Thread

Hey guys,

Hope you are all well.

I’ve been away from this community for a while and I see several things have changed.

I’m interested in using EE for a new project, but I guess it has become incredibly expensive now, unless you run many projects based on EE? Basically $299 PLUS $600 per year to receive support. Even for just one website…Is that right?

Also, the forum seems to be quite deserted now, is that correct? Many things have chanaged in just a year. :(

Best.

Yeah it looks like EL have become greedy/lethargic/both. I’m switching to concrete5.

Hey,

To be honest, I don’t necessarily mind paying money for a god service (if it’s good). What I’m trying to do here is to understand if this is indeed a good deal or not.

The fact that the forum seems like a ghost town is not a good sign: it means most people are moving away from this CMS. Also, if you only have one website running EE, $299 PLUS $600 per year seem to be a quite steep price. Maybe it’s convenient if you run multiple websites running EE and spread the cost across many clients?

Am I getting this right?

Thanks!

P.S. By the way… Thanks for the tip about Concrete5. I was looking back to Drupal now, but this new one looks interesting. How is the speed of it if you have a website with hundreds of pages? I find WordPress or Drupal excruciatingly slow, for example. Cheers!

I’ve actually not done a project with it yet, just wrapping up my research and making the switch now 😊 I’ve always steered clear of Drupal for exactly that reason, but I think concrete5 is pretty good interms of bloat (or lack thereof).

I’m going to re-build a client’s site in concrete5 (current site is EE-based and has a problem) and then whichever system is working correctly first gets used! I have a feeling I’ll have it working in concrete5 before I figure out the EE issue, but time will tell.

As for costs, I’ve not bought another licence since the $299 happened but I think it only covers a single site, no mention of multiple sites. I’m pretty sure $299 used to be the price for a multi-site licence, but you don’t seem to get a choice any more. Not sure. But regardless of cost, bugs and support are a real issue and I think concrete5 is gonna be better for both. Fact that it’s free is just a bonus!

Ok, I will download Concrete5 and I’ll give it a go. After all, this new project I have to develop is just a guide about a city and it’s all pages based. I don’t need more than a bunch of categories and several pages under each of them. Perhaps a blog section. I imagine this Concrete CMS would do the job. The only thing I’m really concerned about is SEO features and loading speed as that affects conversions massively in my opinion. I would even develop the website in plain HTML if I don’t manage to find a product which matches my needs in this regard.

Thanks for the tip anyway and what a shame that the EE landscape has changed so much…

Hey svedish, I know the pain with the current support structure, it’s ridiculous. If you’re still interested in ExpressionEngine and working our an affordable support plan, we’re now offering “Pay what you want” support for EE: http://www.totalserve.net.au/services/ee-support

Heh! Obviously when a system is flawed someone comes up with some idea to fill the gaps and I have to say, your idea is pretty cool!

Yes, their system is absurd and yesterday they told me I could use the following workaround: when I got a question, open a basic support account and then close it immediately and also have a month left, which is plain non sense. Then 2 days response time? Ridiculous. The truth is that they should come up with better plans and one for people that have one or two websites, or a plan by the ticket, perhaps few dollars per ticket. Or pre-paid 10 tickets books?

Anyway, I guess it’s their business how they want to handle this. All we can do is give feedback.

By the way, since I was away from this community for quite some time, when did ll this non sense start? Was it recently?

Thanks

Wow! I’ve not been here for a while and this is all a bit of a shock. The cost of EE used to be justified because it was a high quality product with high quality support. Now they seem to be targetting people with multiple licenses and leaving all the people who have one license (and by definition probably know the least about EE) to help each other. Calling this “community support” doesn’t fool anybody.

Yep man, I guess you nailed it! Hehe! 😊

Basically the support plans are way too expensive for people that need support the most probably, but they make sense to agencies that resell many websites built on EE because they pay one subscription plan and give the EL support to their customers.

EL are either not very good with business strategy or they are specifically targeting a certain niche and we, people owning one or two licenses, are clearly cut out of this picture.

Sad, but true. Also because, I have to admit, EE is a good product and security is high. Speed? never tested on a larger website, but I guess performance is good as well?