We’ve known for a long time that ExpressionEngine is built on top of CodeIgniter. But why is this important, and does it actually make any difference? Do we care? Should we care?
Well, at it’s current 1.6.x version I’ve never been that interested in ExpressionEngine if I’m totally honest. I’ve looked through the codebase, and after working with CodeIgniter for so long, I’ve just thought… ‘what a mess!’. It’s one of the cruel jokes of working with CI day in day out, anything not quite as beautiful just seems to look like a monstrous bit of code.
*Quick note* I’m going to be very careful not to break the beta T&C’s here.
After seeing the ExpressionEngine 2.0 codebase, and really looking into how closely it works with CodeIgniter, I might have actually changed my mind.
If you’re a CodeIgniter developer I would say this: You WILL be able to develop ExpressionEngine addons, plugins, as if you were just coding away in a CodeIgniter development. And this is where the 3rd party ExpressionEngine market will start going crazy.
ExpressionEngine development has previously been dominated by a few well-known companies and individuals. These are usually the guys who got on the EE bandwagon as soon as it hit the road and have been rolling with it since. Because of this they’ve had a great place in the 3rd party ExpressionEngine market. With only a select number of people to compete with, and the ‘experience’ and ‘reputation’ they hold, they’ve made successful and profitable businesses.
Then CodeIgniter enters the picture. There’s thousands of CodeIgniter developers all round the world, all varying in skill, but there are probably hundreds of very very good CI developers. Now, these are all in the perfect position to start expanding their range and entering the 3rd party ExpressionEngine market. In-fact, on twitter recently I’ve noticed that Jamie Rumbelow and Phil Sturgeon, both excellent CodeIgniter developers, are wanting to start writing 3rd party products for ExpressionEngine 2.0.
Will this be a peaceful merger or a hostile takeover?
You’ll have to bear with me for this section of the post, but please do, I think it’s a very valid question.
Right now the number of ExpressionEngine customers stands at just over 100,000 or so. There are probably less than 50 well-known companies or individuals who produce the best-selling 3rd party products. I’m aware that there are thousands of companies who build sites in EE, but I’m talking about companies who specialize in building 3rd party ExpressionEngine products and selling them for a one-off price, say $30.
Now, we add hundreds, if not thousands of CodeIgniter developers to this market and there could be some huge potential problems. Existing sellers may not like hundreds of potential competitors entering their market by ‘default’ when ExpressionEngine 2.0 launches. Their only comfort is knowing that ExpressionEngine 2.0 will very likely increase the overall size of the current 3rd party market.
Here’s an example
Solspace is a company who make plenty of paid-for 3rd party ExpressionEngine products. They’ve currently got module for sale that handles tagging. The price is $39.99
I could also build this for ExpressionEngine 2.0 with its CodeIgniter loveliness. And sell it for $25 (I can’t stand .99 pricing!). Now, it’s true that the ‘first to market’ product will always get the majority of purchases, but the following products to come to market can actually do better if they set their price-point right.
So, I build my module, I make sure it’s as good, if not better than the competition, and sell it for less.
I start making sales, increasing my customer base, and then, we have a real competetive market on our hands.
The outcome of increased competition
Ultimately, I can see several things happening here. First of all, the CodeIgniter developers just ‘entering’ the 3rd party ExpressionEngine market will find ‘first-to-market’ products. Modules that haven’t been build yet.
With this approach they can start selling their products without ruffling too many feathers. But, the new developers won’t be able to do this for long.
It’s only a matter of time before they realize that the best selling products already available through existing sellers is where the largest demand lies. Then, we begin an age of competition.
Before you all get carried away… Yes, I know there is currently competition in this market, but I don’t believe there’s a great deal. Not as much as say professional drupal modules.
So, what do we get from the competition? Well, the first thing to happen is a shift in quality. New developers will attempt to ‘out-class’ the competition with more features, better designs, and generally higher quality products. Once quality reaches a saturation point, it becomes inefficient to compete on quality alone. Then we see a shift in price. Both providers compete on pricing, maybe offering ‘membership’ or ‘batch’ pricing for loyal customers.
Overall, it’s great news for consumers. Competition almost always is. But it’s going to get much tougher for the developers out there.
Thanks for confirming the ease of a CI developer beginning to do add-on development for EE. That’s what I was hoping for.
