ExpressionEngine Information Reviews & Insights

Score10 out of 10

88 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for ExpressionEngine are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Reliable Performance: Many users have praised the product for its reliable performance. Several reviewers mentioned that the product consistently meets their expectations and performs well in various scenarios. Ease of Use: The ease of use is a common pro mentioned by several customers. Users appreciate how intuitive and user-friendly the product is, making it easy to navigate and operate without any hassle or confusion. Great Customer Support: Some users have expressed their satisfaction with the great customer support provided by the company. They have found the support team to be responsive, helpful, and efficient in resolving any issues or inquiries they had.

ExpressionEngine Reviews

18 Reviews

InformationInternet16Information Services1Media Production1

Solid, more flexible alternative to WordPress

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

June 21, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I run a web agency which uses ExpressionEngine and Craft CMS for our small business and organization clients. Both are more refined, flexible, and powerful alternatives to the default to WordPress. Both allow development of custom, non-theme-based websites to fit clients' specific business requirements.

Pros

Wide range of fields types - allows collection and display of different types of information (date, image, multi-relation, etc.)
Security. Excellent security record, does not face hacking risk like WordPress.
HTML-agnostic templating system. Write whatever HTML, JS, CSS you want, and then integrate it into ExpressionEngine's templates.

Cons

UI is still inferior to Craft CMS.
Third-party add-ons are required for certain features that ought to be built in to the product.
Vendor has fumbled support for its developer network.

Likelihood to Recommend

Upgrading from a previous ExpressionEngine build (v2 or v3).
Custom builds that aren't suited to a theme.
More complex needs than WordPress can handle natively.

Ben Seigel

Principal in Marketing at Versa Studio LLC (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

View profile

Great For Novices

Rating: 2 out of 10

Incentivized

July 8, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used ExpressionEngine to manage the CMS of one of our smaller sites. It was to be used by a team of writers to collaborate on various topics. They needed to be able to upload images and edit in an efficient manner. We needed a quick way to get a site up that had a built in blog tool and user management.

Pros

The blog tool was decent.
Managing users was easy.

Cons

It was difficult to alter functionality in the admin section. For example, we needed multiple-file uploading and in order to do this the templates had to be directly altered. This direct manipulation of templates makes it hard to upgrade the version without losing custom changes. Same goes for implementing custom file storage.

Likelihood to Recommend

ExpressionEngine is better for a company that doesn't have a huge user base or any previously existing database/file storage in place. It's better suited for a company more novice than we are.

Lauren Merka

Senior Software Engineer in Engineering at Viumbe (Internet, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

Powerhouse CMS great for ecommerce and large sites

Rating: 4 out of 10

Incentivized

July 2, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My company uses ExpressionEngine as an engine for our larger web development projects. It allows for a very custom experience and has an extensive library of modules and add-ons, making almost anything possible. We have quite a bit of experience using the product, so development generally goes quickly and we trust the product to deliver for our clients.

Pros

Large community base provides excellent support when needed
Extensive catalog of modules to expand capabilities as needed
Built in management of member profiles and permissions saves time

Cons

Can be too cumbersome for smaller projects, takes time to pair down the built in functionality so our clients have to sift through unused features
Large queries take significant processing power, recommended use of a cache module to store this data and speed up page load
Backend can be overwhelming for clients, lots of things to manage in the control panel
No way to repeat custom page fields or groups of fields, meaning page layout must be pretty established and not customizable from the control panel

Likelihood to Recommend

For any project requiring a commerce module, this is a go to. ExpressionEngine is also preferred in situations where there are complex relationships between data and pages. In situations where the site is small, and the pages are relatively individual and not interconnected, a simple content management system tends to be more effective.

Rachel Rine

Web Designer/Developer in Marketing at Madhouse Creative (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

ExpressionEngine is how we made our company profitable

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 30, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

ExpressionEngine allows us to design the best solution for our clients with complete freedom. We can craft the best visual experience for the site's users without being confined to the CMS way of doing things. Ultimate flexibility.

It's reliable, extendable, and has been a core part of our business for years.

Pros

You design what is best for your client, and then build the dynamic features in. Other CMS products approach this backwards.
It's easy for our clients to manage their sites, even on complex builds.
It has a strong, helpful community of users and developers.
Developing is fast and straight forward.

Cons

Having common field sets that are independent of content channels would be a welcome change.
It's control panel could use some streamlining and design updating.
The process of updating the system needs over hauling.

Likelihood to Recommend

If there is a need for frequently changing content, or the ability to edit the site quickly and easily, it is a great fit. However if the site's content is static, a different solution may be in order. On 98% of our projects, we use ExpressionEngine. It scales beautifully, and meets the needs of businesses large and small.

Nate Croft

Partner in Professional Services at FortySeven Media (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

ExpressionEngine: A CMS Worth Checking Out

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

June 30, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used ExpressionEngine to run our news website. We took advantage of the CMS tools that ExpressionEngine offered and used many add-ons and modules to accomplish what we wanted to do. The entire organization was based around the development of the website that was powered by ExpressionEngine. Without the CMS tools, we would not have been able to easily publish our content.

Pros

ExpressionEngine offers a customizable publishing tool. Each channel can be customized for its specific needs.
ExpressionEngine offers simple APIs that allows for many add-ons to be developed.
ExpressionEngine's short codes make it easy to accomplish advanced coding tasks.

Cons

PHP parsing was always an issue when creating templates.
Upgrading ExpressionEngine was a difficult task. Many times I had to run the install more than once or recover from a backup.
Disabling add-ons and modules sometimes resulted in major issues with the database.

