Modx vs. Joomla vs. WordPress

I am developing a site for a non profit that I have been involved with for awhile. An eager beaver within the group is trying to gain some access and push everything toward WordPress. We need scalability, simplicity, and SEO goodness. I know there are many threads out there, but could I get some simple bullet points on the advantages of Modx versus the other two. I am sold hands-down, but I would like to have some backup info to present to the board of directors. Please keep responses simple, no need to make for long explanations. Simple strong points would be best. Thanks folks!

All i can say is i hate joomla, if u need to deside between joomla or modx go for modx.
Wordpress is basicly made for blogging.

Although Modx doesn't have that much templates, so for designers who build their own templates it's heaven. Very flexible. If u don't know how to make a template u can buy a template somewhere and change logo etc, and just add some codes into the template to make it work in modx.

I don't think anyone out here will say don't use Modx

I have been playing with the recent build of Wordpress and it's very impressive. To save your sanity I would drop Joomla from your list.

When you install Wordpress you will find that there is a lot of structure and content containers already there. When you install MODx there is nothing. MODx is like a blank sheet, waiting for your music score.

Wordpress with a downloaded theme might be the ticket. You can always substitute your own images into one of these themes. Most people will backwards engineer and modify existing themes. Building a custom theme from scratch and then making it work with the Wordpress "scaffolding" is a lot of work.

I think this comes down to the kind of client you have. Many clients start off by saying "we only need something simple", but before you know it there are requests for all kinds of specific goodies. Wordpress then becomes a round hole and square peg exercise in a way. To me this is where MODx really shines. It's just so flexible.

My favorite quote on this very issue from a previous thread goes like this: "it's easier to make MODx blog than it is to make Wordpress function like a regular website..."

Thanks for the input so far. I am pretty familiar with modx and about to launch a couple of sites with the latest Revolution, though I still have some work to do with the navigation and getting that right. I was wanting to know more along the lines technically between the 3 products, SEO, and scalability. I know Wordpress is primarily for blogging, and modx is excellent for SEO, but how does Joomla fit in. Is it similar to modx on the back end and how it creates a site? Is modx more flexible and scalable than Joomla? If there were 5 technical reasons to pick modx over Joomla, what would those be? My feeling is, one person on the board is going to challenge me because he will want to do things himself with a basic site using something like wordpress...

I have not used Joomla for quite some time now. When I migrated from the safe world of static html sites I downloaded and tried about a dozen or so CMS platforms. My criteria for success included a system that would allow me freedom and access to implement my own custom designs, flexibility, power, image management, decent number of add-ons, decent documentation, and a solid support forum.

The support forum aspect became critical. Some systems had massive forums while some had very little activity. I found MODx just right in this regard. There was no dismissal of newbies and the core group really seemed interested in helping.

My experience with Joomla did not go well. I found the system too bulky. The backend system did not present your pages like MODx did. I also found the support forum lacking. I also found that Joomla and Drupal just seemed too heavy overall. The sheer mass of all the extra modules and plugins was overwhelming. You had to discover if certain code bases were getting recent attention. Many seemed abandoned like roadkill.

I did try a few really light systems like CMS Made Simple but they seemed too basic. In the end I narrowed it down to Wordpress and MODx. After a while MODx became my main tool and that status remains to this day. The main hurdle with MODx was poor documentation with little or no "need this - then do that" tutorials. The documentation seemed to just list parameter options with no real explanation on what these options actually did for the user. The level and quality of MODx documentation is much better these days though...

Of course "your milage may vary" on this... [ed. note: Photowebmax last edited this post 12 years, 1 month ago.]

Exactly the input I was looking for! I took a template from ThemeForest and ported it over to a domain that I have never done anything with. Within an hour or so I presented a "Home Page" layout with our content and images and they were blown away. They are intrigued that I will be able to set users to easily update content on certain pages as easy as they would send an email. They also like the idea of the scalability. That being said, I was the original builder of this site back in 2000 using (of all things) Microsoft FrontPage... To say the site is horrible and outdated is an understatement. I have never been a web designer, but I have had to learn it out of necessity and modx is the platform I chose. I am donating my time to this non-profit that I used to be on the board for. I was just going to need a more solid explanation of why I am telling them the site should be built with modx. I also agree with the forums here, they are a Godsend...

I agree with the others, avoid Joomla as it is bloated, use WordPress for blogging or for simple websites and use MODX for websites that require a certain level of customization.

I developed an easy snippet that makes it possible to integrate a WordPress installation into a MODX website. So people can use WP for writing their blog section but MODX does all the rest. Will present it at the next MODX meetup in Cologne (August 22, 2013) and later blog about it. But I will use MODX only for that. ;-)

P.S.: Don't forget to get yout ticket for the MODXpo 2013 in Cologne: http://modxpo2013.eventbrite.com

Hi,
I agree to drop Joomla from your list. But you might want to consider putting Drupal on there.
I do most of my sites in Modx because of its flexibility. But there are somethings missing in the Extra's department and making my own Extra, with matching CMP, is just to difficult. I run 3 non-profit/charities and use MODx for all of 'm and the main reason for that is that they want to tweak design ideas quite often trying new ways to better the conversion to the 'Donate' page. Or implement a new campagne idea (with matching forms). This is all really easy, inspiring and rapidly done in MODx. Combined with SimpleAB (https://www.modmore.com/extras/simpleab/) it's even better.
Times i'm forced to use Drupal which is very NOT flexible in the theming department, have always to do with specific Extra functionality.
for instance there is no user friendly formbuilder (Drupals Webform), or e-commerce package (Drupal Commerce). The only reason not to choose MODx can be the lack of such a specific Extra, imo.

Rdg

Now ModX is interesting because you don't need any programming skills and designers have so much control over layout and images. Unlike WordPress, Joomla and Drupal have a lot places you can add your own PHP code, but you don't have to use them as long as you are happy with each CMS defaults. Joomla IMHO has too easy to hack, even with all the latest patches. Drupal is very secure when patched, but as stated before, it's a bigger learning curve. For a complete Noob, my vote is ModX.
I don't think there's a "best one" of them.... it depends on your goal and technical expertise. There are some useful resources which can help you have a right choice when choosing your needed CMS. I recommend two pages providing a comparison chart of WordPress, Joomla and Drupal: http://www.threehosts.com/ratings/comparison-software/wordpress-vs-joomla-vs-drupal.html and http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/cms-comparison-drupal-joomla-and-wordpress. Both present the information in an easy-to-understand format. Besides the three mentioned programs and before making your final decesion I also recommend to consider other content manageent systems. A full list of them is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems. But the most popular ones are presented on http://www.simplescripts.com/script_list. Platforms on SimpleScripts are categorized and this helps you make your decesion more easily.
[ed. note: emaderam last edited this post 9 years, 11 months ago.]