Thread

Hey all, I have been looking at EE for a few days now to replace my current CMS (Textpattern). I would like to know if anyone can offer some comparisons between EE and Textpattern? Most importantly, creating templates, managing static pages, plugin ease of use, etc.

I have been using Textpattern for the last 3 or so years, but I have recently realized that it is just not quite mature/robust enough to fit my design/development needs any longer.

So….

1. How does EE compare to Textpattern in similar functionality?
2. Is EE simple enough to hand off to the common client with relative little experience?

I am looking forward to giving EE a good spin and seeing that it has to offer. It looks very promising and on the surface, appears to be exactly what I have been looking for!
Thanks for any input you guys would like to offer!

—Cory

I haven’t used textpattern (though it is one of few that folks around here do seem to like in terms of approach)- but I can point you to a few threads on the topic: this one links to a textpattern forum thread on EE vs Textpattern- interesting comments both places, though devolves a bit into an open source debate; offsite link to a ‘The State of Textpattern’ discussion with a few mentions of EE; a direct question on EE vs. Textpattern.

Quite a few folks do like Textpattern- EE just does more.  If you lay out your requirements?  We can likely get into the specifics of what/how EE can handle it.

As to handing it off to a client?  Yes- but it will depend a lot on how you set things up.  My goal is generally to make things ‘idiot proof’- here’s a good thread on the topic.

And yes- I’d really suggest testing it out to see for yourself- there are a number of trial options.  I’d probably download Core just to play with it on my server- and then I might give the hosted trial a spin as well- as it has extra functionality not included in Core. 

And hopefully some Textpattern folks will chime in with some specifics- I know there are a number of folks who have used both (and some still do, depending on the client’s requirements).

Robin, Thanks for the reply. I have looked through some of the links that you provided, and I will look deeper into them later today.

As for my requirements, I don’t necessarily have a specific list of requirements, as the projects that I tend to do all vary in needs and scope. More than anything, I am looking for a CMS that will allow me to be more productive. My problem with TXP is the fact that in order to do several things, it requires plugins(and often having to hack those to get it to work like I need), which I just simply can’t waste the time on. I need the CMS to do more trivial things out of the box.

Next, I am looking for a CMS that is not catered to being a “blog”. WordPress is great if you want a blog, TXP is great if you want a blog or something just the other side of a blog. I need something that can handle both blogs when required, and more enterprise level sites when required (i.e. multiple users, groups, sections, etc.) I think that EE may be able to handle this just fine, would I be correct in saying that?

Yes- I think it sounds like EE adds the extra bits you need- and I tend to think of EE’s ‘weblogs’ as ‘data containers’- because that’s really what they are.  You can create as many of them as you need- and you can assign each a different field group- field groups can have as many custom fields as you need- and of different types, with different names and instructions.  Including ‘relationship fields’ so you can relate data between different ‘weblogs’.  You can also create multiple category groups- nested as deep as you need.  And the weblogs may then be assigned as many different category groups as you need.

It’s highly flexibly with regard to all of that.  Plus you have multiple user groups with a pretty fine grade of control over the abilities/access of each group- see members and groups to get an overview.

The other thing I think folks coming from Textpattern like is how EE uses templates and tags- allows you massive flexibility in design- it’s easy to create a standards compliant website quickly.  EE doesn’t make many assumptions about your design- it stays out of your way and lets you do your thing.

You’ll definitely want to try it out- see how it fits for your overall needs.

ETA- I tweaked your title just a bit, so if Textpattern folks browse over it, they’ll be more likely to spot it and hopefully chime in.

I use EE and TXP every day to run my sites and client sites. I love both of them, having used several of the popular CMSs.

EE is great if you need members and groups, its numerous powerful functions and its support system. I position it for the larger website. With regard to price, it is a fantastic value.

TXP to me is good for the smaller site. On the other hand, some large and spectacular sites use TXP. It has a visitor logs feature that I find more convenient than alternatives, and unfortunately EE does not incorporate this.

If your site is going to grow in features and sophistication, EE is it. If the site is to be turned over to the techno averse client, I recommend TXP.

EE’s documentation is straightforward and in most cases, reliable. TXP has a printed book out now that is not a quick reference, but a lengthy slog of a tutorial.

EE needs swag. TXP needs a better T-shirt. The employer or client needs to see any comforting clues that this inexpensive, or even free ‘CMS’ software you are asking them to use is not some bizarre animal to be shunned because it is not from Redmond…and the occasional site glitches, template errors etc. are not clarion calls to dump PHP/MySQLware and take off running for Microsoft FrontPage.

It is a silly-seeming but real scenario. With its rejuvenated graphic dash, I wish EllisLab could create some sales collateral geared for the non-site-developer that would help advance the cause in front of the prospective client or user.

So….

1. How does EE compare to Textpattern in similar functionality?
2. Is EE simple enough to hand off to the common client with relative little experience?

I use TxP since rc1 and EE.

So….

1. EE has all the functionality of TxP and more.
2. I find clients prefer EE because the interface/work flow makes more sense to them.

If a client needs a small site which doesn’t need much updating then for me Txp is the way to go. Sites that require multi-user, permissions, login areas and the like are imo best suited to EE.