ExpressionEngine Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services 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.

Reviews

26 Reviews

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

Flexible and Secure Web Content Management System

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 25, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use ExpressionEngine as the web content management system for the majority of our website projects. We do work with other platforms from time-to-time, but ExpressionEngine is our "go to". We like the flexibility to implement any design without a "default theme". We also love ExpressionEngine's longstanding track record on security. This gives us and our clients peace-of-mind after launch.

Pros

Excellent security
Flexible and customizable
Easy for our clients to use

Cons

There are misperceptions about ExpressionEngine being "for developers". Better demos of websites might help

Likelihood to Recommend

We use ExpressionEngine on websites of all sizes and types. A key benefit is that we typically only need to upgrade sites annually. This is due to ExpressionEngine's native security. When we deploy other web content management systems like WordPress, we have to perform monthly upgrades to avoid issues.

Tim Carter

Web Developer in Information Technology at Pedrera Web Development (Marketing & Advertising, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

15 years of experience

Great Product, Getting Better All The Time...

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 18, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

ExpressionEngine is our go to solution for building custom websites. The native template engine uses a syntax that is simple to learn and comprehend, which allows our developers to stand up sites faster, and easily maintain them over the long haul. ExpressionEngine includes a comprehensive set of fieldtypes that will meet the majority of needs for simple to complex content models. If not, there is an addon store with plenty of options to add functionality to a site.

Pros

Easy to learn
Enables rapid development
Secure by default

Cons

In my opinion, mediocre support for block type page builders (Bloqs addon is the best option currently)
Doesn't use a PHP framework under the hood (and no Composer support)
Lacking database migration support

Likelihood to Recommend

ExpressionEngine is particularly well suited for small to medium size brochure sites.

I do not currently recommend ExpressionEngine to clients for websites that require E-Commerce. Part of that is not wanting to be responsible for the cart, and checkout functionality that currently seems half-baked within the existing ecosystem.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (Marketing & Advertising company, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

EE - The Peak of CMS Functionality.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 10, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use ExpressionEngine to create bespoke, powerful, and secure websites for our clientele. It allows us to create highly extensible sites that focus on the client's content, the functionality that the client needs, and the direct business requirements for each client, all while providing a beautiful user experience (for both front-end and backend users) and the most secure CMS on the market.

Pros

Highly flexible content management system.
Incredible extensibility to provide any functionality needed.
The best CMS experience on the market.

Cons

Little challenging to get started for non-developers.
Highly reliant on knowledge of the content structure beforehand.

Likelihood to Recommend

ExpressionEngine stands out as a robust and genuine content management system (CMS), distinguishing itself from mere page builders in the web development landscape. With a focus on flexibility and extensibility, ExpressionEngine caters to the needs of developers and content creators alike, making it a versatile solution for building and managing websites. One key differentiator is its commitment to being a true CMS rather than a page builder. ExpressionEngine empowers users to create and organize content in a structured manner, offering a sophisticated system for handling various types of data. For sites that truly care about the structure of their content and ensuring that they can optimize for SEO, EE is the #1 choice. EE also stands out as a pioneer in security among CMS platforms. The team managing this ensures there is a constant eye on what is both required as features, and needeed to keep it secure. Regular updates and a vigilant security team contribute to a robust defense against potential vulnerabilities, instilling confidence in both developers and site administrators. EE is best for users who want a very robust experience, a true content management system, and a secure site that can scale with them.

Doug Black

CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in Corporate at tripleNERDscore (Marketing & Advertising, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile

ExpressionEngine. One CMS to rule them all!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

June 7, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

ExpressionEngine is taking care of the day-to-day content input and delivery from several departments within the organization. I recommended ExpressionEngine as an alternate/replacement CMS to my colleagues, and the organization as a whole, due to the need to migrate away from the existing CMS. ExpressionEngine resolved a number of issues, including usability, reliability, and consistency in regards to delivering content accurately, something the previous CMS did not.

Pros

Content is not constrained or controlled by set templates, unlike other CMS.
Gives you total control over the look and feel. You decide the design direction and what your visitors will see.
The UI is sublime. It's a pleasure to configure and work with.
The expandability, flexibility, and customization of the entire system is unsurpassed.

Cons

The only issue I have with ExpressionEngine is the cost of official support.

Likelihood to Recommend

ExpressEngine is suitable for almost all business websites requiring a robust, flexible, and totally scalable CMS. However, It is probably not suitable for basic or small personal blogs or similar.

Robert Bruce Goggins

Digital Designer in Professional Services at Digital Methods (Design, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

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EE Above the Rest for Client UX.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 19, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used ExpressionEngine as our primary CMS for building web client solutions. Most of these solutions were created with fairly large data architectures, giving full control to various levels of [client] users to make changes to (and organize) data site wide. The biggest solution this offered was easy, quick, reliable content creation and editing for the user.

