I use both of these systems all the time. They’re both outstanding, but they do differ somewhat. I made this chart to help describe those differences, and I hope this will help you if you’re considering both systems, but aren’t sure which one to choose. It’s not a scientific survey, it’s an opinionated comparison of the systems based on having a lot of experience with both, and is mainly intended for the newbie. My angle is that I’ve completed a lot of paid jobs with both systems, and I’m coming from the theme developer, CSS, and general site construction perspective. Programmers will take a different view. I hope you find it informative. Enjoy!
I had previously said that it’s easier to make complex menus with MODx. But with the appearance and improvement of WordPress Custom Menus, WordPress works well for this.
Note as of 4/11 – now MODx comes in two versions, so this has muddied the waters a bit. Evo is the well-established previous version, and Revo is the newer version with nice stuff like better multi-site support, auto-updating of plugins, more stuff for programmers, etc. I’ve added a few notes about Revo below.
MODX update as of 2/12 – Revo 2.2 has added some good improvements. The Manager (admin) has some better usability features, and sucks less now. The developers, none of whom seem to be user interface people, would disagree with me, but I still say it’s better for programmers than for end-users. Some gains: the interface for installing and upgrading plugins is nicer. There are still messages generated that only a sysadmin could love, but it does work pretty well. I did notice that I’d try to click on an Upgrade button and sometimes nothing would happen. Pretty annoying. At first I thought an upstream provider was dead and there just wasn’t any “progress icon”, but it actually seems that clicking some buttons will cause them to move but not actually click – a downside of living and dying by Ajax. With more clicks I finally managed to get all my plugins upgraded, hooray! Screens for editing what they call Resources, Elements, and Files are improved and easier to look at. (Note the nomenclature – very engineerish). At some point they decided to spell MODX with “all caps” – a bit callow, and sounds like a marketing consultant suggested it.
I’ll keep up with MODX changes as best I can, but after formerly making a majority of my sites with MODX (mostly with Evo), more than ever I’m doing almost exclusively WordPress now. Some of my best clients have also moved to WordPress after deciding they like Evo but not Revo. That’s not to say it’s a bad system – it’s great, but it’s still young, and by comparison the amount of resources available for WordPress is absolutely staggering now, for developers and end users. The days of WordPress being strictly for blogging are long gone.
Some of the complaints I’ve seen about this article are of the standard fanboy variety from either side. This tells me that I’m probably onto something. 
If someone is a devotee of one system, and has only installed the other system, looked around a little, listened to rumors, and said “meh”, their opinion can be weighed accordingly. For a more in-depth review by a really smart guy who does use both systems, check out Everett’s article.
An important point: what I’m describing below is self-installed WordPress, downloadable from wordpress.org. There are many blogs and sites running on wordpress.com, which is a paid platform that is nice for a turnkey site and hosting solution, but does not have nearly the flexibility of the open-source version.
Blogging very simple blog using Ditto with Evo, limited functionality. Revo has a scheme that looks more attractive, and well, more blog-like. It still takes some work to set up, unlike WP. State-of-the-art, built-in comments, archives, categories, tagging, and much more WP
Documentation Starting with Revo, the documentation is much improved. Still, it's very incomplete. A published book by the excellent Bob Ray came out which will help a lot of people. Loads of quality documentation on wordpress.org. Tutorials are highly plentiful all over the internet. Plenty of books available on nearly any WP subject. WP
Templating Extremely strong and flexible - almost infinite, MODx beats any system I've used in this. very flexible, somewhat more work due to need to accommodate bloggish structure MODx for speed of building, but WP has MANY more free and paid themes available. many companies specialize in paid WP themes, and theme frameworks are available for developers. To code a WP theme, it takes somewhat more time than making a MODx theme.
Custom fields in content the TV (template variable) makes this incredibly flexible, almost any type of content can be stuck anywhere. Custom fields available. Some php coding may be required. Widgets can sometimes be used for this. MODx, but WP has pretty much caught up.
Editing Tiny, FCK, others available Tiny, FCK, others available. This implementation is prettier, and more plugins available.
Plugin variety and quantity very good enormous, many many developers, pre-built stuff for almost anything. Caveat: sometimes a plug-in won't work with a particular theme. It's also worth remembering that many plugins can only be set and updated by the super admin. WP. One thing to remember: plugins, while great, may vary in quality and reliability. Coding skills are helpful for fixing or modifying them. You are now reading the output of one of the best WP plugins, WP-Table-Reloaded!
Permissions good, using document groups and more by using ManagerManager plugin. can be quite difficult to set up, though. Revo has a brand new scheme, and it's still tough to use. You've been warned. very good, very granular if using plugins. WP. If you're looking for permissions to be the most important part of your system, you're likely to be unhappy with either system, unless you are willing to put in the work.
Document structure uses flexible folders paradigm. Revo, it should be noted, has changed the interface, although the folder idea is still there - personally, I don't like it much yet, and prefer Evo's interface. Hardcore programmers seem to love it, though. Pages used for static pages that go in menu, Posts for bloggish "latest news" content
Updating system pretty easy, download/upload, run the update. Revo has now introduced the auto-update for plugins (not the whole system) - it's still beta-ish, but is often excellent. extremely easy: now WP itself, themes, and plugins all updateable and searchable through admin! WP, with caveat that plugins are a bit more sensitive to WP upgrades
Forms Evo had eForm - very capable, but very labor-intensive to set up, no GUI. Revo has FormIt, which is a step in the right direction. When I made forms for Evo, I used the paid MachForms script and pulled the forms in via a snippet call, much quicker for building forms than eForm. Several free plugins work well. Paid ones, like Gravity Forms, are even better. Loads of form plugins available. WP
Photo handling Maxigallery for Evo is very flexible, some work to set up and more to template. Maxi is not available for Revo - there are a couple Revo galleries in development, but they're still very new and rudimentary. many plugins from super easy Auto Thickbox plugin to enormous NextGen gallery. There are incredible paid sliders available at Code Canyon. Some WP galleries may not work with certain themes. WP
Multimedia handling some plugins available, some work to set up many plugins for audio, video, etc. WP
Ecommerce some plugins, can set up manually with Ditto for small site, 3rd party Foxy Cart for more functionality with a quality shopping cart. plugins needed for this. Cart66 is a paid plugin with an excellent reputation. Shopp is also popular. Resist the temptation to go cheap with WP-Ecommerce unless you don't mind bugs. other competitors are emerging all the time. WP
SEO can be done with TV's per page good plugins available WP
Security updates usually available pretty quickly if problem found. issues updates fast, but WP is much more popular, so it's a much bigger target. MODx
Content management extremely flexible can be used as CMS, somewhat more set-up needed to get around bloggish structure, yet many are using WP for content management now. MODx
Moving sites very easy for Evo. Revo has introduced a bit more complexity that can trip you up, but it's still good. somewhat less easy due to fewer relative file paths. beginners often have trouble moving WP sites. MODx
Hello, Michael, just showing a merged cell example! I merged all four, but you could do fewer as well. Cheers!
Thanks for the great comparison chart. I am a freelance webdesigner brand new to WordPress and excited at the prospect of using it as a CMS for my clients who want to do their own updates.
However, I have created numerous websites already in Dreamweaver and am wondering if it is possible to import my existing templates into MODx. I am investigating whether or not to integrate MODx and phase out of Dreamweaver altogether. Any thoughts? Thanks for your time.
Dreamweaver lets you visualize your creations in HTML as needed (unless you’re into coding HTML and CSS designs using notepad or something similar). I don’t think you need to junk Dreamweaver as you’ll most likely create your templates here anyway, and it will work hand-in-hand with MODx – you just feed it your finished HTML “template” (assuming it’s done in Dreamweaver) and slowly break it down to smaller manageable chunks in MODx.
Hi Janice!
Interesting you should ask that. I’ve made snarky comments about Dreamweaver on forums. This is only because I’ve seen so much old Dreamweaver code that I’ve needed to fix, so I figure they’ve earned some sarcasm. I can almost smell Dreamweaver when I see certain code. BUT… that’s old Dreamweaver, with tables everywhere. I assume that new Dreamweaver is a much better product, producing nicer code.
