ExpressionEngine claims to be “the most flexible web publishing system you’ll ever meet” – it’s also the most oft-used CMS in the professional web design community that you’ve never given the time of day to. It’s time to change that and find out precisely why all of the ‘free’ alternatives should sit up and take note.
Expression-What-Now?
ExpressionEngine, from EllisLab, isn’t just any old CMS. To start with, it isn’t free. Whoa there Nelly, don’t go running for the hills just yet – EE‘s core is free to download (for personal use) and it comes with a whole host of features already built in, such as modules(more on those later) for comments, RSS Feeds, Site-search, Statistics and trackbacks. This is the point where you start telling me that there are several other CMS’s that provide these particular features (and many more) all for free, and, of course, you’re absolutely right.
ee_homepage.png)
I’m Still Not Getting This Whole “Pay” Thing…
OK, we need to get past this. The bottom line is, EE will cost some spondoolies – whether it’s going to cost you or your clients, someone is going to have to fork over the cash. The Personal and Commercial licenses ($99.95 and $249.95, respectively) both give you access to extra modules – from ‘Tell-a-friend’ to mailing lists and simple eCommerce. The full list can be found on the pricing page of the EE site.
ee_pricing.png)
OK, so now we’ve gotten over the fact that EE isn’t free…let’s find out precisely why. The features of EE are both extensive and impressive. You’re able to maintain several blogs at the same time – from the same Control Panel – that’s a biggy. The template engine is second-to-none – it is completely abstracted from the rest of the code allowing you complete control of your design and permits you to build dynamic, content driven websites using simple, yet powerful tags. There are 22 add-on modules and over 100 plugins which you’re able to utilize at the time of this writing – a number which is likely to increase sooner rather than later. Other than the flexible nature of EE, many developers (and clients) are attracted to the quite incredible security features built into EE core. EllisLab claims that EE “has the most comprehensive suite of security features of any publishing platform on the market” – quite some claim.
OK I’m Sold…Let’s Get a Rockin’
The first step is to determine whether the server you wish to utilize is capable of running EE. Fortunately, EllisLab have put together an excellent wizard which can walk you through each step. Download the wizard and follow the instructions – which are to basically upload one file onto your host and navigate to it. This script checks your server for certain requirements – such as does it run the minimum version of PHP and MySQL (which are both required) and then several ‘optional’ or suggested options. You get a report immediately upon running the script which breaks down exactly what EE requires and recommends, and whether your server meets those requirements. You then need to check your MySQL settings and will hopefully be greeted with a message that reads. “Congratulations! Your Server is Ready for ExpressionEngine!”.
requirement_check.png)
Rock and Roll! Download and Installation
Right, you’ve decided that you want to give EE a go, you’ve determined that your server is capable of running it and are ready to get started. So let’s do precisely that – by downloading the EE Core.
- Visit https://secure.expressionengine.com/download.php?ACT=agreement&id=34 and accept their license agreement to download the zip file.
- Next, extract and upload the files to your web host (or place them in your localhost folder).
- Now you need to navigate to that folder and the install script will fire automatically.
You will need to know a few details before beginning (which are outside the scope of this tutorial):
- MySQL Username
- MySQL Password
- MySQL database name
- MySQL Hostname (normally ‘localhost’)
Note: You’ll need to either create your database or have an existing database before running the ExpressionEngine installation. This can usually be done either using something such as phpMyAdmin or through your web hosting account control panel.
Accept another agreement and then you’re off to the first ‘real’ stage of the installation – renaming the system folder. Go to the folder where you uploaded ExpressionEngine and find the ‘system’ folder. Now rename this folder to something less easy to guess…we’ll use “NotTheSystemFolder”…Irony, y’see is lost on hacking kiddies :) Once finished, tell the install script that you’ve done so.
NotTheSystemFolder.png)
Now you’re into the nitty gritty of the EE install – the Server, Database and Encryption settings and the bit where you setup your admin account. The majority of these things can be left for the default settings, however you will need the MySQL info listed above and you’ll need to choose some details about your Control Panel ‘admin’ user.
Leave all of the “server settings” as they are. Now fill-in all the details for the ‘database settings’. Once this is done, leave the ‘Encryption Settings’ as they are (SHA1 selected). Now you need to create your admin account – select a username and password, enter your e-mail address and create a ‘screen name’ and give your EE install a name. Adjust the Localization settings to suit and leave the template as default for now. Now click the “Click here to Install ExpressionEngine” button at the bottom of the page. That’s you pretty much done – you should see a nice little message telling you that EE has been successfully installed.
There’s a little bit of house-keeping to do – remove the install.php file from your EE installation directory – the install script tells you that it poses a potential security risk. So go off and do this now and get it out of the way – security is paramount!
EE_installed.png)
Time to Express Yourself!
Let’s have a little look-see at what we’ve just done. Once the installation script has done its magic, you’ll be asked to bookmark two things – a link to access your control panel and a link to visit your new site. Let’s take the latter one first – we’ll take a look at what our site currently looks like. The ‘Default Site Weblog’ is displayed and a post called “Getting Started With ExpressionEngine” is displayed. The links that this post contains are priceless – invest some time in clicking through them all and reading (and watching) the resources it presents you. Don’t worry about the term ‘Weblog’ – we’ll go through all of the terminologies used in EE in the next part of this run-through. This is often something which puts people off learning EE, so don’t quit – it’s really not as hard as you think.
YourNewSite.png)
I Want Control!
Then you shall have it! Clicking on the former of the two links you’re given after the installation script finishes will send you to your ‘login’ page; enter the details you chose during the install process if they’re not automagically entered for you. Now you’re presented with your Control Panel. Have a look around – get used to it – you’ll be seeing this little chap quite a bit.
EEControlPanel.png)
Click on publish and have a look at the ‘form’ you will use to enter new content. That’s something you’ll be wanting to become familiar with! Now click on ‘Edit’ and you’ll see your ‘Getting Started With ExpressionEngine’ post that you viewed not so long ago. Clicking on the title of it will take you to a window similar to the ‘Create’ page – but this time it’s populated with the content from the post we viewed earlier. You can now see how the default editor works – with the [b] and [/b] code clearly showing you how EE creates bold text. Hyperlinks are the same as you normally create in a text editor.
What’s in Store
So then, we’ve had a brief look at what ExpressionEngine is and why it’s worth ‘giving it a go’. Next up, we’ll:
- Learn how to create content in EE
- Lear some EE terminology
- Change our settings in the (rather complex) control panel
- How to use pre-built themes.
- Delve deeper into the developer side of things and discuss the way in which EE themes work and set about creating our own – manipulating EE tags while we’re at it.
- Discuss the premium options within EE and have a look at whether they are right for you or your next project.
- Subscribe to the NETTUTS RSS Feed for more daily web development tuts and articles.
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By Richard Tape
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this is the tut i’ve been most excited for. thanks!
hummmmmmm……..
Let me Try
hay Richard Tap, do i have to but ExpressionEngine for every single domain – i don’t get it or is it simply buy one and live with ?
- is it subscription method ?
- do i have to buy for every domain ?
- how many time i can use the files ?
Hey megh,
EE has a “multiple site manager” which costs just shy of $80, if you have a look at http://expressionengine.com/overview/pricing/ you can get all the details! Thanks for the comment
Intriguing, but why does it cost money where other CMS’es like Drupal, WordPress and Joomla are free?
Did you read the whole top section? It has all the info there.
“OK, so now we’ve gotten over the fact that EE isn’t free…let’s find out precisely why.”
From the phrase it explains why.
Nice tut. May try it out soon.
Yeah, I can read. But paying to access 100 modules where thousands are free for the other engines is hard to throw down as a line item on an invoice to a client.
I personally don’t think the reasons they gave are enough to have to fork over some cash. The part about managing multiple sites: you can download wordrpess mu for that, which is still free. WordPress MU has about as many confirmed plugins as EE. Still, if you just want one blog for yourself, WordPress has thousands of plugins you can use.
They haven’t convinced me to pay.
The appeal to me (from the outside looking in…i’ve never used EE) is that Expression Engine appears to allow you to design your normal html/css and then think about the dynamic stuff. Joomla and Drupal feel like you’re always fighting to make web design work with their system.
Would a client pay for it? I don’t know. My company would pay for it if I felt it was a worthwhile value for us.
Hi Kevin thanks for the comment (and thanks to James and peewee1002 for their excellent replies). The debate between paying for a CMS when several others are available for free will probably go on for quite some time, however, from my point of view EE has an architecture which is completely different and superior to all of the free CMS. The second part of this series goes into much more developer-related stuff and I think you’ll start to see why EE is worth the money. Plus, the core is free… :)
Is the core free for anyone to completly dismantle and change, like is it opensource?
My quick brief explanation is:
‘YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!’
The team at Ellis Labs (the fine folks responsible for ExpressionEngine & CodeIgniter) make their living building this powerful CMS.
A. Would you rather use something created by someone/OS-community for FREE?
B. Would you rather use something created by someone/dedicated-professional who is paid for their work?
Having built sites with Open Source CMS’s I can say that one benefit of a non OSS option is that you are a customer, not a community member. As a customer, you have way more power to get developers to listen because, face it, money talks.
I love Drupal, but $249 for a commercial site is peanuts. If it keeps a core of guys in business supporting users, then that’s great.
It would be worth mentioning that although you pay for Expression Engine ($99 or $250 is a relatively small amount if a client is spending $1500 upwards on a website) you also get excellent technical support from the guys at Ellis Lab. The forums are always busy and there is always someone from Ellis Lab willing to help out with any problems, plus the very helpful and knowledgeable community are always active on the forums. The forums are locked to paying license holders so are kept clear of spam and re-posts etc.
Again, as you pay for the product this means it has a dedicated team behind it updating and refining the product, something you perhaps won’t find with most open source/free Content Management Systems.
If a client has a problem with their site that needs fixing ASAP and it is beyond your scope then you can get a quick response from the guys who actually built the system as oppose to waiting on an empty forum for some random to reply.
All in all a fantastic product and service.
Yay finally some EE tuts!
I played around with it for a while and after realizing how powerful/flexible it is I just felt a bit sorry for WordPress even though I use WordPress myself.
Just to hopefully clear up WHY ExpressionEngine is a paid product before it all gets out of hand, the reason is support.
You are primarily paying for full developer support of which the ExpressionEngine developers are some of the best you will find anywhere.
Yes there are plenty of CMS systems out there which are free and there are loads and loads of modules that are developed 3rd party for free too (ExpressionEngine has loads of these too) but the main point is that you are getting a product that is supported and developed and has exceptional rock solid security.
I have used literally hundreds of CMS systems over the years and can safely say that I have ended up paying out more trying to get them to be really secure.
With ExpressionEngine not only is the security of the system fantastic but also the whole method of working with it too. The templating system is just the best I have ever come across in any system and let’s not forget the support of the forums too. These are forums where you regularly have the main developers of the product (ExpressionEngine) popping in to help out with problems. Most other systems will have people helping out who do a good job but to actually have the developers of the product regularly helping out is a major plus.
Then there’s the community based part of ExpressionEngine. I literally believe the forums there to be the friendliest forums I’ve come across in my entire life. I’ve been through so many forums where people are just flaming other people and to tell the truth I was getting sick of it. In the ExpressionEngine forums there is generally none of that at all. You get great support from both the moderators and the users alike which is worth the cost of the product in itself.
Just my two pennies worth though.
Looking forward to the rest of this series.
Best wishes,
Mark
well you should all read this article
http://www.lullabot.com/articles/drupal-and-expressionengine-security-models
For me, the big reason to pay for it is that the client will save money by letting the developer work in an environment where they can do *everything they would normally be able to do* without having to fight to get the CMS to do what they want. You can write HTML & CSS just the exact way you would with a static site, then start adding in your dynamic stuff. With other CMSs, you have to spend a lot of time nudging the CMS slowly towards what you want it to be, and that takes time. EE has no limitations! I am an EE developer and prefer EE for that reason primarily. The idea that I have to start with some standard template and then nudge it to be what I want is ridiculous. If you know how to Do It Yourself, then this is what you want to be using. And, let’s face it, $250 isn’t really all that much in the grand scheme of things when you are building a full-fledged dynamic web site.
I’m with Kevin Quillen… not really sure why I’d use Expression Engine over the free (as in beer and as in speech) alternatives. I guess that’s what the next few tuts will be for, though :-) Looking forward to it.
Hi Camilo Payan, thanks for your comment! You’re absolutely right – much of the remaining 4 parts of this tutorial will be explaining why EE is so good. EE is a paid-for product due to the quality service you receive – that’s what EE people will tell you – I’d go further and suggest that EE is worth the money for the security, flexibility, templating system AND service.
I think of the cost in terms of how many hours I’m going to waste hacking away at WordPress or another free CMS to get it to do what EE usually handles out of the box. Think of $250 as 2-3 hours of your development time charged to the client. That’s pocket change for most projects, and it’ll save you time and frustration down the road.
And as Mark said, the community and support is top notch. Rarely does a question go unanswered in the forums. That to me is worth a few dollars.
have been waiting for a good introduction to expression engine, looking forward to the next installment :)
I work at a church and we are currently rebuilding our site in EE. Can’t wait for the rest of this series.
Check out this amazing article at http://www.train-ee.com/
Building a Church Site
http://bit.ly/c2Kz3
I look forward to reading the up and coming articles with EE been looking at it for while and it could prove to step up my web design projects with an all built cms system to help assist my Design and XHTML/CSS code
Why use EE when there are cheaper or free alternatives? …Such a strange quesiton. I’ll bet there are cheaper versions of the computer you’re using right now. So why did you splurge for that one? Because it was better suited to your needs. There are cheap alternatives for everything.
I use EE exclusively for my work, and I’ve found that its value more than makes up for its cost.
Expression Engine also has a MSM (multi site manager) module that effectively lets you run 3 of your own sites from one license installation and a substantial discount on further site add ons. Also from a client perspective they offer volume discount’s that you can build up over time, which works out well from a freelancer’s perspective.
Volume Discount Milestones:
3+ purchases, 10% off
6+ purchases, 15% off
10+ purchases, 20% off
15+ purchases, 25% off
20+ purchases, 30% off
30+ purchases, 40% off
40+ purchases, 50% off
I really think people make a mountain out of a mole hill with the price issue. I haven’t had a client even question the $249.95 price tag.
If it is out of you or your clients budget then simply go for a free CMS! Simple.
It’s not that its out of budget.
Can you modify their code? Can you extend on it? What if a client wants features EE cannot provide after its installed?
I guess its more of a in-theory discussion than what is posted here, somewhat off topic.
Full disclosure: I work for EllisLab, although this opinion is my own, and not an official statement.
Yes, you are welcome to modify EE’s code. Obviously hacks won’t be supported, but it’s plain, commented, unobfuscated PHP code we are talking about here. Although redistribution of EE’s code is prohibited by the license, making modifications for your needs is permitted, if seldom necessary: there is a very powerful system to create plugins, extensions and modules so that hacking EE’s core code should rarely be necessary. But, yes, you may if you feel so inclined.
So, yes, you can extend on EE’s code. If you need a feature that EE does not provide, you can always create it yourself — provided your have the necessary PHP skills :)
There’s absolutely *no way* I’d pay for this kind of software, no matter how sophisticated or powerful it is. Proprietary code for a CMS/ blog? You got to be kidding!
Nettuts should keep on track and focus on real-life scenarios.
To dismiss EE, as you have done so, is a bit silly. There is a reason why so many developers swear by it. Perhaps you’ll change your mind after the five articles have been posted. :)
Jeffrey thanks for the future insight on EE. I’ve been with EE for about 2 months now and find it far simpler compared to much lighter systems.. Hands down it’s a power house compared to other systems as well.
The way EE is delivered is professional and appropriate for a professional CMS driven site.
What kind of hosting should i go with? Grid hosting or cheap Shared hosting for a EE driven site? Have you tried the provided Engine Hosting?
OK I have to admit that was a bit silly. :P
And no doubt I’ll stick around for the coming articles.
To me the biggest turn off is EE’s commercial approach. I’ll concede it maybe a good choice, specially when clients are willing to pay the price.
My point is that you’ll be hardpressed to find a *community* as strong and commited as WP’s if you’re considering support, documentation, resources etc.
So maybe you’ll convince me that EE can deliver a better job than WP when it comes to blogging in the coming days and silly me will zip lips.
WordPress is still a blog and not a CMS…there is a big difference between the two.
I definitely will have to agree with Joao…. There is nothing that word press cant do… that expression engine can!! in fact this looks like a paid review..
Does that also mean that you wouldn’t pay for a developer no matter how good they are at their job. Same goes for many things in life. Simply dismissing them without first seeing what they can do is a bit silly if you ask me.
Also to clear up you are totally free to make your own plugins, extensions and modules that will add on to the existing ExpressionEngine functionality and this is a great way to get functionality that may not exist in the base package.
You are also ‘allowed’ to modify the core code if you want but it is well noted that if you do this then support can’t obviously be provided as you are in effect ‘hacking’ the system.
Anyway will be good to see this series and how it helps to get ExpressionEngine out to people so that they can see that there is more to it than they think.
Best wishes,
Mark
Not at all. It means that I’d rather work along developers in a common effort and for the benefit of a larger public- even if they’re not as good as the hired guns.
Hi Joao Aliano and thanks for your comment. The replies by Mark, Brian and Jeffrey pretty much echo exactly what I would say. I will pick up on the “real-life scenarios” remark you made tho’ – ExpressionEngine is used in hundreds of thousands of websites around the world. It may not have the exposure of other CMS like WordPress for example, but its market share is ever increasing and the soon-to-be-released v2.0 will be a massive leap forward. EE really is ‘real life’ and I would question why you would be quick to say no to something without giving it a try. Try it…you might like it!
Much obliged, Richard.
Surely, I will give it a try. I’m sorry if my previous comment was rash. I have an allergy of paid web scripts, that’s all.
That’s *so* funny.. and odd… I just installed EE for the first time to try it out on a test site, not more than a half hour ago. Then I saw the tweet to this article.
Anyway. I think Veerle’s Blog uses EE. So does one of Obama’s sites. I think as developers we would be remiss to not at least give it a try.
spot on, like you say, we should at least give it a try, and you are correct that Veerle’s blog uses EE, it does, and she rocks. :)
Thanks for the introduction !
But I think I’ll stick to WordPress for a while,
as said there are so many free Cms’s that
can do so many things if you got the patience…
The support may be the reason to give it a try, tho..
EE is really one of the best cms…I have it on my homeserver installed for testing purposes. I’ll give it a try on one of the next projects, if a client wants too
Paying for a CMS doesn’t seem like that great of an idea at first mention. Though essentially what that means is that there is an experienced team of people who are going to ensure that the product is worth the money required to attain it.
The old saying goes “you get what you pay for”, and the internet has proven this isn’t ALWAYS true, but if you are paying for a product you can at least be assured that it will be quality, and any troubles you have with the product can be resolved by the (paid) development team.
I haven’t used EE yet, but I will look into with this article. It seems like an overall quality CMS. Security is always good. :)
I happen to really like Expression Engine…i paid for the personal license although i feel it was OVER PRICED!! It was the perfect CMS solution for the project i was working on. It heavily documented and offer great tech support so i guess the $99 was worth it.
Very happy with this series. I will be anxious for the next 4 days :)
So what if it is commercial, the cost can easily be passed on to the client, it is up to them. The open source alternatives are pretty awesome as well (as in MODx) which is why I am not able to commit to EE. As for cost = development issue, that argument can go both ways. There are several fantastic ‘free’ options that provide continuous development. And i have also recently seen CMS that were commercial go the way of ‘free’ in order to have a larger acceptance. I mean just imagine the chunk of the market that EE would own if it was ‘free’.
in any case i am looking forward for this tutorial. :)
Sadly, I won’t pay for a CMS. The free version of EE looks good but I just can’t afford the $200+ for the commercial.
I will stick with WordPress & Modx.
Good job though, looks like a great tut.
P.S. Can you guys please vote for this?
http://psdtuts.uservoice.com/pages/nettuts_tutorial_suggestions/suggestions/161975-make-a-client-login-area-with-codeigniter
I would need to try EE first before judging it ;-)
My opinion on the free vs. non-free CMS debate is this:
Free CMSes tend to have a lot of bugs, lots of things that you have to work around or build yourself. They don’t (usually) have the same kind of manpower/money behind them that CMSes like Expression Engine have behind them, nor the customer support.
That being said, this isn’t really a problem for me. I have the time, energy, and drive to figure those things out myself, et cetera. For instance, I love WordPress, and I’m beginning to work with Drupal and loving it as well. (WordPress is easier to find support for, but Drupal is MUCH more powerful, in my experience)
Non-free CMSes obviously have the advantage of having considerably larger amounts of money behind them, having paid support teams, paid developers, et cetera. They are VERY good for recommending to clients without dedicated staff to maintain the website and check dependencies and update plugins and all that.
Essentially, they’re good for people that don’t have the time, energy, or drive to figure those things out themselves and make the fixes themselves.
Long story short: Free CMSes are great for personal use, Non-free CMSes are good for commercial use. (Surprise, surprise)
I’m really excited for these articles. I have the core version installed for my personal site and have been wanting to learn more about EE. The ease of use along with the power that it gives you really impresses me. I definitely prefer it to Drupal, which is what my company is starting to use for their sites.
Try it out before you bash it. It comes highly recommended by pretty much everybody I’ve ever known who has used it, including myself.
I was of the same mindset as everyone else that has commented. NOT FREE?? Then it’s not for me. I finally decided to give it a try after a year or so of using (and failing) with other CMS’s like TextPattern and I can tell you that I wouldn’t trade ExpressionEngine for anything now. It just seems to make the most sense of any CMS that I’ve used and in the grand scheme of things, the license fee is extremely cheap for what the software can do. The whole free vs. not-free debate ALWAYS comes up when ExpressionEngine is discussed and for whatever reason, people fail to realize that ExpressionEngine does in fact offer a free version (Core) but it does not come with paid Tech Support. You are still free to ask questions in the “Core” tech support forums and with such a great community you’ll generally receive an answer quickly.
Tech support is the biggest issue for me, whether paying for Expression Engine, Basecamp or reseller hosting. I need to know that if there is a problem I can’t fix myself then I can get real help within the day and fix the problem for my client. If I can’t fix it in a reasonable amount of time, this reflects badly on my business and could potentially lose me future recommendations for work. The small initial cost’s I pay for upfront are more then easily recouped financially and also through peace of mind.
Charging a client for x amount of hours to fix a bug in WordPress etc probably works out at roughly the same cost to just buy EE from the offset.
Swings and roundabouts really
I’ve heard good things about EE. My hang up is this though:
Before I would develop in EE for a client I would have to try it out, style around it, play with their templating system, modules, etc. I know there is a free version, which I have downloaded and installed on a subdomain for play. But, the reasons I would want to use EE engine are the features that you get when you purchase a license.
Is it expensive when the cost is passed on to the client? Nope. However, is it expensive if I’m just experimenting with the modules in order to implement the product on future projects? You betcha. If you make enough money where you look at a hundred or so bucks as disposable income then I’m happy for you. Me though, not there quite yet. I’ll continue to use opensource alternatives, not because I look at them as being equal, but because they’re much cheaper to learn about.
Actually, there is a hosted trial, too. It costs 10$, and gives you 30 days of access to all of EE, including the other for-pay options like the forum module and the Multiple Site Manager. If you decide to purchase at the end of that period, the 10$ will be credited towards the purchase price.
Full disclosure: I work for EllisLab.
I am really happy to see EE coming to nettuts ^__^
As a graphic designer trying to do websites (…), EE is the most simple, intuitive and powerful tool I have ever tried.
It allows you to do things the way you want to, it even helps to organize and structure information, I just love it ^__^
And the support is amazing. If you have one problem, one question, you get an immediate answer from a kind and skilled person.
It is not free? So what? I am not free either… and my clients are certainly more willing to pay me hours for doing my designer job than spending silly hours to fix bugs or try adapting an abscure feature from a free cms.
Blimey! Quite a lot of debate so far, and as can be expected, it’s mainly to do with the fact that EE isn’t free. Thank you all for your comments either for or against EE – the intention of this series is to initially introduce a CMS to people who may not have heard of it, or not given it the time of day because it isn’t free. This certainly isn’t an EE vs WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal kind of thing (there’s plenty of those available with a quick Google) – we’ll be going through, from scratch, how to create quality sites using this most flexible of Content Management Systems. As for whether you or your clients should pay for a CMS…that’s a decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
You need to weigh up if a free CMS can perform precisely what you want and still leave you looking and feeling professional – if that’s the case, then sure, go for the freebie. However, I honestly believe there’s a pretty damn good reason why several very high profile sites use EE as their CMS of choice – flexibility, security and the outstanding levels of service provided in the forums and elsewhere are 3 that spring to mind…the choice tho’ at the end of the day, is yours.
Thanks again for the comments, keep them coming
Hmh, i’ve tested many many many content management systems, not even one of them (includig EE) can do what i need. Either they are too difficult to use or have to be extremely modified.
So i decided to make my own cms, think thats the best way to get what you wish, especially if you want to know all about the code of the cms. Maybe i release it someday to public as opensource in two versions (free and commercial) if it’s finished… But only maybe, because i spend much time on it, it has a bunch of features (and i’m not finished yet), which other (free) cms will never have.
In my opinion, the price of EE is trivial, any client unwilling to pay the modest amount for a commercial license is a client you don’t want or need. Those who balk at the price, try the free Core version which gives you taste of what EE can do.
I have built dozens of sites with EE (and have significant experience with WordPress and Textpattern as well) and can truly say it’s one of the best (if not THE best) system out there to build dynamic websites, free or otherwise.
It’s extremely configurable, adapts to your design (not the other way around), expandable (loads of good quality plugins, extensions and modules), stable on a variety of server environments and fast. You can build a site without knowing a shred of php or use php in your templates and go to town with them. The documentation is clear and there are plenty of good resources for learning to work with EE.
The community around it is second to none and always willing to help out and share resources and knowledge.
Did I mention the upcoming 2.0 version will be based on the open-source CodeIgniter framework, making extending EE’s base functionality even more interesting?
this is just a advertise-article right?
Freebee, no it isn’t an advertisement – I’m writing a series of articles on how to begin using EE and then move onto the advanced functionality – I don’t work for EllisLab, I simply want to get EE out there into a wider audience! Thanks for the comment
Hate seeing this turn into a flame war. Just don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I’ve tried MODx, WordPress, and Drupal, and I always go back to EE if its my choice. Those other CMS’s don’t have any killer features that EE doesn’t already have, and it’s much less frustrating to work with. Small price is worth it for me and my clients.
Hopefully some of the people here will try the FREE core version and then post their opinions. If there is a feature you need not built into EE, then there will most likely be an add-on, so search the message boards. If you still can’t find it, there is great documentation on how to write your own add-ons. I just recently completed my first two, and if you know PHP, then it’ll be a piece of cake.
It never ceases to amaze me that people question the cost of EE. I come from a background of enterprise CMS implementations, where an installed CMS will run in the several $100,000 range (often times in the $millions). On the cheap end of the spectrum you have tools like Ektron CMS, which will run in the tens of thousands. EE’s price is laughable and the tremendous value will bring you to tears.
Now from the perspective of the custom design shop for the small to medium sized business…I have never once had a client question the purchase of a product in the ~$250 range. For the professionals that take issue with this price tag…how do you value your personal services? Do you give your hours away for free? Seriously, $250 represents a purchase equating to about 2 hours of development time with my firm, and one that will save TONS of hours on the backend…I can see the cost of EE being an issue on a $1,500 project, but if you are selling professional websites for that cheap then you are either leaving a ton of cash on the table, have zero sales & marketing skills or are just a fool with no confidence in yourself.
For a data driven website (not a pure blog, not a social network) EE will deploy faster than other CMS like Drupal or WordPress which saves a lot more hours than the $250 accounts for. Our EE projects ALWAYS cost less than our Drupal projects.
Perhaps the real question is this…for those of you that complain about EEs price tag…are you professional web developers and if so, what do you charge hourly for graphic design and web development?
Certainly, I won’t read any comment here!
But I think it’s cool this EE, but I think I won’t stop using WordPress for a while.
Thanks a lot!
Wow, too much “but I think”
Hi Diego SA, great to hear that you might give EE a try – you’ll find that as a beginner, the community in the forums is unparalleled – the learning curve is relatively steep, but worth every second. Good luck and have fun!
I personally still would never pay for a CMS. WordPress is free and extremely powerful. I can convert a simple web site from static HTML and CSS to dynamic web site with a blog in about 2 hours. Not to mention all the plugins that take less than 5 minutes to install and configure. I think EE is way over priced when there are free alternatives.
SilverStripe is also a great choice and free. It’s still a little buggy, but by the end of this year I can see it out of the buggy phase as it already has fixed a lot of bugs over the last year.
I can’t wait for the next episode. Please, hurry it up.
i was looking for a begineer tutorial for this CMS, beacuse this CMS seems have some special feature. I like the security have this CMS, and i guess there are plenty other reasons/stuff/features really cool, that i have to know!
Well, Pachito86 you’ve come to the right place! Stick around for the remainder of this series and you’ll be well on your way with EE – subscribe to the RSS feed so you know when the following parts to this are published! Thanks for the comment!
I’m definitely looking to get into EE – it seems very clean indeed.
Thanks for the overview.
My pleasure Shane, thanks for the comment! EE is indeed clean, concise and very well written…well worth the initial time and effort. Make sure you sign up for the RSS feed to follow this series!
I’ve personally been using the core version of EE for more than a year. I’m very happy with what Im getting. the support is great even for core. I have yet to find a better alternative than EE. I’m just waiting for 2.0 to go commercial.
Hey people at EllisLab, if you’re reading this:
I’ve tried to get started with ExpressionEngine multiple times, but I can’t find a good resource on how to get started. It’s always very general and vague info. I’d love to see a tutorial on how you can port an existing static site over to EE…and preferably something not obvious (blog)….perhaps a product oriented website…or a sports team…or a band…or an event.
Hey James, I may not work for EllisLab, but I would seriously recommend you stick around here at TutsPlus – I am currently working on pretty much exactly what you requested – it may not be as part of this series, but your idea is definitely noted and is something that I really want to write! Thanks for the comment!
Richard, I’m definitely looking forward to this series. It’s been my main tut request. Thanks for putting this together.
James, I’m going to refer you to these 2 in-depth tutorials for building an example site in EE:
http://www.train-ee.com/courseware/free-tutorials/category/building-a-small-business-site/
and
http://www.train-ee.com/courseware/free-tutorials/category/building-a-church-site/
Also highly recommended are the EE screencasts over at Pragmatic:
http://www.train-ee.com/courseware/free-tutorials/category/building-a-church-site/
Enjoy!
Oops!
That last link should be:
http://www.pragprog.com/screencasts/v-riexp/building-a-dynamic-website-with-expressionengine
thanks for the link.
I’d think it would be in the best interest of EllisLab to offer videos such as that at no cost. Maybe it’s in the works (or maybe I’m just dense and need that much hand holding :) )
James
The EE team is working on a huge undertaking of releasing of their new 2.0 software which involves rewriting the entire system to be able to use the CodeIgnitor PHP Framework. Ryan’s video screencast might set you back a few $ but are well worth it.
You’d better not get these guys going on paying for screencasts on how to use a CMS that they have to pay for! LOL FIRE AND BRIMSTONE!
@James – Ellis Labs does have how to videos to get you started. http://expressionengine.com/tutorials/
EllisLab is a small & lean company. Producing tutorials in either screencast or written form can be quite time-intensive and the EE programmers are currently saturated trying to get EE 2 out the door.
In the meantime people like Ryan Ireland of the PragProg series and myself (through Train-ee.com) have been filling the need for EE learning materials. I have two complete site builds documented on Train-ee – a Small Business site and a Church Site.
No offense to the EE staff (I know them quite well and consider them friends) — but I think this arrangement is best as the learning materials are being produced by people who actually have CMS-dirt under their fingernails yet from doing client implementations on it.
Michael I have been following your site for some time now and appreciate all of the tutorials and coverage. Thanks for your time on helping the community out.
I am looking forward to this. I installed the core version a couple of months ago but have not had a chance to get stuck in so this is just the excuse and info I need! Thank you nettuts… again!
Really looking forward to the EE tuts!
I spend most of my time with WordPress and Drupal. I am interested to see how EE differs.
Thanks!
Can you tell me how Core and Personal or Commercial are different?
I might try it myself :)
The “Core” version, basically, must not be used for commercial endeavors and misses a few of the more advanced modules. Please take a look at this link for more details. The modules that are available in EE Core are identical to the “Personal” and “Commercial” versions, though. The only difference between the latter two being the purpose of your site. The code is identical.
Full disclosure: I work for EllisLab.
This is gold. :)
hey how old are you?
im not taking the piss or anything, im just seriously curious as too how younger and younger people are taking to Web Development, I started when I was 11… you look 7 years old.
Thanks for another great tutorial. I’m a huge Drupal fan so not likely to change however its still nice to get info on other software and how they might compare.
To those who are questioning the wisdom of paying for a CMS; how many of you use Macs (for example)? We do, and whilst the entry cost is (arguably) more up front, they more than make up for it in financial and other ways going forward.
We’ve been looking at Expression Engine with interest, but are yet to take it for a test drive. Drupal and Joomla tend to work against the designer/developer in our experience (although both are highly extensible from a functionality perspective).
Our open source CMS of choice at present is SilverStripe (http://silverstripe.org). The designers/developers love it, and although it is young it is fast developing a strong following. Professional support is also available through the parent company (http://silverstripe.com) if that is required.
If Expression Engine lives up to the hype, it looks like EE and SS will be our CMSs of choice.