Pros

Content architecture. It's very easy to create highly customizable display of content in various pages and templates; equally importantly it's very easy for a user to create the content within these structures.
Features / Plugins. Out of the box EE is exceptional for a CMS, but when you add in some of the offered plugins from the EE community, the customization and usability reaches 5 star status.
Community. There is a huge, devoted community of power users who contribute to the CMS. Developers create and maintain plugins with full reliability and service. This cannot be said for other CMS's I've used through time.

Cons

The one drawback I wasn't impressed by was that the entirety of all data - including templates (html / php / etc) was stored in the database. This made complications a few times.

Likelihood to Recommend

Honestly, from a UI/UX standpoint, EE stands at the top of the mountain. The usability and user interface is leagues beyond any other CMS I have used, which is what the huge appeal is for me. Wordpress can leave you confused and uncertain with a very half baked UX. ExpressionEngine's level of detail and ease of use is impressive.

Verified User

Former Employee in Professional Services (Design company, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

ExpressionEngine and why you should choose it as your next CMS

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 27, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I currently use ExpressionEngine for my business website, and as the primary CMS for my clients. It solves a multitude of problems. As a stable platform it allows me to build a very flexible website for my clients; EE (ExpressionEngine) is so flexible that I can build the entire site that is editable by the client or down to just the content. Feature wise EE has powerful plugins which can be installed giving the CMS even more capability. My clients love being able to go in and add/edit products, services, or even staff members to their sites. The language that EE uses is easy to learn and understand, what would take several lines in other languages can be accomplished with only one in EE. Security wise, I am able to develop roles so that I can assign only certain content to be editable by different people. Training my clients on ExpressionEngine is easy as well, if they can fill out a form, they can use EE. I will also choose ExpressionEngine as the CMS for myself, and my clients.

Pros

Flexibility is a huge aspect of ExpressionEngine, other CMSs lock you into certain ways your site must be built. You write the templates and write the way you want the website you are building to function with ExpressionEngine.
Creating editable content in ExpressionEngine is easy, allowing you to control and make your website more dynamic.
The plugins for ExpressionEngine are wonderful, I have never had a request for integration from a client that I can't find a plugin for ExpressionEngine.

Cons

ExpressionEngine would be even better than it already is if it had a page editor where you could see your page and edit the content on the actual page, some clients prefer this method when moving from online website builders.
Although there are add-ons for backup, I would like to see a native backup feature for ExpressionEngine.

Likelihood to Recommend

ExpressionEngine is a very powerful and flexible content management system. It can handle a simple small business website all the way to a large corporation's website. If you are a business with multiple websites ExpresionEngine can handle that as well with it's Multiple Site Manager. I think ExpressionEngine would be less appropriate for a global large scale business with a magnitude of sites with different regions and languages.

Jeremy Troxell

Web Developer in Marketing at Troxell Web Design (Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

ExpressionEngine can do it all... For a price.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

July 23, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Satdaya is a creative services firm that includes web development among our services. We recommend and use ExpressionEngine to our clients when their projects and IT needs require more flexibility than what most other content management systems can offer. D&D Technologies is one of those clients, and they have been with us and using Expression Engine since version 1.x! We have also built our firm's project management system with ExpressionEngine, and our software as a service venture, Eventida, also uses it.

ExpressionEngine is unique in that it allows you to build your own content structure to fit, manipulate, and output your information exactly the way you want. Its template structure is like a blank canvas - any HTML, any CSS, any Javascript, any PHP can be used within the templates any way you'd like. Therefore, it is a viable solution to many business problems that require managing and displaying information online.

Pros

Content structuring. You can set up channels and fields to hold just about any kind of information imaginable; text, images, videos, numbers, code, etc. You can structure this information any way you want and in any order. You literally create your own information database just the way you want it using a clear, easy online interface.
Template system. Utter freedom. Need I say more?
Exensible. There are a lot of add-ons, extensions, and other external modules that extend the core functionality of ExpressionEngine. Need a user management system? Check out the User module at http://solspace.com.

