Many customers ask us: Why do you use ExpressionEngine? Can't you build a WordPress website for us?
WordPress is enjoying a huge popularity today, but it’s ExpressionEngine that gets web developers and designers really excited. ExpressionEngine is IBT Online’s Content Management System of preference, because it’s extremely robust, secure, easy to use, offers endless flexibility that is required to address customers’ most demanding requests, and thanks to the Transcribe add-on by EEHarbor, is great to manage multilingual content. You don’t have to limit your imagination and your requirements… be bold and give your company a tool to properly express and represent yourselves!
"Having worked with ExpressionEngine for over 8 years I continue to be impressed by it!"
Michael Hawksley, Online Business Director at IBT Online
In a nutshell
Short, but very apt summaries of both content management systems have been offered by Finances Online, a comparison platform:
“WordPress is a leading free and open-source content management and blogging system with simple interface which doesn't require HTML or FTP knowledge.”
“ExperssionEngine from EllisLab is a very robust content management solution that boasts of a massive feature set, modern structure, and ease of use.”
Finances Online
If you ask anyone within IBT Online, you will most likely hear one (or all) of the three following reasons for which we love ExpressionEngine: 1) Design and feature flexibility, 2) Security 3) User-friendliness. And when we have extended our research to learn what other organizations within the IT/design sector think about ExpressionEngine, the arguments we heard were very similar... see some of the reviews and quotes below!
1) Design and feature flexibility
Nexcess, a global hosting provider, believes that both content management systems are powerful, but their strengths lie in different fields.
While WordPress has been originally developed as a blogging platform, it enjoys today the largest base of users who can easily set up a simple website by themselves. WordPress remains, however, true to its origins as a blogging platform, and therefore custom content types are more difficult to build and developers ultimately struggle more when creating bespoke websites on WordPress. Complex PHP programming is often necessary to achieve desired results.
ExpressionEngine is a true website content management system that provides endless flexibility as it has been built to manage complex and custom scenarios. ExpressionEngine allows you to “go wild” with your imagination and you are likely to encounter fewer limitations during development stages than with WordPress.
"One of the things we really like about Expression Engine is the level of flexibility. Not only is there a huge range of add-ons available to extend its functionality, it is very easy to develop bespoke extensions in-house. These not only give greater flexibility in terms of functionality, but also help create a user friendly environment for site administrators."
Ralph Media, Creative Agency
“From a designer and developer perspective, I find the process of working with ExpressionEningine infinitely more satisfactory than the experience I had with WordPress. Admittedly, the WordPress platform has evolved considerably since I last used it, but the complete design and functional flexibility that ExpressionEngine offers would be hard to beat by any platform.”
Michael Sibley, Web Designer and Developer for IBT Online
“Responsive, animated, interactive, bold, creative, fluid, unusual—if an idea can be visualized, we can build it into an ExpressionEngine site.”
Q Digital Studio
Omaha Media Group, a creative management firm, who also chose ExpressionEngine as a platform of their preference, gives the following three reasons in which ExpressionEngine is superior to WordPress: security, flexibility, easy to manage. (hmm...sounds familiar?)
Yet again, no limitations to the design process are extremely appreciated, when different types of projects are possible, from websites to e-commerce, portfolios, web apps, banking apps and mobile apps.
2) Security
With no major security breaches since its release in 2002, the high level of security is certainly one of the most frequently mentioned and most highly valued features by companies and web developers.
"I used Wordpress for a couple of sites a few years ago and it was hacked within a week or so, leading to lots of headaches and hair pulling.... I liken it to Windows and Mac OS, the ubiquity of Windows machines make it an obvious target for hackers and malicious software, whereas platforms such as Mac OS and ExpressionEgine are less enticing due to their smaller user base, yet still benefit from commercial grade security.”
Michael Sibley, Web Designer and Developer for IBT Online
"We have always found Expression Engine to be a robust and highly secure CMS. One of the pitfalls of using a more widespread CMS such as Wordpress, is that although it offers a high level of security, it is also a victim of it's own success - becoming a target for hackers to focus their energies."
Ralph Media, Creative Agency
Q Digital Studio, a team of collaborative web professionals, also use ExpressionEngine as their primary tool, because it’s “just right for so many reasons”, yet again highlighting its extreme security as number 1 among the top 10 reasons, followed by limitless design, flexible content and powerful functional features.
3) User-friendliness
You will find arguments that either WordPress or ExpressionEngine is more user-friendly and they can be both true in its own way…
While WordPress sites are easy to be set up by a layman (therefore user-friendly), they are more rigid when custom features and content types are desired (therefore less user-friendly). Secondly, if you’re thinking about user-friendliness of the administrative panel and content management once the sites have been built, both systems are user-friendly and easy to edit by yourself or your marketing team.
However, ExpressionEngine allows you to go one step further and customize it to your specific needs even better, for example by adding your own instructions on display above different content sections to explain what content type is needed.
"One of the many strengths of ExpressionEngine is its user-friendliness. When we hand sites over to our clients they are often trained within minutes as the content management interface is intuitive to use."
Michael Hawksley, Online Business Director at IBT Online
Which is the best for you?
This depends on your requirements. If you’d like to build a fairly simple website all by yourself, go ahead with WordPress. If you’re looking for custom solutions and flexibility, then don’t hesitate and go for ExpressionEngine. There are no assumptions about your site’s content or structure, and nearly anything is possible.
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