The merge of the two communities will certainly be a trying time, but the products that result should enrich both as well, and hopefully we can become the world standard for kick-ass web apps.
We already know we are, now maybe the rest of the world will too.
I’m actually really looking forward to the influx of CI developers. EE currently has a large number of add-ons but some of them are overpriced in my opinion (some are also just right) and I’m hoping that the extra competition will lower some prices. – I don’t mean so much that developers can’t make a living, but so that the cost of software to develop a site for a client stays at a reasonable level.
Good piece. I think though that people who want to make $$$ making EE add-ons will truly have to focus on that — more time is spent on support surely than initial development — and of all the CI developers out there, how many will truly be interested in doing that? Maybe a few dozen?
Also, there is so much functionality that is needed out there — commerce? auctions? — that rather than competing for the same functionality pie, that pie will surely grow. Unless a current add-on is scandalously overpriced, I would think that most people will want to strike out in their own direction and grow the EE toolbox.
I think a defining factor of those who will have continued success in the ExpressionEngine marketplace, regardless of which camp they originally came from, is something that you left out. You mention features, design, quality, and price, but left out support.
I’ve seen some excellent add-ons by extremely skilled programmers fall flat on their face because the developer either lost interest and moved on to other things, underestimated the need, didn’t care to give support, or interacted with users in an unprofessional manner.
The developers that will thrive are not just those that make the best add-ons available for the lowest price, but those that the users and their clients feel comfortable establishing a long-term business relationship with. And that even applies when the add-on is free.
I heartily agree with Derek. I have experienced this myself with one particular add-on developer and have experienced a great deal of frustration and wasted time and resources trying to get support for the 3 add-ons we have licensed. I would, in a heartbeat, use other add-ons that offer the same functionality with a tiny bit of support if available from another developer. At the moment… we have no options and this is a major drawback that will, hopefully, soon change.
Yes, there are very few of us, but I don’t see that as an advantage. Rather, we’re in a constant state of being completely overwhelmed by customer demands. I can’t wait to see some CI guys get involved in EE! Especially having the pleasure of meeting Jamie Jr. and others at EECI.
And sure, there will be some direct competition (as there already is). I’m all for it. Competition brings better add-ons, which makes EE more attractive, which increases our market size. It’s better for everyone.
So… bring it on!
Well I’m really happy this has drummed up a bit of a conversation!
It is a great point you raised Derek, and one which I probably should have looked into more for this post.
This is probably the most exciting factor to me, when it comes to EE2. I can’t wait to have that larger ExpressionEngine audience that has no qualms with paying for an excellent product.
I do think the CodeIgniter crowd will have a bit of difficulty in entering the EE market and I believe companies like Solspace will continue to enjoy the “first-to-market” benefit – even with products that were originally authored by CodeIgniter developers. Solspace has a reputation within the EE crowd and I could see people buying SuperWidget from Solspace rather than a similar product from a relatively unknown CodeIgniter developer, regardless of which was released first.
Derek hit the nail on the head though – it’s really going to come down to support. When people pay good, hard earned money for a product, they demand support for that product. There is a significant portion of the CodeIgniter community that has huge aspirations and plans for great things, but then ADHD attacks and they are off chasing something completely different (I’ve been guilty of this numerous times, as I’m sure we all have been). Paying customers will not put up with this sort of behavior.
And I think it deserves clarification in your first paragraph: ExpressionEngine is not written on top of CodeIgniter (CodeIgniter was an abstraction of ExpressionEngine’s codebase). ExpressionEngine 2 is running on top of CodeIgniter.
I’d agree that increased competition in the add-on market will be great for everyone. I’m really looking forward to what CI devs bring to the table.
Derek’s point is a valid one – that devs will need to provide a complete service in terms of support and an ongoing relationship. I’ve struggled to support the free add-ons I’ve published and have found that no one else really forks or develops open source stuff in the EE community at least. EE
users require support even with lots of documentation. So I’ll probably factor that into a pricing model for the future.
I think there is a big opportunity for someone (EllisLab?) to provide a marketplace for add-ons that can support everything that customers want (ticketing, documentation) and a payment gateway for developers. It is how Apple made big bucks with the App Store right? Bringing together buyers and sellers.
A good post and a good news. The total cost of building a website is not reasonable sometime by when you add all these overpriced Add ons. Some are way too expensive and i think the influx of CI developers will make things better.
[...] the future of CodeIgniter and Expression Engine opinions have been coming out all over including this one from Elliot Haughin about a potential change in the Expression Engine market. If you’re a [...]
[...] the future of CodeIgniter and Expression Engine opinions have been coming out all over including this one from Elliot Haughin about a potential change in the Expression Engine market. If you’re a [...]
I think this is great news for everyone; customers, developers & EllisLab. Competition will lead to better products, more products that don’t exist today – and EE will be able to handle projects that it can’t today (out of the box+addon). So, more customers, bigger pie, etc.
George; an ExpressionEngine “AppStore” is a great idea! More and more business are going in this direction (Adobe has a Marketplace, FlashDen, etc.)
First, sorry for my bad english.
EE must go free. The community, like WP, grow up and could bit a great slice of the market and the market is add-ons and service.
What offer EE to me that WP actually don’t ? Nothing. We have SEO, a lot of plugins, great interface, speed, gallerys, cms features, etc,etc, etc. Forums, buddypress, mu are free add-ons too
We are in love with CI but it’s not reasonable to pay for a blog add-on at this time.
it´s my 2 cents.
This article has gotten me pretty excited. I’ve never actually used EE but I’m very fond of and experienced with Codeigniter. It would be nice to pull in a bit of extra cash doing something I love but I’m not I’m not currently convinced that I could single-handedly pull off the support/maintenance part of it. It seems that the big advantage of developing for the EE third-party market is that you’re typically dealing with folks that already expect to pay for stuff that many people can generally get for free with other CMSs. The trade-off, of course, being that the modules come with great support and are well maintained.
I guess I’ll be looking more seriously into EE soon.
Nice article, was wondering about this for myself for a while now..
Will start playing with EE, but I’m not getting rid of CI just yet
How is having thousands more people creating modules that don’t work and that cause conflicts in EE going to help?
If this were an open source project that invited developers to identify and submit bug fixes and improvements it would be a much more robust solution. As it stands now, it is a fragile POS (IMHO), which comes with tech support that basically responds to most requests for help or bug fixes with the standard response, “If EE isn’t working the way you expected, it wasn’t supposed to do what you are trying to do.”
I relish the idea really. I’ve read that the core of EE 2.0 won’t be available like its predecessor was, and assuming that I seriously doubt anyone without a license (freelance developer or not) will be able to make said modules.
Granted, barely a dozen modules sold would equate to a commercial license price (which will be required in this case, because you’re planning to make money of the end-product) I still don’t see a flood of modules from new sources booming the market or even effect it.
I’ve noticed that user-made modules for any script has a tendancy of being created, kept with for a few months and then the developer drops off the face of the planet… WordPress is a perfect example… 90% of the GPL/GNU plugins haven’t been updated in more than a year!
Anyone who thinks they can go against the big-dogs in the module making process, remember that your customers aren’t just paying for your module… they are paying the support and constant upgrades/tweaks that will give them options to their specific needs of it, in most cases anyways. Not to mention user/customers will now have entitlement and feel the have the right to demand things of you.
I think there is plenty of room for EE developers. I hope CI community will get involved and make some of missing pieces for EE. Right now, I’m seriously looking again at using Drupal because of the price point of EE has tremendously gone up and hasn’t really offered me too much more value to compensate for that price mark. Yes it is flexible, but for 300.00 we shouldn’t have to drop more money for other modules that should really just be part of the system to begin with. Good article!
(reply to: brandonrichards)
Well, I know that Elliot here was attempting to resurrect “Blaze” and still might be… plus I’m currently working on my own CI CMS that already has a lot of similarities with EE 2.0, the best part about the one I’m creating is that it will be opensource, so much to the point where a footer at the bottom of the site/admin panel won’t even be required as-long as it’s denoted in the php sources and possibly a small unobtrusive comment in the header’s HTML that will only be seen by developers who wish to inspect the code.
I do plan on making money off of it, but only through my own “3rd Party” modules I’ll be making for it… though I believe a whole market-place will come of it, with more than enough opensource module solutions as well, not forcing anyone to spend a dime.
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Elliot, are you resurrecting Blaze? I’d really like to collaborate if you plan on bringing that back… possibly even get you in (and make you the obvious lead) on Combustion (http://combustioncms.com).