Thread

I’m leaving the ExpressionEngine community so I’ll leave some negative thoughts on my experience here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not angry at anything or anyone, it’s that this CMS does not suit my needs.

Quit pushing the 30-day paid trial. Just stop it. If it was a free trial then sure, answer every pre-sale question with a link to it.

Why place restrictions (the familiar member blog…) when the ability is already there? Restrictions, no matter how small or stupid, do no help EllisLab customers. The opposite is definitely true in my case.

Many modules come at a high price – including ones that most other CMSs don’t charge for. Sure, you have a nice forum module but phpbb has more features and is free. Lots of other CMSs have a forum at no cost too.

No roadmap! Honestly, this kills me, 1 month, a couple of months, later this year. All are better than “when it is ready.” It just doesn’t satisfy me from a company that is trying to be more open. EE 2.0 may suit my needs perfectly but I’m not making a decision on what I might be able to do.

Other technical things like no tagging without purchasing the solspace module are other things that bug me too but I suppose they don’t count. In fact, all of solspace’s modules should be included as standard. The more I think about it the more I realise EE is missing (polls etc.).

All of these (and I’m sure I’ll remember more) have pushed me back to Drupal. This really hurts me because I’ve wanted to use EE for a while now and first impressions were good. It just doesn’t expand to fit my needs.

The community here is fantastic but the environment they have created means they are far too willing to charge for modules. I now have a useless EE license and after buying the tagging and favourite module from solspace, I’m out of pocket and back to square one. A lot of this sounds like I don’t like spending the money but that is not true at all. I happily paid for this expecting a premium product but for me there is no premium.

I’m leaving the ExpressionEngine community so I’ll leave some negative thoughts on my experience here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not angry at anything or anyone, it’s that this CMS does not suit my needs.

Best to you on finding a solution that meets your needs.

Quit pushing the 30-day paid trial. Just stop it. If it was a free trial then sure, answer every pre-sale question with a link to it.

The majority of people find the 30-day paid trial quite helpful, which is why we offer it.

Why place restrictions (the familiar member blog…) when the ability is already there? Restrictions, no matter how small or stupid, do no help EllisLab customers. The opposite is definitely true in my case.

This has been discussed over and over again but can be summed easily. The ability is not there, that’s why its restricted.

Many modules come at a high price – including ones that most other CMSs don’t charge for. Sure, you have a nice forum module but phpbb has more features and is free. Lots of other CMSs have a forum at no cost too.

Site-wide integration and tight security is the reason we offer our own solution. Again, this is discussed on our forums. More or less features don’t make a product better or worse.

No roadmap! Honestly, this kills me, 1 month, a couple of months, later this year. All are better than “when it is ready.” It just doesn’t satisfy me from a company that is trying to be more open. EE 2.0 may suit my needs perfectly but I’m not making a decision on what I might be able to do.

No, they really aren’t good answers and our years of providing software have proven this over and over again.

Other technical things like no tagging without purchasing the solspace module are other things that bug me too but I suppose they don’t count. In fact, all of solspace’s modules should be included as standard. The more I think about it the more I realise EE is missing (polls etc.).

Solspace and others do a great job of expanding EE but that doesn’t mean they all should be included by default. It means there is a great 3rd party community around EE.

The community here is fantastic but the environment they have created means they are far too willing to charge for modules. I now have a useless EE license and after buying the tagging and favourite module from solspace, I’m out of pocket and back to square one. A lot of this sounds like I don’t like spending the money but that is not true at all. I happily paid for this expecting a premium product but for me there is no premium.

We enjoy being able to pay our staff and feed our families. I’m sure the 3rd party developers feel the same. You might read Open Source v. Commercial as it expands on why we charge for software (and why we provide an Open Source framework).

If there is no premium for you, that’s perfectly understandable but it doesn’t mean EE isn’t a premium product, nor does it mean I agree with your criticisms. We encourage people to use what they are most comfortable with. If that’s Drupal for you, then that’s what you should use.

In any case, its not my intent to get into a lengthy discussion about things that have been discussed already. We disagree and that’s perfectly okay. I wish you much success and you’re welcome back anytime. Thread closed.