if you need to work extensively with “custom fields” and tailored input interfaces (not everything is a post or a page), that EE is definately more suitable.
You should never choose a CMS solution based on the available budget the client has. If you do, you will end up using WP for anything but as soon as you start stretching it to make it meet every project requirement you might find that this stretching can take up far more time (thus money) than having chosen a CMS solution with allready more stuff working out of the box.
Currently, I use like only 5 EE plugins and unless they get ported to the newer EE 2.0.1, I’ll stick to EE 1.6.8 and save myself some frustrations. Reagrding WP updates, I tell my clients with Administrator roles not to click onthe upgrade links unless I can guarantee that all plugins will keep working or can be upgraded too.
@Kyle Anderson: I’d say that WordPress is excellent for blogs in general, whether they’re “cookie cutter” or not. The issue comes when you try to do something other than a blog (or very basic site).
Glad to hear the positive feedback on CI. I’m hoping to start playing around with an MVC framework soon, and will probably go with CI because of the EE connection.
@Hambo: That’s an excellent idea. Next EE project, I’ll take a database snapshot once I’ve gotten the basic configuration in place.
@Dan: For sites on a shoestring budget, WordPress is great. It just acts as a constraint on what’s easy/possible to develop. But since you’ve already got a small budget, that’s typically not a big deal.
@John Faulds: I can’t speak to ModX, but I agree that EE is fairly intuitive.
@Jorix: Wow! I think your comment might be longer than the original post. :-) A lot of good information in there, though.
I especially found this thought interesting—“You should never choose a CMS solution based on the available budget the client has.” Not Sure if I entirely agree, but I definitely agree with the general sentiment of choosing the right CMS for the job.
You should all also keep in mind that EE has a great support on:
1. Their forums
2. Personal support because you pay for it.
Wordpress has also got support but on
1: Their forums
and 2:
If you ask a noob question you could get an answer like this:
” RTFM noob!! “
Not so cool!
So why won’t you pay for some nice and friendly support if you are a newbie who wishes to learn fast and implement the best way possible by following the professional instructions from a talented support team..
Greetings from Belgium
What do you guys recommend is the best way to transition from WP to EE for a front-end designer? I would like to begin learning it for larger budget projects, but want to transition slowly..
@Sam: I totally agree!
@Mia: Personally, I’d recommend switching over one of your personal projects from WP to EE. That way you get experience in the system before you’re on the hook with a client. :-)