Craft CMS Craft CMS
vs
ExpressionEngine ExpressionEngine

This is a side by side comparison of Craft CMS and ExpressionEngine. Two products that are similar in nature, yet provide unique feature-sets that are worth taking in to account before making a purchasing decision or start using the software. This page can help you broadly analyze the products and weigh pros and cons against one another. Allowing you scrutinize peoples opinions about Craft CMS and ExpressionEngine, before making a decision if any of the products fit your use-case.

What is Craft CMS?

Craft CMS is a flexible, user-friendly CMS for creating custom digital experiences on the web and beyond. Craft is designed from the ground up to empoer the entire creative process. From the user-friendly interface to the completely customizable back end, everything you interact with is designed to just make sense. With Craft your content comes first. No more trying to make your content work within the confines of the CMS.

How much does Craft CMS cost?

Solo

For when you’re building a website for you or a friend.

Free forever

  • Ultra-flexible content modeling

  • Define custom content types, fields, and relations needed to perfectly contain your unique content requirements.

  • Powerful front-end tools

  • Develop custom front-end templates with Twig, or use Craft as a headless CMS.

  • Multi-Site

  • Run multiple related sites from a single installation, with shared content and user accounts.

  • Localization

  • Cater to distinct audiences from around the world with Craft’s best-in-class localization capabilities.

  • Single admin account

  • The Solo edition is limited to a single admin account.

Pro

For when you’re building something professionally for a client or team.

$299

per project

Includes one year of updates.
$59/year for updates after that.

Upgrade in App

  • Everything in Solo plus:
  • Unlimited user accounts

  • Create unlimited user accounts, user groups, user permissions, and public user registration.

  • Enhanced content previewing

  • Preview your content from multiple targets, including single-page applications.

  • GraphQL API

  • Make your content available to other applications with a self-generating GraphQL API.

  • System branding

  • Personalize the Control Panel for your brand.

  • Basic Developer Support

  • Get developer-to-developer support directly from the Craft CMS team.

Enterprise

For when the project has specific licensing requirements and needs.

Contact sales for pricing.

  • Everything in Pro plus:
  • Priority Technical Support

  • Procurement

  • Custom Licenses

  • Launch Support

What platforms does Craft CMS support?

Craft CMS is available for Self-Hosted and PHP .

Top Craft CMS Alternatives

October CMS

October is a free, open-source and self-hosted content management system written in PHP on top of the framework Laravel. The CMS features a universal extendable dashboard, inspector, reusable CMS components and a plugin system that can be used to extend functinality of your website. The plugin store contains thousands of community-made plugins that can either be purchased or installed for free. As a data store, October CMS supports MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite.

Free & Open Source
๐Ÿ‘ Most people think October CMS is a good alternative to Craft CMS.

WordPress

WordPress powers roughly 30% of all web pages online. It's a free and open source CMS designed and developed for self-hosted publishing by Automattic, Inc. The software is written in PHP and utilize either MySQL or MariaDB as a database, and is compatible with most web hosts. Wordpress includes a plugin architecture and a templating system that can be used to extend and customize your website. These are commonly known as WordPress plugins and WordPress themes and make up a whole open source and commercial eco-system where anyone is free to create products for the platform. 

Free & Open Source
๐Ÿ‘ Most people think WordPress is a good alternative to Craft CMS.

Wagtail

Wagtail is a free and open-source CMS built on-top of Django and Python. The CMS is built by developers and for developers and provides a configuration-less solution to content management. Wagtail plays nicely with your existing tech, especially if that stack utilze Python and the Django web framework. Wagtail can be installed as a package in existing Django application and extends the Django Admin to be more suited for content management.

Free & Open Source
๐Ÿ‘ Most people think Wagtail is a good alternative to Craft CMS.

The software ExpressionEngine ExpressionEngine is removed from the Top Craft CMS Alternatives since you are comparing against it. If you are looking for more software, applications or projects similar to Craft CMS Craft CMS we recommend you to check out our full list containing 98 Craft CMS Alternatives.

Craft CMS Gallery

What is ExpressionEngine?

ExpressionEngine is a flexible, feature-rich content management platform that empowers hundreds of thousands of individuals and organizations around the world to easily manage their web site. ExpressionEngine has a large community of developers that make add-ons that extend the system capability. With ExpressionEngine add-ons, no matter the task, you'll have a solution.

How much does ExpressionEngine cost?

No pricing information available..

What platforms does ExpressionEngine support?

ExpressionEngine is available for Self-Hosted and PHP .

Top ExpressionEngine Pros & Cons

More than a CMS

At the surface, ExpressionEngine looks just like any other CMS. However that could not be further from the truth, ExpressionEngine provides features that make it more into a web framework than a CMS. Allowing you to create web applications that handle authentication, user management and much more. The Add-ons infrastructure also allow you to download and install pre-built extensions or create your own to further improve the experience of your site. ExpressionEngine also give more freedom to designers and developers and let them use workflows that they are used to.

Clive
Clive
2ย years, 9ย months ago
Pro

Top ExpressionEngine Alternatives

Joomla

Joomla is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP. The CMS is built entirely by volunteers from all over the world and has a strong community that provide educational resources, and extensions. 

Free & Open Source
๐Ÿ‘ Most people think Joomla is a good alternative to ExpressionEngine.

October CMS

October is a free, open-source and self-hosted content management system written in PHP on top of the framework Laravel. The CMS features a universal extendable dashboard, inspector, reusable CMS components and a plugin system that can be used to extend functinality of your website. The plugin store contains thousands of community-made plugins that can either be purchased or installed for free. As a data store, October CMS supports MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite.

Free & Open Source
๐Ÿ‘ Most people think October CMS is a good alternative to ExpressionEngine.

Drupal

Drupal is a free and open-source CMS written in PHP. Drupal is used for creating website for businesses, political parties and governments. The CMS currently powers 2% of all websites on the internet.

Free & Open Source
๐Ÿ‘ Most people think Drupal is a good alternative to ExpressionEngine.

The software Craft CMS Craft CMS is removed from the Top ExpressionEngine Alternatives since you are comparing against it. If you are looking for more software, applications or projects similar to ExpressionEngine ExpressionEngine we recommend you to check out our full list containing 85 ExpressionEngine Alternatives.

ExpressionEngine Gallery

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