WordPress versus ExpressionEngine

Another recent post on ExpressionEngine versus WordPress has stirred up some more discussion and strong feelings about both sides. These strong reactions aren’t surprising, coming from people who have devoted a large amount of time and energy to the content management system of their choice. Having used both WordPress and ExpressionEngine I thought I’d offer my own thoughts on the matter.

Ease of Development

WordPress is definitely easier to develop for, but the trade-off comes with it being far less robust than ExpressionEngine. ExpressionEngine requires a completely different mindset to WordPress when developing so a lot of WordPress developers, like myself, find the transition to be a bit difficult.

Ease of Use (for the client)

Depending on how many different types of content your client will be publishing, ExpressionEngine will probably provide the better user interface with custom field groups and multiple channels. You can also easily customize exactly which areas members with different permissions can access without having to manually edit a the functions.php file in WordPress. You just get the sense that ExpressionEngine was built from the start to be a robust content management system.

On the other hand, WordPress allows clients to change themes far more easily than EE does, and depending on the client or project, this may be a deal-breaker.

Robustness

Out of the box WordPress has far less functionality than ExpressionEngine does, and not all of it can be replaced by hacking and plugins. Some things such as the extensive member management, relationships and custom field groups really make it easier to develop with ExpressionEngine.

Even though it’s clear that I think ExpressionEngine is superior to WordPress in a lot of ways, I wouldn’t recommend it be used for every site since all of its functionality simple won’t be necessary in some cases.

There is No Winner

In the end I think there is no winner in an ExpressionEnginve versus WordPress showdown. It boils down to the following:

• You – Obviously, if you can’t develop for one the platforms your choice will already have been made for you. This is why I think it’s important not to shoehorn yourself into developing for one platform alone, you should always keep your options open.
• Your Client – Can your client afford the price of ExpressionEngine? Sometimes clients find the $300 versus free decision very easy to make. Also, if they’ve used WordPress before they may prefer using it again, likewise with using ExpressionEngine before. There are a host of factors that will influence a client.
• The Project – If a project comes along that’s going to require hours of hacking WordPress to come up with a barely usable solution, it may make more sense to use ExpressionEngine.

What I’m getting it as there is no right or wrong answer on which content management system to use. The answer is: it depends.