What Exponential Platform DXP is
This page is for developers who meet Exponential Platform DXP for the first time. It describes the product as its own packages describe it, shows its architecture, and places it next to the other products of the family.
Contents
- In one paragraph
- The architecture
- What a project is made of
- Who maintains it
- Where it sits in the family
- What the name means
In one paragraph
Exponential Platform DXP is "a free, open-source Digital Experience Platform built on the Symfony framework, the
community continuation of the eZ Platform and Ibexa OSS line maintained by 7x" (README, quoted in
Who is the Exponential Foundation?). The skeleton
calls Platform v5 "the standard single-kernel release": the Platform v5 content kernel on Symfony 7.4 LTS with
PHP 8.3+, with "no LegacyBridge, no classic legacy kernel" (skeleton README.md and INSTALL.md).
The architecture
The skeleton's installation guide (section 2) draws the request path like this:
Browser request
-> web server (Apache or Nginx, with PHP-FPM)
-> public/index.php (the Symfony entry point)
-> Symfony kernel (Platform v5, Symfony 7.4 LTS)
|- administration interface /adminui/
|- REST API v2 /api/ibexa/v2/ (the guide shows /api/ezp/v2/)
|- GraphQL API /graphql
'- Symfony and Twig site controllers /One Symfony application, one kernel, one web entry point. Content is stored in a relational database through Doctrine DBAL (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or SQLite for development) and rendered through Twig templates.
| Layer | What it is in the DXP | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Content repository | The Platform v5 kernel se7enxweb/exponential-platform-dxp-core (the fork of the upstream core) | Content, content types and locations |
| Administration | se7enxweb/admin-ui at /adminui/ | The admin UI |
| Front end | Twig with ibexa/design-engine and ibexa/standard-design | Twig and the design engine |
| APIs | ibexa/rest, ibexa/graphql, JWT through lexik/jwt-authentication-bundle | The REST API, GraphQL |
| Search | ibexa/core-search, ibexa/search, ibexa/solr | Search |
| Operations | ibexa/cron, ibexa/messenger, ibexa/http-cache, Doctrine migrations | Cron, HTTP cache |
What a project is made of
A DXP project is a Symfony project created from the skeleton se7enxweb/exponential-platform-dxp-skeleton. The
skeleton's own composer.json requires little more than the metapackage se7enxweb/exponential-platform-dxp,
symfony/flex and symfony/runtime; the metapackage brings in everything else
(Reading the metapackage). Symfony Flex recipes write the configuration under
config/ when the packages are installed (The project directory layout).
Who maintains it
The DXP is maintained by 7x and the community. The skeleton's README opens with a project notice: the project is
not associated with the original software of eZ Systems or with eZ Systems itself. Many of its packages are se7enxweb forks of
upstream packages that declare the upstream names under replace
(The se7enxweb forks and replace); others are required from upstream as they
are (ibexa/rest, ibexa/graphql and more).
Where it sits in the family
| Product | Kernel | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Exponential Platform DXP | Platform v5 only, Symfony 7.4 | A new Symfony project, no Exponential 6 kernel |
| Exponential Platform Legacy | Symfony platform plus the Exponential 6 kernel (dual kernel) | You keep an Exponential 6 site and add Symfony beside it |
| Exponential Platform Nexus | A finished site with Exponential Layouts; the v5 lines without the legacy kernel, the earlier lines with it | You want a complete demo site fast |
| Exponential 6 | The PHP CMS kernel itself, no Symfony | A CMS on PHP only |
The full comparison is on Choosing DXP, Legacy, Nexus or Exponential 6.
What the name means
"DXP" stands for Digital Experience Platform, the term the upstream line used for a content platform with APIs for several channels. In this family it names one distribution with a defined package list. It is not a promise of every feature that other products sold under the DXP label offer (Claims to avoid).
Related pages
- What the DXP ships and what it does not
- DXP skeleton: create-project and a documented install
- Knowing the product family
- 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.