I don't normally frequent these boards that much, but I felt compelled to share my recent CMS experiences. For over a decade I've been using ExpressionEngine for all my work - from version 1x to 3x. In all that time it's been a pretty reliable system. I work for a design company so our work flow starts with a visual design, then HTML mockups which are then converted to templates to integrate with the CMS. EE suits that work flow perfectly well as the content part of the HTML is just replaced with the EE tags. The functionality of the system can be extended with a range of addons of course. EE is still a great system, but as noted above, in over a decade it has only gone from version 1 to version 3. More worryingly the number of developers supporting the platform seems to be falling. Crucial addons have been transferred to other developers. Support requests go unanswered. Clients are sceptical about wether EE is right for them. Sadly it looks like EE is on the wane.

 

So I thought maybe it's time to go with the herd and move to Wordpress. I have used Wordpress for smaller sites where EE seemed like overkill. I thought that maybe it was time to gear up to offer Wordpress for bigger sites. My only fear was how easy a WP site is hacked. But I thought that could be dealt with. So I started by building an installation before the design was put in place. That way I could tailor the design to the WP output. Days of work ensued trying to 'clean-up' the templates after the plugins were installed to make them suitable to integrate with a design. And I had to tell the client that features he wanted wasn't supported by the plugin we were using. After a lot of head scratching I gave up. I went back to the client and convinced him to use EE after all.

 

But the issues with EE sadly remain. So, with a deep breath I started a Craft tutorial. I've been following the progress of Craft from when it was called Blocks. Even at launch it looked a bit basic for client use, but now it's a different story altogether. Craft suits our workflow and there are two killer features in Craft that, for me, make it stand head and shoulders above both EE and Wordpress.

 

The first is the Matrix field. This isn't the same as the EE Matrix field developed by Pixel and Tonic, or the repeater field in ACF for Wordpress (both of which are addons). The built-in Craft Matrix field allows you to add rows of completely different content and so not restricted to adding rows of the same content. This is just fantastic. The one thing clients always ask for, is to embed video at any point within a main content section. This is a breeze with the Matrix field.

 

The second is the preview. It doesn't use a different template like EE (which is a complete ball ache), and unlike WP it retains the editing pane - so that you can continue editing with the preview alongside. And the preview updates as you work!

 

The only downside to Craft is the slightly esoteric Twig tags it uses. The EE tag system is far simpler to understand. But Twig is still way easier to understand than WP tags. After using Craft for a bit and then needing to go back to EE for a job, EE seemed very frustrating to use.

 

So if you're in the same position I was in then I recommend giving Craft a try.

 

Like you I've been using EE since v1 (even played with PMachine back in the day). Addon developers fade away for all CMS's, though I don't use many 3rd party addons (prefer native where possible), and anything special we custom write addons anyway. It's still our go to CMS and there's a never ending supply of work for it.

 

Craft, I agree is a well thought out system, and yes the Matrix field is pretty awesome. Twig does take a bit of learning, but it's relatively easy to pick up the regular tags you use every time. I do prefer EE's templating, it's amazing what you can make it do when you get into it (hence not needing too many addons).

 

BTW EE4 is in production, I normally do beta testing so looking forward to that once it comes out, I hear down the grapevine there's some good new features coming.