Thread

Hi all,

I am about to embark on a major project which involves redeveloping and redesigning several news oriented websites and subsections including an intranet for a major player in Australia’s biggest export industry (unfortunately that’s all the information I can give in a public arena).

I have purchased a personal license of EE to get my feet wet. I am yet to begin but based on what I have read in this forum I am looking forward to it. 😊

Now… my research assistant has just now sent me a couple of links (below) to a two part review (of sorts).

http://wphackr.com/expressionengine-vs-wordpress/
http://wphackr.com/expressionengine-vs-wordpress-final-thoughts/

Does anyone have any comments about the comments/observations stated?

I guess I am just trying to cover all bases before jumping in the deep end and at this point I am still on the fence between going for EE or WP.

Thanks for any clarification or comments you can provide.

Cheers,
Rob

I had a quick read of both those articles and I have to say the author probably had’t had enough experience of EE. While his arguments in “First impressions” are valid what you have to remember that he’s comparing a blogging system to a content management system.

It’s an important point to note that WP is a blog, EE is a CMS. There’s an excellent analogy here - 2nd para “screwdriver factory”!

WP is essentially a “plug n play” system whereby the average web designer doesn’t need to know anything technical - upload a theme, a few plugins, and voila you have an instant site. Sure you can modify/customse things in WP to work in other ways but when you actually get around to creating anything other than a blog with WP you suddenly start to see it’s limitations spring out from the woodwork. One example is that it inserts numerous CSS id’s and classes when you don’t want them, and a lot of HTML is generated in script files which are overwritten when you upgrade.

EE on the other had is really a suite of tools and components that you put together however you want them, not how you’re told. You’re in control and EE doesn’t tell you how to build your own site.

One of the big differences between them is how contentdata is handled. In WP everything is either a post or a page, and apart from a few expections all data is treated the same way. With EE on the other had, you can separate different types of data, which in turn gives you more control over how, when and why you display it.

If all you want is a fully featured blog then you can’t beat Wordpress, but once you start extending a site into a multi sectioned, multi levelled site you’ll be pleased with the extra power that EE will give you.

VERY well defined bluedreamer 😊

I actually did build my latest site with wordpress for my band. I had it going in a blitz. And it immediately looks and works spectacularly well.

But then I wanted to change the CSS and the menu setup. It took me a day to find out how I could force to show the posts as menu links in the sidebar.

And indeed CSS divs are an integral part of the system; partly generated by php code.

I also tried to make an entry sticky, but needed a plugin to do that and then it didn’t work with the latest upgrade.

The biggest difference is that with EE you can easily make an html site and add the EE content later. You are absolutely free to build the HTML as you like. Also building custom functionality is way easier then with wordpress. Wordpress has a plugin for everything, but in practice this can be annoying when a plugin is no longer maintained or compatible.

Now I have this wordpress site I’ll keep it, because usage is quite streamlined and stable. But I would be very hesitant to sell such a setup to a client.

Eh a lot of the complaints in the comparison articles really aren’t valid- dude is just writing off EE without really having a developed process for working in it.  Once you get things going its easy to have a smooth efficent development process.  I think WP wins when it comes to the author interface and the commenting (threading, gravatar etc) - but development with many content types is obviously EE’s core strenght.  Real news sites publish more than just articles and EE is a great tool to support one. 

We had a a good discussion about it all here: http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/120235/

It’s just as it always has been.
Bloggers with ceratin needs know precisely which tool to use.
Advanced web developers know which tool to use as well.

Those few who have built a site with WordPress and who understand its faults who seek more in a CMS who learned ExpressionEngine, use ExpressionEngine over WordPress. Not only that, but they do so knowing the Pro & Con debates.

It’s a [air quotes]“battle”[/air quotes] that will continue to be debated on the interwebs by users, fanboiz and instigators.
As long as I know when to use WP to blog, and when to use EE to manage content, my client and I will be happy 😊