[WEB4LIB] Re: how to get it all done

Fri Apr 22 10:47:37 EDT 2005

At 5:43 AM -0700 4/22/05, Mike Beccaria wrote:
>Alnisa,
>
>May I ask why you prefer commercial solutions over open-source 
>CMS's? In your experience, what does Expression Engine offer that, 
>say, Mambo or Drupal do not offer? I know that there are many 
>differences in CMS's. I personally have not had the opportunity to 
>deal with the commercial ones, only the open-source ones. I know I'm 
>making a generalization, but have you noticed a difference in the 
>products offered by commercial businesses versus the open source 
>options aside from maybe customer support?
>

It's not really a preference, its more about the tool. I've heard 
good things about Mambo, but not so much that I would recommend it 
over Plone. Of course Plone is python based and I'm a PHP girl, so 
its definitely a coin toss issue, to a degree. I have used a variety 
of open source tools, when trying to find a good fit. Expression 
Engine just became the tool of preference.  Support is important, and 
the pMachine folks are responsive when needed, but also the community 
members are gong ho, and possible even more responsive than the staff.

The have a consistent development timeline, so new features, 
functions, modules, plug-ins etc., are always coming at a nice clip 
(less stagnation that some of the open source projects I've worked 
with).  A very good user interface, I heard nice things about Mambo, 
but most UI experiences in open source software suck. Since, I 
started on the design side of things before the programming, I hate 
that; but also it just makes a product less sufficient.

Expression Engine is my current CMS of choice, because ...

1) It's well designed, and modular-In fact almost of its 
functionality is from modules, interactive components. This does make 
it more flexible than any other system I've tested.

2) It's expandable, extendible, and augmentable- new modules can be 
added and developed at will (well if your a developer); a number of 
plug-ins to adapt, and extend behavior are available and easy to 
create, but even better for situations that don't require a full 
fledge module, you can either use EE's own custom query and coding 
language to add new functionality, embed mini-php solutions, or 
reference full scale php solutions directly within the application.

3) Security is fairly extensive, far more so than most CMS/blogging 
software, but probably not as extensive as some of the high-end stuff.

4) Affordable- when you get into content management systems, you 
often have people divided at two opposing ends--open source/free 
software (typically chosen because it was free; and offered a feature 
set that was needed; as opposed to the quality of software (that's 
not a criticism of drupal, plone, phpnuke, mambo, etc., etc.  just a 
reference of how a number of users end of with software)) and 
high-end commercial (software that starts at $2,000 and keeps going 
higher).

5) Clean code- As a developer, using a system that is cleanly coded, 
and well documented (in the code) is just great. It allows me to 
believe, if every other single resource for develop of the system 
dried up, I could still work with, expand, and develop the system 
myself.  I've fiddle in the code of some of these other systems. I'm 
fairly certain, I'd just as soon start from scratch, if all other 
resource dried up.

EE is commercial with a kind of shareware mentality. Depending on if 
its a for profit, non-profit, or cross upgrade  the cost  is between 
$50-$200.  Not very expensive, and pays for itself fairly rapidly.

Also for us (I work with Nonprofit Tech), its about money and time 
and energy saved for the client as well. When we have to custom build 
a CMS for a client, it will typically start at $10,000 plus, and 
that's with our fees being massively lower than current market rates; 
and us being fairly laxed about billable hours. And we always have to 
come back and add new features and functionality after the fact; 
because what you want after using a system daily, is fairly different 
from what you want when your just dreaming up a system.

EE allows us to skip the first $10,000 in fees, and build on a 
system. Plus, its just well-coded, fairly well documented (some 
features code use more documentation or maybe just some examples of 
use--cause I know, I'm still having ah ha moments.  Basic CMS 
(there), User Management (there), Content Staging (there),  Standards 
Driven (yes), Security (leveled--user, admin, super admins; per page, 
per section, per site); commenting (there), image handling (there), 
etc., etc.

EE for me is like the FileMaker of CMSs. It's simple, easy to use, 
powerful; new users take to it like flies to syrup, and developers 
love the flexible working environment it creates for them.  Plus it's 
PHP/MySQL,  and XHTML/CSS

I could probably go on,  but this email is long enough.

Here's some links that offer some insights from users of EE, Mambo, and Plone

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200409/open_source_cms_recommendations_wanted/
http://www.pmachine.com/forum/threads.php?id=15056_0_19_0_C
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=12367&page=1&pp=10
http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=1866
http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2004/07/standards_compliant_cmss_and_blogging_tools/
http://www.blogherald.com/2005/03/31/10-diy-blog-platforms-you-may-not-have-visited/

Also, a bit out of date, but an okay comparison chart
http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm

Alnisa