Likelihood to Recommend

Do you need a tool that will allow your client to publish their own content?
Do you need a tool that will allow the client to create custom publishing fields?

Mike Griffiths

Owner in Professional Services at Mutual Designs (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Free yourself from convoluted CMS markup with ExpressionEngine

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 30, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use ExpressionEngine to build websites for several clients. For anything other than a very simple blog site, I recommend ExpressionEngine. With a few essential plugins, it's easy to train clients to use; the documentation is great and once you get the hang of the templating syntax, it's very easy to crank out custom sites quickly.

Pros

ExpressionEngine does a fantastic job in separating the content from the code, allowing you to build custom templates using only your own code and markup.
ExpressionEngine has great documentation. It's easy to find clear and concise explanation of all of the core features.
ExpressionEngine has a great module community. Many of the modules require a license, which will seem different from WordPress or Drupal, but many of these module developers also provide great customer service and support.

Cons

I always seem to use a core set of modules (Structure, Matrix, Playa) when I build an ExpressionEngine site. It'd be nice if they were included in the core feature set. However, I'd hate to stop supporting the developers of these great plugins.
As a new ExpressionEngine developer it was a little tricky to figure out the ExpressionEngine way of doing things. Coming from Drupal and WordPress, where the display was more married to the content, it took me a while to really get how ExpressionEngine handled everything. I haven't been a new ExpressionEngine developer for some time, so their documentation may well have changed in the past six years.
I'd love to see an easier upgrade process. While upgrades aren't terribly difficult, they're enough of a hassle that I find myself wanting to put them off.

Likelihood to Recommend

For anything more complicated than a static four page site or a very simple blog, I'd always suggest ExpressionEngine. For the client, they will need to spend some money on the license, but for the developer, you'll save piles of time not wading through plugin code searching for classes and lines of code that are breaking your carefully crafted templates.

Brennan Sang

Lead Web Developer at Trout Unlimited (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

ExpressionEngine: The BIG Reliable.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 30, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Here at Dative we build custom website solutions that will fit the needs of our clients both from front-end / back-end stand points. ExpressionEngine's biggest strength is the ability to add dynamic content tags into custom HTML markups. That's sounds trivial, but it allows our designs to be created unrestrained, while still being able to deliver fast page loads in a dynamic fashion.

Pros

Flexible Templating
Caching
Custom Content Types

Cons

Underlying framework based on codeigniter, could move to a more modern framework
Could make use of Composer
Better testing for add-ons.

Likelihood to Recommend

ExpressEngine is well suited for simple, one page websites. We used it when we engage in small projects where the client only really needs what we call a "mini-site", that would post a form to a third-party form service. It is also used in cases, where there is very little content management, where we can just have a static website built with a uri router.

Rodrigo Passos

Partner / Web Developer in Engineering at Dative (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

6 years of experience

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

Rating: 8 out of 10

January 16, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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.

Pros

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

Cons

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

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Barry Parr

Editor & Publisher at Chartio (Media Production, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Expression of Awesomeness with ExpressionEngine

Rating: 10 out of 10

May 2, 2014

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

EE is used for nearly all of the websites we build. We are a web development shop and have used EE for everything from small brochure sites to sites with product description or ordering for hundreds of products. The control panel is able to be customized to make the user experience more enjoyable than what users experience from CMS products like WordPress or Drupal.

Pros

Control Panel customization. With the ability to install addons in mere minutes to help with tweaking the UI for the user, it removes much of the learning curve so even those not versed with a CMS can learn quickly.
Flexibility. Not just for blogs! EE has the power to run full-featured blogs without a blink or make short work of forum websites, but that power can be used for any number of situations easily (simple pages, product lines, listings, etc.)
Extendability. For those developers that like to get their hands deep into PHP coding, EE allows for easy extension of classes and creation of your own custom modules to do tasks that the core system doesn't already do.
Community. If you don't opt for the official support (which is very good in my experience), there is a community of users that are available to answer questions you may have. There is also a great repository of add-ons (both free and commercial) to help you customize your project easily.

Cons

Documentation. Some of the documentation on the website lacks clear information. However, support and community make up for this if you can afford to wait for an answer.

Likelihood to Recommend

With the ability to be extended your own way, all the features of a CMS, and the powerful CodeIgniter engine behind it, EE can be used for any kind of project. New features are being added with each release to make it even more powerful for developers. With settings relating to template caching, data caching, and gzip compression, the system can handle large sites without overloading.

Justin Koivisto

Web Developer at Creative Arc, Inc (Internet, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

ExpressionEngine review from an IT Web Developers Assistant

Rating: 9 out of 10

May 2, 2014

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I used ExpressionEngine as a student worker in the IT deparment while attending college. I worked as a Web Developers Assistant running ExpressionEngine from the IT perspective as well as all the other departments on campus. I learned ExpressionEngine and then started training others across campus. It was a really interesting experience. I would work on projects for people in the different departments as well as try and help them learn it so they could be independent with the software as well.

Pros

Very user friendly for both IT as well as other departments using the software.
Has everything necessary for running a website for a University.
Laid out in a way that it's easy to describe to someone through email or over the phone how to do something.

Cons

Making the icons a little bit better to understand, bigger.
Copy and paste functionality a little bit better.
A bigger section to write in so you don't have to scroll as much.

Likelihood to Recommend

Is the software user friendly?
How easy of a process is it to create a new webpage?
How will this benefit the company?

Verified User

Administrative Assistant in Information Technology (Information Services company, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience