Introduction to ExpressionEngine 2 Content Management System

A powerful and flexible CMS (Content Management System) named ExpressionEngine (EE) was developed by EllisLab. Compared to all other CMS, EE is quite simple in use. This can be said because it literally requires no knowledge of PHP and has extensive online documentation. The PHP development in India which has grown by leaps since last few years has also started adopting this CMS for better development prospects. The latest version which came out for EE is 2.5.3.

There are 3 variations in which licenses of ExpressionEngine are available:

• Noncommercial: Personal & Non-profit use
• Commercial: cheaper option
• Freelancer: intended for small web firms

None of the licenses for ExpressionEngine are at this point of time. With the advanced features of EE organizing and serving thousands of pages on a high-traffic site is very easy. Its outstanding profiling tools can help identify performance bottlenecks. The robust template engine is the best engine present out there in the market. There are hardly any complex scenarios which can not be handled by this template engine. Fields and plugins can be easily added to the site which are useful for SEO purpose using ExpressionEngine 2.

ExPression Engine Features

The inbuilt features which come along with Expression Engine. These are:

• File Manager
• Field types
• Wiki Module
• Commenting Ability
• Member Module
• Search Functionality
• Template Caching

There is also a basic forum module which can be purchased. Though it is not the most powerful forum software available but it is easily integrable. You can see a complete list of features list here.

Expression Engine is compared to softwares like Drupal which is one of the largest open-source platforms available. It is also compared with LAMP- based CMS and with WordPress. There is a balance of functionality and design-ability. As mentioned earlier the templates are very easy to use and doesn’t require any PHP knowledge. Compared to this Drupal & Joomla are much more complex and demanding platforms.

Advantages of ExpresseionEngine:

• CodeIgniter comes built in with EE which is a strong platform for building add-ons.
• On EE forums there is an active community available to help along with full-time support.
• Best possible template functionality.
• Very strong professional network of consulting.
• High-quality add-on availability.

Disadvantages of Expression Engine:

• There are none of the free versions or the trial versions available. Also commercial addons are to be bought after some time.  Pricing>
• WYSIWYG, previewing, advanced workflow and image galleries functionalities are missing from the core.
• The interface is a bit dull.
• Upgrades are very time-consuming.
• No support options from EllisLab.

Creating projects on Expression Engine 2 is very easy as it strikes a good balance between customization and user friendliness. The developer can have full-control of the development process as nothing is forced or assumed while using EE. If yours is a budget of around $400-$500 for software and its addons then Expression engine 2 is good option for your next CMS.

Do let me know if you have ever worked on Expression Engine and hows’ your review and impression of it? Would you prefer it over WordPress?

This is a Guest post by Kristina from ZealousWeb Technologies. If you would like to write for ShoutMeLoudm check our guest posting guidelines.

Article by kristinakathy

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