Any opinions on ExpressionEngine?

A colleague of mine found this today...

http://www.pmachine.com/

I looks like a really interesting bit of kit and was wondering if anyone has tried it?

It's free for non-commercial purposes and prices start at $100 p/a for commercial sites.

It also comes with a forum module for an extra hundred bucks, but I haven't really looked into that yet.

Anyone used it? I'm tempted to play with it a bit as it would be nice to have a fully-integrated system.

 

I always wanted to try it however, the price of $150 is too much for me to pay for a bloging software. (They reduced the price to $99 now.) For now, i'm using Movable Type for most of my sites and really like it - you can customize the site the way you want and is very SEO friendly.

Glad you mentioned they offer a free version now. I'll try it next week

 

Anyone with any experiance?

 

A friend uses it for his site, swears by it - www.markboulton.co.uk - it looks tasty as well.

 

Hey that looks good ~ I ended up moving away from expression because there were some issues with URL rewriting the way I wanted it, but his site looks good so I may investigate it again.

 

Yeah - he's a pretty good designer - he's mentioned he uses EE for his client's sites as well quite often - mentioned its very hackable. I'm off CMSs at the moment full stop.

 

So why use ExpressionEngine and not Wordpress?

 

Because WordPress doesn't fill all of my requirements.

I'd also prefer to use a system that's not so frequently used by the masses.

 

@SEbasic

What are those requirements and could you please post or pm me the blog you made with ExpressionEngine?

 

To be honest, I'd rather not.

Sorry.

 

Ok.

SEbasic. Do you know good weblogs that use expressionengine?
Most I see is wordpress

 

I don't know any off the top of my head, but the blog linked above looks good to me (http://www.markboulton.co.uk/)

Yeah, most people are using WordPress simply because it's full of features and it's free...

Don't get me wrong, WordPress isn't by any means crap, it's just not quite what I need.

 

I just caught this thread...I'm in the process of moving from using Wordpress to EE. I've also used Blogger and Moveable Type in the past. The licensed version of EE is totally worth the cost if you rely on your site for revenue...the main reason being that you have tech support when needed, and that the core modules are all integrated and also come with support. It's also very flexible when dealing with design and content layout. If you visit the EE website you'll see they have a ton of links to user sites and they're all very unique. EE is a cms/blogging platform that a lot of designers use for their client sites.

I really like WP, but if you're a hardcore blogger or want to use it for client cms it isn't the best long term option. I found it to be quite frustrating on several levels...

1. Problems are hard to deal with since this it's free and support is little to non-existent (you'll spend hours searching for answers spread across many sites and still have to spend more hours tweaking things for your own setup).

2. While there are a ton of plugins they're all done by individuals. They can be seriously buggy, or bandwidth hogs, and again there's no tech support. Every time WP gets updated you'll run into problems with 80% of the plugins...then you have to wait and hope that your fav plugins will get updated.

3. It's hard to find plugins that are fully integrated with WP. Over time you may want to run multiple mailing lists, a forum, gallery, ecommerce store, etc. All of these features typically require your users to register and it's very hard to get a WP site running so they only have to register once.


It's been awhile since I used Moveable Type so it may be a lot better than what experienced. It's definitely got more features than WP, but can be a lot harder to customize...and I also had a lot of issues with the database getting borked. Still, I think EE is far beyond either of these setups...it just goes along with the nature of a company that's focusing on one thing. They do it really well. ONe thing I really like about EE is that in addition to the supported program and modules, you can also have your own custom plugins created and there are a number of free ones available as well.

The only downside to EE is that each install of the Personal or Commercial script requires a paid license (although they do have a basic Core script for free). That said, you can run multiple sites off one EE install as long as they're all on the same server with appropriate permission settings.

I'm still finishing up my first official EE site, but once I get it done I'll post a link.

 

Which is your EE website ? Finished ?

Any feedback on EE ?