While I am capable of working with any CMS that runs on PHP, and most do, once I discovered the power and flexibility of EE, I saw no reason to use the others again. I want to build sites that make me look great and are fully customized for my clients. Not having to work within the structure of 'themes' I am free to build anything my clients need and in any way that works for that client. If a plug and play solution is all you need and you don't foresee needing anything special, then I am not your girl.
EE may cost a little more to build to start but it will cost you less in the long term because not only will it be built to make the work of the site administrators a breeze, but it is more stable, more secure, and easier to manage than WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. The others are only more cost-effective if you have in-house developers to do the upgrades and maintenance. Below are some fo the features that EE comes with out of the box....
ExpressionEngine’s publishing features are broad, comprehensive, and highly flexible.
ExpressionEngine’s user commenting system lets your community participate in the discussion.
ExpressionEngine has sophisticated typography tools—a writer’s dream!
Keep track of what’s happening on your site including most viewed and commented posts.
Our template engine permits you to build dynamic, content driven websites using simple, yet powerful, tags.
ExpressionEngine lets you manage your mailing lists and send email in a variety of ways.
ExpressionEngine has a powerful search engine and query tools.
No other publishing platform gives you as many tools to prevent comment and trackback spam as ExpressionEngine.
ExpressionEngine’s powerful utilities help you manage your site.
ExpressionEngine comes with 22 add-on modules and over 100 plugins.
Build a community with ExpressionEngine’s robust and flexible membership capability.
ExpressionEngine’s data caching features allow you to reduce your server load while retaining all the benefits of dynamically generated information.
ExpressionEngine has the most comprehensive suite of security features of any publishing platform on the market.