JT Thompson - 27 December 2011 08:25 PM

it’s not difficult to go to devotee to get your add-ons, and it’s much better to only pay for what I use.

It’s not, but tracking 3rd party add-on updates, bugfixes, SUPPORT etc. is…

I’ve read the whole thread… really interesting to see how most developers have very similar opinions about what EE is lacking and how little has been done by EE core development, especially in the last two years.

Not to see a real innovation en EE in 2 years is a lot to say, it is a long time frame in which other products have made real big advances. Other platforms like IPB, Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal have made big changes.

What I see specially lacking in EE is how little they have done on the community side of the product, things like the EE Forum Module literally been in the stone age, using its own template system which is a nightmare for designer who want to integrate web and forum designs, the user permissions system still in the stage where a user can only be added to one single group.

This is one of those cases where you see how a development of a product is affected in a way of slowdown when there is a real lack of competition, or is that so?

But there is a product I have seen which works in a similar way as EE, can do many of what EE does, with a lot of features integrated already in the core for which you need add-ons in EE and is made with the same tools as EE, it is called Hero Framework from Electric Function which is also created with CodeIgniter and are the guys behind the excellent Membrr add-on and is FREEEEE and Open Source (you can pay for the ecommerce module if you need it).

I’m still astonished that such a well made and innovative product is getting so little attention here in this community and has not been even mentioned in this thread. Because if you love EE you cannot love Hero Framework and, why not, also offer it as the Open Source alternative to those gov projects which demand Open Source.

I’m not saying HF is as powerful as EE (I really don’t know either) but is damn good at what it does:

- Easily creation and designing themes like in EE, using a tagging system. But with the advantage that you can change themes and install other themes at the touch of a button, like in Wordpress. They also use the smarty template engine which is also an excellent open source template framework which is constantly regularly being developed and has an extensive documentation.

- Weblogs (work like Channels in EE)

- Creation of content types (or fieldtypes) or custom fields.

- Features a CALENDAR…!

- Wysiwyg editor

- Membership subscriptions with autorecurring subscription payments

- Ecommerce Shopping Cart (with quite a lot gateways included) supporing digital downloads

- Member integration through plugin with phpBB (Forum which is years ahead of EE Forum Module)

- Opengateway which makes possible to develop your own gateway

- Menu system in their CP which works similar to tools like Taxonomy or the Wordpress buit-in menu system with drag & drop menu builder

- Integrated Email system with mass and individual member mailing

- A very good and useful reporting and analytics system integrated in CP

- Hosted version, you just rent the product and they make all the rest, which I find an excellent alternative as well. You can have a complete website ecommerce site running in literally 10 min with all that power… and it gets updated to the latest version everytime a new released is done by Electric Funtion, so the end customer is always on the latest version of the software….!

I think having all this integrated in core is very good, because I would say, most people building a web need most of it or makes their life easier, to developers and end customers. Upgrades won’t brake it.

To have many of those features in EE you need add-ons and some features aren’t available at all. At the same time EE can do things that HF can’t, as EE features an immensely bigger add-ons and developer community as HF.

I wish the Hero Framework would have a bigger community because it deserves it and hope they do. They choose the Open Source path.

I have not affiliation with the guys of HF whatsoever but I see not reason not to use HF for building similar products to our customers the same way we use EE and not just close ourselves to use just the EE framework or nothing else as I have been reading in this forum and this thread.

You make a lot of good and valid points - and I suppose lots of developers are using multiple platforms and including open source.

EE has admittedly made many errors and missteps in the past couple of years. Yet, according to them, their business model (that is, their revenue) is soaring…and in the world of business, that is really the indicator of success.

They have a very small market share - but as long as they maintain a small stable of dedicated followers, they will prosper.

I think the conclusion is that they are not and probably will never be the leading edge of CMS systems in terms of features, updates and even community. But that’s not the real measurement of success. The only real question is whether they have a business model which can support their efforts going forward. Based on all their own statements, it appears that they do.

Of course you’re going to get frustrated trying to do everything yourself. If I’m sick I go and pay a doctor, I dont buy a medical text book, pull out the kitchen knives and blame the author for not being clear enough which kidney to remove. If I want to build a house I hire an architect, I don’t go to the hardware store and do it myself, then complain that my nailgun doesn’t work. If you dont’ have much spare cash, pay a small web company or individual. If you have enough cash, hire a reputable web company who have the skills & tools to do it properly. Don’t just ‘hire a web guy’, hire a company that can take responsibility and do the entire thing properly.

I just read through this entire thread and I have to say this is one of the best posts regarding the web development business I’ve read in a long time.

This is a great thread. I hope that the EE team is taking the suggestions and comments with professionalism and incorporating them into the big vision.
I’m part way through a major upgrade to EE2 for my business’s site, and I really do like it. However, there definitely are shortcomings and user friendliness issues compared to other systems.
Wordpress offers so many features to make things easy- like one-click upgrades, and one-click plugin installations, and also one-click theme switching. Some of these user-friendly features would save tons of time and headaches for developers and clients.

I just finished a site for a client using the EE Forum module. I regret to say that this was one of the most annoying and sloppy hack-ups I’ve ever had to do. Making the forum look like the main site was not easy. The lack of shared templating code is archaic. EE2 is better than this! Upgrade the forum module please! 

If Ellis labs is not working on a fast & significant solution to the EE forum, then there is a great opening for some developer to come up with an add-on to link myBB or phpbb (or some other open-source bb system).

I enjoy working with EE and I really don’t want to have to learn Drupal…. hopefully EE will continue to innovate and grow for many years to come.

thanks
Rowan