Adopters: start here
This section is for anyone who is adopting Exponential: an organization choosing its next content management system, a team moving a site from another system or from an older release, or one person who wants to run their own site on it. It follows an adoption from the first question ("does it fit?") to the months after launch.
Adoption is more than installation. It is a decision, a plan, a migration, people learning new tools, and habits that keep the site healthy for years. Each page here says what to do at one step and links to the detailed pages for whoever does the work.
Note
Facts on these pages come from the repository and from other pages of this help, and the source is named. No page quotes prices of providers or invents durations: where a page helps you budget or plan, every number is labeled as an example assumption for you to replace.
Contents
- The adoption in six stages
- Exponential in one minute for adopters
- Where you start depends on where you are
- Map of the adopter pages
- Neighboring sections
The adoption in six stages
| Stage | Question | Part |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Evaluate | Does Exponential fit our needs? | Evaluating |
| 2. Decide | Do we accept the license, the risks and the cost? Who runs it? | Deciding |
| 3. Plan | Who does what, when, with which skills? | Planning |
| 4. Migrate | How does our content get in? | Migrating |
| 5. Launch | How do we go live and bring editors along? | Launching |
| 6. Live with it | How do we keep it current, secure and growing? | After adoption |
The adoption roadmap puts the six stages on one page with their outcomes.
Exponential in one minute for adopters
- What it is. "a professional PHP application framework with advanced CMS (content management system)
functionality", whose most notable feature "is its fully customizable and extendable content model" (
README.md). - What it costs in licenses. Nothing: "Using Exponential under the terms of the GNU GPL is free of charge"
(
README.md). You pay for work and hosting (Licensing for adopters). - What it runs on. PHP 8.0 or later (PHP 7.4 usable without support) on almost any operating system; SQLite needs no database server (Hosting and database choices).
- Who stands behind it. 7x leads development; the nonprofit Exponential Foundation operates the project (Longevity and support).
- How it is kept current. The 6.0 line is maintained; security fixes come in the next 6.0.x release (
SECURITY.md).
Where you start depends on where you are
| You are | Start with |
|---|---|
| Choosing a new system | Is Exponential a fit? |
| Running an older Exponential release, including one from the eZ Publish years | From an older Exponential release |
| Running eZ Platform or Ibexa | From eZ Platform or Ibexa |
| Running another CMS or a static site | From another system |
| Already decided and planning | Team and roles |
| Just launched | The first 90 days |
| One person with a personal site | Adoption by organization size |
Map of the adopter pages
| Part | What it covers |
|---|---|
| What adoption means | The difference between installing and adopting |
| Adoption roadmap | The six stages with outcomes and owners |
| Adoption by organization size | Individuals, small teams, larger organizations, public bodies |
| Evaluating | Fit, demo and test install, proof of concept, scorecard, questions, risks |
| Deciding | Licensing, longevity and support, who runs it, budget, the decision record |
| Planning | Team, skills and training, timeline, content model, hosting, stages |
| Migrating | From older releases, eZ Platform or Ibexa, other systems; content and URLs |
| Launching | Launch checklist, rollout to editors, roles and permissions, first 90 days |
| After adoption | Governance, keeping current, security, measuring success, growth |
| Reading path, Checklists, FAQ, Glossary | Reference |
Neighboring sections
Adoption overlaps with three sections that cover owning and running a site. This section links into them instead of repeating them.
| Section | Read when |
|---|---|
| Customers | You own a site and run it day to day |
| Businesses | You need the business case: costs, reliability, kinds of organizations |
| Project managers | You lead the adoption project |
| Ecosystem | You want the map of products, packages and organizations |
| Government | You are a public body |
Related pages
- What adoption means
- Adopters reading path
- Customers: start here
- Businesses: start here
- Project managers: start here
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner
Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster.