40 Excellent Websites Showcasing Expression Engine

We also designed/developed the Greater Richmond Partnership web site (http://www.grpva.com) on Expression Engine. IMHO, it’s a good example of Expression Engine’s flexibility in “real world” business applications — see the Custom Report Builder for example. Great article!

Great framework, too bad they aren’t free.

great collections/

thank you.

What are the benefits of going with something like this where you have to pay over something that’s open source?

Thanks for the list! I’ll check all these sites out, EE is my favorite CMS right now. My blog is using it.

Thanks for featuring our website guys, much appreciated!

One more for your list is that well known site – http://alistapart.com

Great showcase! You put a lot of excellent minimalist designs here!

Great list in my opinion – thanks for including my site into it as well, it’s most appreciated!

Expression Engine is an incredible CMS by the way – I usually enjoy the flexibility and amount of control it offers while working with it.

Disclaimer: This is not an advertisement/sponsored post for Expression Engine.

It certainly feels like one

I’ve heard lots of things (good things) about Expression Engine but I have yet to try it. These are definitely some great examples of its use. I’m gonna have to go ahead and dive into it one of these days.

For now, I’ll be sticking with WordPress. Great round-up, beautiful designs.

Thanks for the feature. ExpressionEngine is really a versatile CMS, but I guess you have to pay for quality too. One of the great things abt EE is the EE tag system, which basically allows you maximum flexibility.

Very nice showcase of sites using EE. Will you be showcasing sites using other CMSs? Such as Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla or Symphony?

Nice list, my preferite is Fritz Quadrata, even Veerle’s Blog and Pure Grips knew them already. Thanks for the sharing.

Excellent showcase… Just sat drinking my morning coffee and now feel full of inspiration!

I am a recent convert to ExpressionEngine and am really enjoying it so far. It’s by far the most flexible CMS I think I have used to date allowing for a very natural design process and a straight forward development process. We are pushing our first commercial site built on EE2 through the mill just now, and should be launching it by the end of January – with any luck it too might be included in a list like this in the future!

Great collection of EE sites, and some useful inspiration – thank you.

nice collection, thanks for this post

Great! Impressive contents here. Thanks a lot for these.

Thanks ,really it’s amazing

Great showcase of work… I was privelaged to work with the designer who designed The Sanctuary site. One of the most talented and gifted designers I have personally ever known. Check out more of his work at: http://www.elliottmunoz.com

Interesting; what would be helpful in the post would be even a quick bullet list of pros/cons, comparisons to Wordpress or other CMS frameworks. Nice sites, no doubt, but Wordpress really has me captured right now. I’d be impressed if EE offered more flexibility and ease of use for clients (the price is what kills it for me, I think).

I guess now I have to check out EE.

cool collection of sites the works are very good nice article

I really enjoy using CodeIgniter, interest to see what Expression Engine is like with version 2.

Really nicely done. There are quite a few new ones here that I was not aware were using ExpressionEngine. Nice to see the community growing. EERulz!

really nicely done here!

EE user here, to those people who wonder why it is worth paying for EE then my take as a convert from MODx is that EE is flexible, stable, well documented and has excellent support, it also has an excellent security track record. On any paying job it takes much less time in EE than in any ‘free’ solution.

To those people who think Wordpress is a CMS then you really do not have a clue. Go away and play with your brochure sites and blogs and be sure to take good backups so you can rebuild your site the next time it is hacked.

I’m going to have to plug this one: http://philipshd.com/

I’ve seen the Publish/Edit screen underneath this site, and it has over 30+ custom fields and several matrices per entry… it’s a _really_ data intensive site.

EE may cost per licence but it’s a solid platform – you get what you pay for IMO.

To all of those who think that having to pay for EE is a bad thing: you will one day realize that it’s okay to pay for things. I remember what it felt like to be in your shoes. However, after having build a dozen or so sites in EE (and paying for it each and every time), I can honestly say that it’s worth every penny.

And besides, if you can’t scrape up enough cash for the software, then you’re not charging enough for your services. If you’re just not into the whole ‘price tag’ thing, there’s a free version as well. Give it a shot. It’s flippin’ awesome.

Thanks for the mentions guys! FortySeven Media is honored

I agree with Steve, a bullet point list of pro / cons of Wordpress and EE would be nice.

Thanks you for the post.

*Thank you for the post.

Minus the s. ha.

I am an avid CodeIgniter fan, and just love how its set up and works. ExpressionEngine 2.0 is great in the fact that it is powered by CodeIgniter. I have not played around with ExpressionEngine too much, but from what I have it looks great. This showcase is great as well. Gives you a better feel for what ExpressionEngine is actually capable of!

Being a serious advocate for the ExpressionEngine platform I shouldn’t knock any promotion that it gets, so thanks to Steven Snell for putting this together. However, showcasing websites built on EE is like showing what can be done with HTML/CSS. There are NO limitations set on you by templates like with other CMS systems (Drupal/Wordpress). It is the same reason that the new Woo Themes for EE doesn’t seem to make sense, as Ryan Masuaga said on Twitter earlier http://twitter.com/masuga/status/7751849285

What is more interesting is the complex way sites can be architected using ExpressionEngine. The possibilities are endless thanks to the huge amount of available 1st party and 3rd party plugins. I don’t think this choice of sites particularly highlights what you can do with the EE ‘framework’ (as someone called it above), but again to try to showcase this would be like saying ‘look at all the different ways website content can be organised’.

@Ryan La Roux @Steve There are many, many reasons which justify the license fee, the support forums (EE employees are there to help you, so you aren’t just relying on community) is a good starting point. I won’t go into these here as I think this has been covered many places before like in my brief comment here http://eeinsider.com/blog/ee-2.0-licensing/#comment-8196 ). You should also look on the EE forums both for the Site Introductions thread
http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewforum/3/
and Pre-Sales questions if you want to know more about what makes it different.

ExpressionEngine is my CMS of choice. It’s by far the most flexible system I’ve ever used (and I’ve used around 10). I really don’t want to turn this into another free vs. not free discussion because there are tons already out there. But for me, I’m glad ExpressionEngine isn’t free. The fact that it isn’t free allows for superior support for their product because they have paid support staff. There are definitely other reasons, but for me that’s the biggie.

I always found it interesting that people continue to pull the “not free” card when it comes to ExpressionEngine. EllisLab has developed a superior product, so why should they not be compensated for it? People have no problem giving Apple tons of money for a superior laptop, and these same people have no problem charging for the services they offer. Why not just give away your design/development services for free? For what ExpressionEngine can do, the price is very fairly priced. It should probably be higher and the people that know and love EE would gladly pay the extra because they know what it can do. Too many people try EE for a few days and give up because they are not experts after that time. It does take time to learn, but once you learn, you really see what it’s capable of.

I’ll leave it at that. The discussion could go on forever. In the end, choose what’s right for you. A lot of great examples of ExpressionEngine sites in this article. Congrats to everyone mentioned.

Oh, and it’s ExpressionEngine (no space) not Expression Engine.

great article, thanks

Amazing post !…Excellent website designs!

Thanks for sharing!

Nice collection indeed.

http://www.jasonsantamaria.com should have been in the list too imo

What about http://www.littlebigplanet.com ?

btw
Looking for more EE sites?
- http://expressionengine.com/showcase/websites/newest

Nice post though…

I’m curious to know how it compares to Squarespace? I’ve built my last 8 or 9 client’s sites using their platform exclusively. I’ve found their CMS to be quite incredible to work with from a design perspective, and my clients love the ease at which they can update their own content. They even offer an iPhone application so you can update on the go.

If anyone can tell me how EE differs from Squarespace, good or bad, I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks for the post. Render is happy.

Great list of designs that implement EE. Someday I’d like to see a collection of sites that use EE, and along with a thumbnail, perhaps a bulleted list of some of the features that the site employs so that we can say “Wow, I didn’t know EE could do that.” However, it’s nice to see these sites, and we can certainly visit them and check out their features.

Very nice collection of sites. Some of them are quite impressive.

I used to use pMachine way back in the day and built 4 or five sites with it. When EE came out I played around with it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pay for it.

At the time they had serious issues with generating a decent site map for Google, where solutions such as Joomla and Drupal had really simple plugins. I just couldn’t see paying for something where such a basic feature was treated as a workaround.

In fairness, that was several years ago so I’m sure they have that sorted by now. I moved onto Joomla and never looked back. I forgot all about EE until this post. They seem to be doing well, even as a commercial venture.

I don’t see anything listed that couldn’t be done with Joomla or Drupal (WP I’m not so sure), but this post does show the versatility of EE. Good job, guys.

Great collection of websites, but do they really demonstrate what EE is all about?

Couldn’t the majority of CMS applications out there duplicate these as it is only HTML/CSS rendering?

Nonetheless, a great collection for gather design ideas.

Cheers!

Another thing that I don’t get it.. a design is a design and it has nothing to do with the engine behind, but with the designer. Any of this websites could have been done without any engine at all. It would be more useful to show how they were developed and how EE helped them to do achieve their goals.

Express Engine is a great CMS!

I’ve not used EE before in any of my projects, mainly because it isn’t open source. When there is so many open source CMS systems it’s hard to experiment with one that isn’t.

I would like to try it out one day, but for now I feel you can mostly do similar things with any of the available open source options, such as Joomla, Drupal or Wordpress.

If anyone has any reason why ExpersionEngine is better over these opensource versions, I’d like to know?

Nice compilation, but I’d rather see the quality based on their EE structure not designers visual skill.

Not that I don’t like the design of Seed Magazine http://seedmagazine.com/ but I think that would be a better example of what you could achieve with Expression Engine and there is also http://webunder.com.au/

Overall, thank you for promoting Expression Engine.

Great list of excellent sites. EE ftw!

I’ve been thinkin of using EE myself, thanks for the post guys.
Well done!!!

Great list, going o dig EE more n more. it looks very promising.

EE is for profesionals building professional sites for professional companies. Whilst open source products are very good any company worth its salt will not skimp on investing in the right tools for the job and thats the gap that EE is filling.

Great Compilation Really an inspiration.

Nice list. Seems like Expression Engine is not as bad as I thought it was, nevertheless I’m still sticking with WordPress

~ K.

Thanks for mentioning our websites. We truly love ExpressionEngine!

I’ve developed on probably a dozen CMS platform and IMO Gerry is dead on. It’s not that the free CMS’s out there aren’t good – they are – but from my experience of using EE it simply screams “let’s step this up a few notches”. That’s not to say it doesn’t have it’s limitations but what CMS doesn’t? The saving grace to me is how extendable it is, not how many plug-ins it has. Plug-ins are nice but you’re still restricted by what the developer of the plug-in thought would be best for you. It’s stupid easy to make it do what you want, even if you’re just a novice developer.

To be fair, I think it has a moderate learning curve and you’ve got to hit that ‘Aha!’ moment in knowing how it all comes together, which can be frustrating, but once you’re over that hump it’s easy sailing. Worth every penny.

Oh and excellent list!

What’s truly awesome about these posts is the fact that even if the article is lacking in details, the community as a whole gives relatively honest and decent commentary when it comes to features and benefits. I truly feel like EE may be worth my time to check out, and it’s mainly because of the myriad responses that tout its ease of use and functionality. I’m psyched! Thanks to all….

BUT…

There are a few people making comments regarding the “free card”, etc.
I deal with a wide variety of clients, some with very limited budgets. The reason why free is important in many cases is because in fact I (we) DO charge what we should for our time, and the extra licensing fees (even a few hundred dollars) could be the deal breaker. It’s a tough situation, but it’s very true, especially now in the ass-dragging downturn. Explaining the added benefits of the extra cash spent can’t make the money appear in my client’s hands. To not understand this about the design business is to have a very narrow view.

I will never adopt the practice of shitcanning a client because of their budget (except in extreme circumstances)… rather, I think outside of the box and find a way to support them as best I can for the money that they can spend.

(cue rousing and energetic National Anthem)

I’m not reducing my billable rate – I’m just working hard for my clients so that they’re supported, and can spend more money with me in the future.

since i heard of joomla for example i did some how reject it, i didn’t like it, it was all already made, for me as a designer i prefer to design my own websites.

Never really worked with it. but damn those are some nice designed websites!!

I’ve started working with EE and am growing to love it… but does anyone know of good resources to LEARN how to shape EE into all these fab sites?

@Steve:

The way I look at it is again with ExpressionEngine’s great support. If you decide to go with one of the free options available, you take the chance of running into an issue and then having to rely on the community around you to get it fixed. That could either work for or against you. If the problem isn’t fixed quickly, then your free product all of a sudden costs you more than free. With EE, I know without doubt, if problem comes up, there’s dedicated support to fix it for me. That, and a great community of professionals who are always willing to lend a hand.

For me, the license fee is a small price to pay for a product that I know is going to work how you want it to work in most situations and support has my back if it doesn’t. I can’t speak for everyone that uses EE obviously, but this discussion comes up quite a bit and a lot of developers simply roll the CMS cost into the quote. No need to have a separate line for the CMS cost. It’s a part of the total package, so just factor it in. I’m of the feeling that if a client is on such a tight budget that they cannot possibly afford another couple hundred dollars, that may be a red flag anyway.

@Deron

I agree with what you’re saying, and that extra bit of insight into EE is appreciated. Totally cool…

Wrapping up the price into the job or having it as a separate line item doesn’t change the price… and sometimes, yes, clients are not able to spend the extra cash. I work in an area where even a few hundred dollars for some clients can be a problem, even when I explain the features and benefits.

It’s kooky, I know… and the red flag does go up… my problem is I do want these clients to have an opportunity to grow their business, so Wordpress does fit the bill quite often. Thanks for the comment, man.

For those asking about price, biggestapple.net was built on the free core version of EE.

this CMS have good portfolio, but it’s not free.. but i like this,

Expression Engine is a fine tool for small, relatively simple sited (like those show here), but when you try and force it to do things it isn’t designed for (like be part of an enterprise wide web strategy), I’ve found you run into trouble.

For one, there is no single supplier that is responsible for all of its functionality. Ellis Labs does a good job of supporting the core product, but for all of the functionality that it ends up needing to have added on to take if from it’s core behavior as a blogging tool to an actual structured web content management system, you have to look outside their offerings. This means that that core piece of functionality (like being able to directly relate one piece of content to another across weblogs) that you need may be written by someone who really doesn’t owe you anything (especially if its provided for free), and can abandon it to version entropy at any time.

This might be fine if you’re a freelancer doing a cost effective site for Mom and Pop’s hand Crafted Origami Crane Co (for which it’s a good solution), it doesn’t fly when you’re dealing with more demanding clients.

It’s important for the EE community to keep this in mind when it beats its chest like this.

@One Time EE User

You realize that you can actually relate one weblog to another with EE’s core functionality, right? No need for any addons to accomplish that. While addons do make your life much easier in some situations, they are not always needed. EE is capable of much more than you’re saying. If an inexperienced user is reading your comment, they will be led to believe that EE is nothing more than a blogging tool, which just isn’t the case.

Here are some sites powered by EE that are just a little more than a blog:

http://change.gov/content/home
http://www.bmi.com/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/
http://www.truthdig.com/
http://www.ilounge.com/

@Deron
Yes, its possible to relate one post to another, once. And only one. But if you want to relate it to multiple pieces, then it’s a whole other matter.

In case you hadn’t noticed, none of those sites have really deep architectures, or varied content types and behaviors.

Take a look at all their URL structures.

They only go three levels:
http://www.bmi.com/benefits/entry/536706
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/conan_burns_nbcs_millions_in_revenge_20100121/ (hilarious, btw)
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/library/download/2009-ipod-iphone-buyers-guide/

If you want to get deeper than that, it’s time to go 3rd party.

Expression Engine is indeed more than a blogging tool, and, as I said, for sites with simple architectures, is a good platform at a great price, but people need to remember that it IS no SiteCore, Ektron, RedDot, Vignette, CommonSpot, etc…

@One Time EE User

I was simply replying to your comment that EE was only a blogging tool at it’s core (which you did write). I hardly think the President of the United States’ website is a “mom and pop” operation which you suggested EE was geared toward.

Can you give me an example of site with deep URL structure? I have zero experience with any of the CMS’s you listed, but had a look at SiteCore and Ektron and all of the sites I was able to find that were developed with those two, weren’t any more complicated than the majority of EE sites. I didn’t have any luck finding sites developed using the others.

Awesome list! Great comments here too!
I am going to check out EE!

Thanks for the include. EE is great even if EllisLab is a bit secretive and slow with their deadlines.

EE is template based with html code in it. I cannot imagine that a client would be happy if you confront them with any html or xhtml if they have to make changes in their websites.

So i don’t see that this would be easy to use for any client who has less to zero knowledge of what is said above.

@Gordon

EE does use templates with HTML and EE tags mixed in, but once a site is built (if done correctly) there shouldn’t be a need for a client to ever open any templates or dig into the HTML.

Thanks for including Gist Create to the mix. We love ExpressionEngine would highly recommend any developer who is looking for a content management system to check them out. There’s a little learning curve but the system is very flexible and well worth the money.

Nice posting, well done

Nice list! To be honest, I’m still hoping EE one day becomes open-source. They could always make us pay for the add-ons separately.

Another one to add to the list which I was involved in is http://www.magnet.co.uk/

It’s great to see lists like these which showcase the flexibility of EE

Here’s another good looking EE powered site
http://baycommunity.com/

Another thumbs up for ExpressionEngine from Me. What’s really appealing is there really are no limits. And with the addons available the software keeps improving. I do believe it’s a tad expensive however I pay everytime. Here’s another site using the CMS: Http://www.sewmag.co.uk

Thanks for including the Bene website. I’m using ExpressionEngine now for a few years and every day, i’m more convinced I made the right choice by choosing this CMS.