ModX for portal type website with large user base.

Hello All,
I’ve been using ModX at work for a while now, and it’s great. I’ve got a new project about to start where I’ll be needing a members area for a targeted user base of 20,000 (dependent on marketing campain success of course). Would ModX be suitable for this kind of site? The site itself will be similar to a fantasy football/baseball site where users need to pick a weekly team but can also interact with other users and form teams (functionality similar to facebook friends and groups).

I have not touched upon the user management part of ModX whatsoever yet, so I’m looking for any kind of knowledgeable feedback if possible =) At this stage I’m hoping I’ll be able pitch ModX for this project.

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Hello jfluid!

I think you could do this with ModX - not that I ever have. You really should look at Drupal.org as well. I don’t mean to dis ModX, but the development of it has been much slower than Drupal and Drupal seems to have modules more specific to what it is you are trying to do. I started using ModX because I believed it is the best application framework for the future and i think the Pact Award confirms this. When I saw that something other than Mambo/Joomla (YUCK!) won the Best CMS Award, I thought I would try it again since it had been a couple years. Wow! I feel guilty because I don’t know enough to really contribute to ModX to move it along any faster. I still believe it has potential, but it is harder to get things working, and I think the slow development causes a lack of enthusiasm and responsiveness in the community.

There is a sticky post asking what CMS people used before ModX. It didn’t dawn on my until today that Drupal never appears there. It is what I am using now instead of ModX. I will keep a close eye on ModX, because I do see the wisdom and potential. I just can’t seem to build production sites with it without fighting with most of the contributed modules.

smileybri, I must be working on a different MODx than what you’ve worked with!

MODx is definitely not targeting the plug-and-play YAPS-clone (Yet Another Portal System) experience. MODx is for users that want absolute control over their sites without compromise or extended hacking sessions with the core code. Can it do everything? Heck no, and it’s definitely not the right solution for everything and everyone!

I tend to agree that Drupal is probably a better solution for the application if your requirements are exactly as above. MODx’s built in user management solution just isn’t super-robust and would likely be frustrating to work with. Given that though creating a custom user management solution should be very straightforward, and there’s also ScottyD’s work on WebloginPE that greatly enhances working with users.

Now if you’re talking about something that doesn’t need to scale that large incredibly quickly, I’d say that MODx will be a very good fit in the near future with 097 and beyond.

Thanks, rthrash!

I will continue to use and learn ModX because I think it is potentially more robust than any other CMS. I have not found it very accessible though. It takes a very long time to learn how to use it, and there are a lot of contributions that simply do not work or are harder than they need to be to get working. The average site is a lot simpler than ModX is suitable for because of this.

I think that is really the point - the use of a CMS should make life easier and simpler and shorten the time of development. Drupal fills the bill for the average site. I got two mostly complete Websites together the first weekend using Drupal and a handfull of extra contributions and I never had to contact the forums. The few sites I put together with ModX took much longer to develop, I had to ask for help because the process of installing extras is often more complicated than it needs to be and some things just simply don’t work no matter what you do.

ModX is certainly no plug-and-play YAPS clone. That is the good news and the bad news. Since it is not accessible to the average user I find it difficult and time consuming to build basic Web sites. Now that I switched to Drupal for this out of pure practicality, i fear I will not learn as much about ModX and therefore may decide to hack Drupal (an otherwise better CMS for most things) to get where I need instead of fighting with ModX all the time for everything.

I only share this because I like ModX and wish it were easier to use. If this helps you develop ModX, and the documentation to make it more accessible then that would increase the usability. If you simply write me off because you think ModX is great for those that take the time to learn to use it that is fine too. I can’t say I would disagree.