And as for putting those templates in MODx, it’s a cakewalk, IMO, AND even easier than templating WordPress. As long as you’re comfortable making templates in straight HMTL without using Wysiwyg, you could easily dump Dreamweaver and use MODx, or you could stick your Dreamweaver templates in MODx. You can have it both ways. If you’d like some tips, email me.
Best, Dave
Thanks for the post.
How did you create the chart?
Nima,
It’s in the fine print above, and here are details about it, the best WP plugin, WP-Table-Reloaded.
MODx’ weaknesses are: 1) more developer-oriented than WP; 2) no e-comm addons for Revo except in Russian; 3) weak to none for calendar apps; 4) presently no forums module; 5) documentation quality varies all over the map
MODx’ strengths: 1) no code bloat; 2) HTML in, HTML out; 3) easy to learn how to template, template variables, etc.; 3) great support community; 4) Articles blog module is very easy to learn/use/configure; 5) SEO URLs are built in from the get-go, one must enable them
Note: people should use Revo rather than Evo, which will be depreciated over time.
Forgot to say: MODx is easier to keep secure if necessary by virtue of being able to customize where its “backend” code resides, though for most people the standard install works well.
Tom,
Thanks for those excellent thoughts, they flesh out the Post well. It’s true, the community of MODx is very good, and I’ve been helped very well there in the past. WP, by virtue of sheer numbers, is now experiencing the “great unwashed” on its forum, that is, people who want their problem solved for free, yet will do nothing to examine and solve the problem themselves, and are ungrateful. (did I say that?).
Your comment about developer-oriented is interesting. If I were a hardcore coder, I’d probably go for something like Ruby, Cake, Codeigniter, Django, etc. Modx, to me, is in an interesting position, sitting between those and the bloated monstrosities at the other extreme such as Joomla. I think it does have a good balance there.
Apart from any other considerations that I’ve described above, the simple fact is that there’s more work available to me if I use WP. MODx is clearly growing, but slowly.
Tom,
“2) no e-comm addons for Revo except in Russian;”
There’s the miniShop which was released *last week* that does have an english translation but no english docs yet.
Then there’s SimpleCart (one time purchase fee, every snippet documented in the client area), VisionCart (OK, it kinda doesn’t work too well now, but from the looks of it there’s a four man team working on it right now) and there’s also shopkeeper, though no idea if/how well that works and looks Russian but w/ English docs as well. There *are* ecommerce addons. Not nearly as many as WP though, I’ll give you that.
“3) weak to none for calendar apps”
EventsX, gCalEvents (fetches from Google Calendar), EventsCalendar2, Church Events Calendar and mxCalendar should also be somewhere.
“4) presently no forums module”
Should a CMS also act as a forum? That’s an entire different breed of systems (same could be said for e-commerce thinking about it) and it would most likely be better to get SSO set up compared to running a native blog. That said, there is Discuss by the core team, but as they don’t have time to provide support for it, they’ve limited access to it.
Dave,
“The developers, who are clearly not user interface people, would disagree with me, but I still say it’s better for programmers than for end-users.”
I don’t know your user interface experience (you say you’re a web developer on your homepage), but my end user clients have no trouble working with MODX.
“Some of my best clients have also moved to WordPress after deciding they like Evo but not Revo.”
There’s no need to user Revo if Evo works for you or your client. Evolution is, to some extent, still supported and there’s still many, many, many people working with Evolution exclusively to build sites. If you want to force them to go to Revo, that’s a business decision you made. And the average client shouldn’t be allowed to choose the CMS their site uses, that’s what they hire the developer for.
I find it a shame that your update does not include things like custom resource classes (the ability to create “something” that sits in the site tree, but can have a completely different UI, function and settings. The Articles extra which Tom mentioned is the most prominent example and makes blogging in MODX a total breeze.), media sources (enabling you to, instead of the just the physical filesystem, work with Amazon S3 and Dropbox (DB is available as an Extra) as media storage and restrict access to those with the security system as well), static elements (ability to use elements which are stored in a media source instead of DB only) etc.