Cons

Big learning curve! In my opinion, ExpressionEngine is not really for the inexperienced, be it users or developers. Clients who aren't web-savvy have a hard time picking up the backend, and end up paying more for a custom front-end control panel to fit their project needs. Developers have to learn the templating language. It's not that complicated for someone who is experienced with HTML/CSS, at least, let alone a programmer, but still expect to spend weeks, if not months, learning all the ins and outs.
It's not free or cheap. A license for the core ExpressionEngine software is currently $299 a pop. Premium add-ons can average between $20-$200 for their licenses, but there are also many add-ons that are free. https://devot-ee.com/ is the premier marketplace for ExpressionEngine add-ons.
A relatively small user/developer community = above-average contractor rates. ExpressionEngine experts hard to find and do not come cheap, and understandably so. ExpressionEngine is a highly specialized and advanced CMS. Due to the price barrier, ExpressionEngine is nowhere near as popular as free WordPress or Joomla!.
Poor software updating system. ExpressionEngine is NOT WordPress where you get pushed core and add-on update notifications, and apply them with a few clicks. Updating ExpressionEngine requires a developer who can manually go in, backup everything, upload specific files, and otherwise follow specific procedures that require time and expertise. Due to the changing and hazardous nature of the Internet, it's imperative to keep your software updated - so this makes ExpressionEngine not ideal for projects with small budgets.

Likelihood to Recommend

It really depends on the scope and scale of the project in question, and not to mention its budget. As a creative services firm we analyze a projects informational needs and determine which solutions are best. We highly recommend ExpressionEngine for projects that have complex IT requirements and large budgets for both initial development and ongoing support.

Lee Whitworth

Partner in Information Technology at Satdaya LLC (Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

10 years of experience

View profile

There's a Lot to LovEE about ExpressionEngine!

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

July 20, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

National Network (aka NNEPA) is a national membership organization of estate planning attorneys. We needed a new members-only website to replace our seriously outdated website in which we made all of our updates manually. Already having significant experience with ExpressionEngine, it was an obvious choice for me as I knew it could handle the thousands of entries we already had, and the thousands more we would be adding. In addition to our large library of resources and training tools, it handles our member logins, event calendar and more. We will soon be adding a store so members can make their purchases online. The website will also drive a new front-end recruiting area to help grow our membership.

Pros

The number one thing that I think ExpressEngine allows for is its flexibility. I always tell people there isn't anything that it can't do and that proved true in this case as well. For instance, we needed a few levels of membership for providing access to different areas of the website and ExpressEngine handled this without issue. In addition, some of the library resources are accessible based on that membership group.
One of the things that I love about ExpressEngine is that it doesn't come with any expectations about your website look/feel/code. We created the layout and coded our pages, then plugged in the necessary tags.
ExpressEngine is a very secure system out of the box, and there are numerous tips and guides to help you further secure the back-end. That was an important feature for us.
The ExpressEngine community is probably one of the greatest strengths. There are so many great people involved who are willing to lend a quick hand or provide some advice to help out.

Cons

For me, one of the greatest strengths of ExpressionEngine is also one of their weaknesses. There are so many add-ons available (some free, some not) for ExpressionEngine to allow you to do just about anything you want. However, the more add-ons that you use the more you have to deal with when performing updates. For instance, is the add-on compatible with the new version of ExpressionEngine - or even another add-on? What if that add-on gets abandoned by the developer - is there another that can perform the same functionality?
I think that ExpressionEngine needs to offer more out of the box than it does. Yes, you can get add-ons for just about anything but this adds to the cost. I have a list of add-ons that I use on almost every site which can raise the cost of getting started with a new site by $100-300. So add that to the cost of a license and you're at $400-600 and you haven't even started working on it yet. For instance, I shouldn't have to buy an add-on to allow me to customize the menu for my end-users.
The membership management feature is seriously lacking. Fortunately, there are add-ons (for an additional cost) to allow you to manage things better.

Likelihood to Recommend

For someone with a limited budget, it's hard to recommend ExpressionEngine simply because of the cost of the license and any add-ons just to get up and running. As a developer, the budget needs to be a certain amount before I can even consider ExpressionEngine - no matter how appropriate it is for the site. Besides that, I recommend ExpressionEngine for those who have a lot of content, have a need for a certain level of flexibility, or who have special feature requests. There are a number of ExpressionEngine add-on developers who are willing to help build (for a fee) custom add-ons to fulfill that need.

Todd Richards

Director of IT in Information Technology at National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys, LLC (Legal Services, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

ExpressionEngine review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 17, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

eHouse Studio is a digital marketing agency that specializes in medium to large web site design and development. ExpressionEngine is our content management system of choice for these sites due to its ease of use, flexibility, and extensibility.

Pros

Extensibility: ExpressionEngine's core is extensible, allowing for third-party code to be modularized and installed. ExpressionEngine's community has a number of highly talented add-on developers that contribute to its pool of add-ons.
Flexibility: ExpressionEngine is tremendously flexible, allowing for a single installation to manage everything from static pages, to blogs, to full fledged eCommerce platforms.
Ease of Use: ExpressionEngine's control panel can be themed and its publish layouts customized, allowing for a very pleasant experience for our clients. This increases the likelihood of them actually using the platform which reduces the number of support hours we must provide.

