Addon Expert

Install, update, and track every ExpressionEngine add-on from one set of control-panel screens - upload ZIPs, watch GitHub releases, update in one click - with supply-chain checks and a compatibility scan before anything touches your site.

Install, update, and track every ExpressionEngine add-on from one set of control-panel screens — ZIP uploads, GitHub releases, and license-gated private registries, updated in one click — with supply-chain checks, an EE7-compatibility scan, and a usage check before anything is installed or removed.

Addon Expert is the add-on that manages your add-ons. Upload a ZIP, watch a GitHub repo (or a vendor’s licensed registry) for new releases, update in one click, and let it finalize ExpressionEngine’s update step for you — all from one set of control-panel screens, without FTP.

What it does

• Install from ZIP — drop in a package and it finds the real add-on folder (even nested inside a wrapper folder), validates the paths, and extracts it into place. Incompatible uploads are held with a confirm screen instead of failing cryptically.
• Track GitHub releases — map any installed add-on to a GitHub repo (or let the author declare it in addon.setup.php) and get a “new version available” badge on the package, a count in the sidebar, and updatable add-ons grouped at the top of the Releases screen.
• Private, licensed add-ons — install and update paid or private add-ons through a license-gated registry: the vendor’s endpoint validates your license key and returns a signed, checksum-verified download. Enter one key per vendor; no public repo required.
• One-click update + auto-finalize — download the release, verify its sha256, swap it in, keep a backup of the old version, and run EE’s update step automatically. No trip to Developer → Add-Ons.
• See what changed — a changelog for every tracked add-on: the latest release notes right in the control panel, with a link through to the full history.
• Supply-chain protection — pins each GitHub repo’s identity on first install and blocks the install if it changes (ownership transfer / RepoJacking); registry downloads are signed and sha256-verified. Every install, trust event, and uninstall is written to an append-only audit log.
• Compatibility & EE7 fit — refuses to install an add-on that needs a newer PHP or EE than your server runs, and when you choose to force it anyway, scans the code first and tells you whether it’s actually safe (“no PHP 8.3 features detected” vs “uses json_validate() — will fatal”). Each detected add-on also gets a best-effort EE7-fit hint.
• Safe removal — before uninstalling, it scans where the add-on is actually used (its template and snippet tags, channel fields) so you can see what removing it might break.

Why

EE add-ons come from everywhere — the store, GitHub, a client’s zip in an email, a paid vendor. Addon Expert gives you one place to install them, one place to see what’s out of date, and one click to update, with guardrails so a compromised upstream repo, a wrong-PHP package, or a careless uninstall can’t quietly break your site.

Open source

Addon Expert is MIT-licensed and developed in the open. It is a maintained fork of Add-on Manager + by Javid Fazaeli, extended with GitHub release tracking, license-gated registry updates, one-click updates, in-panel changelogs, supply-chain checks, compatibility & EE7-fit tooling, and a usage-aware safe-removal flow.

ExpressionEngine 7. Requires the PHP ZipArchive and cURL extensions.