Mark,
But it’s all good, as you got to make your point! As stated above, I claim no objectivity, simply plenty of thoughts based on building many sites with both systems. I see you’re already questioning my credentials so that you can simply ignore what I’m saying. Fine with me, and so be it. That’s a very common practice in group dynamics, and in any forum, where zealots and groupthink tend to rule the day.
I see I was right, MODx’ers may not like hearing this.
You’ve ignored the possibility that I may still recommend MODx to many people – maybe I should stop doing that. What I think is funny is that constructive criticism could be put to good use, but it usually isn’t. However, I think some people may benefit or pick up something useful from my post, whereas if I write nothing but a glowing press release, anybody not already in the bubble will see through that pretty easily.
Hi,
this post has big significance, but not in sense of what is directly saying but on a little deeper level…I will try to explain:
Typical WordPress user – end user, knows everything and nothing, not too interested in programming, wants plugin for everything and mostly uses ready made templates…(from my experience, please, no one should be offended). MODX would want WordPress users to use MODX, but it doesn’t offer to them what they want: no ready made templates (although every html is almost MODX template) and more importantly no plugin for every thing possible. Those are exactly reasons why I appreciate MODX, but I have a feeling that I am not part of majority of web devs.
As of choice to make manager in ExtJs it seems to me that it brought more problems than benefits. Yes, it looks nice and appealing at first, but it is slow at times, has his issues (like mentioned in post) and most of all: if someone wants to develop a plugin, on top of learning xpdo and MODX you have to learn ExtJs as well, which is not trivial – so no plugins popping out like crazy.
So we are where we are now, and in my book we should really make some huge decisions if we plan on becoming as big as WordPress or Drupal. My suggestions would be:
Ease out on ExtJs
Incorporate a real, established framework under the hood (Symfony 2 looks great, especially cmf part of story http://cmf.symfony.com/)
use Doctrine
Thing is MODX beats easily WP and Drupal when your web dev knows what he is doing, trust me it’s no contents, and MODX can really become huge if it takes advantage of it’s spectacularly loyal and helpful community…
Regards
Blank,
You make some very good points here. Now that I’ve mentioned my article on Twitter, it seems to have gotten some traction after languishing. I’m glad to see that you’re not simply a knee-jerk supporter, but actually have a nuanced view. A lot of fanboys are much more interested in seeking to reinforce their bias that their system is better than all others, instead of getting out of their bubble once in awhile, seriously testing other systems, and finding out what’s really best for a project. If you mentioned confirmation bias to them, there’s a 99% chance they’d have no idea what you were talking about.
It’s true the a programmer will have different needs than a designer. I am very strong on CSS and theme development, and am happy to write some PHP code, but am not a hardcore coder. So WordPress fits me perfectly, and actually, MODx, too. Yet you probably program well and quickly, and can simply code a plugin, and may actually have more possible choices of a system for that reason. I have coded small plugins for MODx, and it is great for that. At the other extreme, there are designers who won’t touch CSS or PHP, and neither of these systems will work for them. I fall right in the middle, doing some of both.
You’re right that the aforementioned “great unwashed” are flocking to WordPress, largely because it’s easy to get some sort of site built with it quickly. Their forum is full of comical questions. Yet there are loads of other reasons why WordPress is popular. When a problem or need arises, I could be off-base, but I’d rather have 1000 coders looking at it rather than 50. I also like excellent documentation. Finally, when there’s something that I can’t do, I like having professional resources that will provide reliable support that will fill in the gap so I can still complete the job.
But you’re right, MODx could become huge if what you say comes to pass. Right now, IMO they don’t have the numbers yet, and there are plenty of other really good CMS’s out there giving it serious competition. I’ve spent significant time with Drupal, too, and believe me, there are many guys who use it that say exactly what you say about their being no contest between Drupal and other systems. And I say, great. Use whatever system you like.