Cons

Query bloat: ExpressionEngine tends to run an excessive number of queries to generate content. This is due, in large part, to an inefficient database schema.
Lack of third-party add on reviews: ExpressionEngine's extensibility is also a curse, due to a lack of official reviews of add ons. This can introduce bugs in the system that are difficult, at best, to squash.
Reliance on outdated technology: While newer versions of ExpressionEngine have started to move away from CodeIgniter (almost entirely at this point), older installations still rely on the outdated framework resulting in a code base that does not take advantage of updated server software.

Likelihood to Recommend

In my experience, ExpressionEngine is a perfect "middle-ground" CMS, well suited for sites that contain multiple types of "normal" content. For projects that either consist of minimal content types (a single blog, for instance) or those that require a more enterprise level publishing process, ExpressionEngine may not be the most suitable. Additionally, sites that contain a massive amount of data and require bleeding edge performance may want to look in a different direction.

Samuel King

Director of Web Development in Information Technology at eHouse Studio (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

ExpressionEngine has potential

Rating: 4 out of 10

Incentivized

July 17, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

ExpressionEngine was one of the alternatives that we used separate from WordPress. It was a product that we used at Big Sea when WordPress wasn't sufficient for the client's needs.

ExpressionEngine was our go to for clients that needed a heavily robust site without default bells and whistles. These projects included a large number of different streams of data (blog, staff members, locations, news, departments) all with interconnectivity in a way that was quick to set up.

The primary downside to ExpressionEngine is that it is a bare minimum out of the box, and that it essentially requires third party extensions in order for it to be efficient. However, this is a plus when you want to clean up the bells and whistles in the admin to only the essentials that the client will eventually need.

I love the power of ExpressionEngine, but it's usually way more (less?) than we need for our projects, as it takes longer to set up the initial configuration. The handling of the theme is actually far more to my liking over WordPress, as literally every file you create is created for YOU, and not because the theme requires it.

Pros

Extremely robust. To be able to start from absolute scratch in the CMS and get it configured precisely to each individual client's needs.
Combined with Pixel and Tonic's Matrix and Playa addons alone, EE's channel fields become a whole new world of awesome.

Cons

System needs more hooks, especially for third party plugins. A lot of the plugins are so precise in their functionality that trying to do anything custom with them quickly becomes a chaotic mess and regular hair pulling.
So bare minimum out of the box, that the cost of the initial purchase is sneaky as you'll spend a lot more on addons and modules.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you're looking for a quick product set up, and getting it out the door, this is not an appropriate system for you. However, if you have a large project with a lot of moving parts that can be resolved with the plugins and what they offer, this is an awesome solution.

Chris Lagasse

Web Developer at Big Sea Design + Development (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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ExpressionEngine can do it all... For a price.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

July 23, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Content structuring. You can set up channels and fields to hold just about any kind of information imaginable; text, images, videos, numbers, code, etc. You can structure this information any way you want and in any order. You literally create your own information database just the way you want it using a clear, easy online interface.
Template system. Utter freedom. Need I say more?
Exensible. There are a lot of add-ons, extensions, and other external modules that extend the core functionality of ExpressionEngine. Need a user management system? Check out the User module at http://solspace.com.

Cons

Big learning curve! In my opinion, ExpressionEngine is not really for the inexperienced, be it users or developers. Clients who aren't web-savvy have a hard time picking up the backend, and end up paying more for a custom front-end control panel to fit their project needs. Developers have to learn the templating language. It's not that complicated for someone who is experienced with HTML/CSS, at least, let alone a programmer, but still expect to spend weeks, if not months, learning all the ins and outs.
It's not free or cheap. A license for the core ExpressionEngine software is currently $299 a pop. Premium add-ons can average between $20-$200 for their licenses, but there are also many add-ons that are free. https://devot-ee.com/ is the premier marketplace for ExpressionEngine add-ons.
A relatively small user/developer community = above-average contractor rates. ExpressionEngine experts hard to find and do not come cheap, and understandably so. ExpressionEngine is a highly specialized and advanced CMS. Due to the price barrier, ExpressionEngine is nowhere near as popular as free WordPress or Joomla!.
Poor software updating system. ExpressionEngine is NOT WordPress where you get pushed core and add-on update notifications, and apply them with a few clicks. Updating ExpressionEngine requires a developer who can manually go in, backup everything, upload specific files, and otherwise follow specific procedures that require time and expertise. Due to the changing and hazardous nature of the Internet, it's imperative to keep your software updated - so this makes ExpressionEngine not ideal for projects with small budgets.

Likelihood to Recommend

Lee Whitworth

Partner in Information Technology at Satdaya LLC (Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

10 years of experience

View profile