License for multiple sites?
News and General
Hello!
My name is Robert and I am completely brand new to ExpressionEngine. I have a little bit of time to play around with it and so far I’m really liking it! I’m coming from someone who has been using Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 for the past 5 years.
I have a question regarding purchased license. If our organization has purchased EE, do we have to purchase another EE license for another site?
I have replaced the previous web dude in the organization I’m currently in and one of my projects is to create a microsite catalog for them. Their main site uses ExpressionEngine and I would like to continue using this CMS for this project but I would like to know if another license purchase is necessary.
Thanks!
Rob
If it’s a standalone site then yes you’d need another licence - i.e. each installation of EE requires a licence.
However, EE3 now has Multiple Site Manager (MSM) built in which allows you to add, I think, an extra 2 sites that run off the main installation. That would allow you to manage your content for your 2nd site from the same control panel. If you’re running EE2 then MSM is a separate addon, and as EE3 is now current it’s not available for purchase any more.
See https://docs.expressionengine.com/latest/cp/msm/index.html for more info.
Whether or not MSM will fit your needs is really a debate you need to have, sometimes it fits great if the same authors need access to edit both sites. Other times you might want to keep things totally separated in which case you’d need an extra licence.
However, EE3 now has Multiple Site Manager (MSM) built in which allows you to add, I think, an extra 2 sites that run off the main installation.
I think you might be confusing the licensing situation as it was with EE2 and the current one with EE3. With v2 you had to buy the MSM, and it came with two additional sites “for free”. With EE3 the MSM is built-in from the start, but you have to license each additional site. There is no limit of 2, however.
Other times you might want to keep things totally separated in which case you’d need an extra licence.
You can certainly power two separate URLs with one copy of EE, however. Of course they’d still share a backend, but this would be invisible to frontside users.
Awesome!
Thanks for the clarification. The organization site is currently on v2 and I will need to ask if they bought the MSM. If they did, then i can certainly add one of my microsite projects as one of two “free” sites. I don’t mind sharing the back end because the microsite will likely share the same modules as the main organization site.
I will just need to find an installation of the v2.
Appreciate all your help guys!
Rob