The pros and cons of using 2 of our favourite web based publishing systems to create websites.
Both systems are extremely flexible and both have a huge community following but which is right for your project?
Lets start from the begining…
Plan your website. What type of website are building? a simple brochure site, e-commerce site blog etc.
While both systems can handle all of these tasks it really depends on how much hacking or tweaking you are prepared to do
The Installation..
Both systems are straight forward to install manually, create a MySQL database >> create a database user >> install files to web server and navigate to /install if using MODx or just navigate to files if using Wordpress. Even better, due to the sheer popularity of Wordpress it has been included in Fantastico Delux for some time now (1 click install)
The Template Engine…
This is where the systems go a seperate way, MODx is in our opinion is more geared up to the xhtml/css developer. here you can define your file paths and create your own templates from scratch. MODx uses a set of placeholders to populate the template, you can also create your own “placeholders” called CHUNKS . For example we could copy and paste all of the code from the bottom of the template and call it {{footer}}, likewise with {{header}} and {{sidebar}}.
Wordpress, on the other hand has a well established theme community with hundreds of premium themes and hundreds of thousands of free themes which can be modified to suite your needs. Many themes which are well built include theme functions and widget ready sections.
Day to Day Use…
Both systems fair well for day to day use and ease of use for non technical users. MODx has a tree navigational system and once the user has “got there head round this” its easy to use. Wordpress has been redesigned a number of times over the years and has evolved into a super friendly publishing platform with an intuitive interface.
Bespoke Web Development…
This is one area where MODx beats wordpress. MODx supplies you with a set of snippets/ functions/handles/extenders or rules whatever you wish to call them.
Ditto: Taxononmy or aggregation of information, this snippet can be tweaked and modified to do pretty much anything.
others include; Ajaxsearch, Wayfinder.
If you wanted to build a bespoke site for a specific function this would be the way to go.
Wordpress is quite different in that most add-ons or modules/widgets have already been developed for pretty much any need or function you may ever want! its a case of building up your WP install with numerous widgets and flexable theme with custom functions.
SEO & Blogging.
Both systems feature friendly URLs but Wordpress has many flexible options here using date, time and many other bits of meta information so you can really rewrite your urls into some great long tail keywords with a good folder structure. some examples would be
archives/08/author
category/tags/pagetitle
MODx lacks slightly in our opinion, although you can define the url rewrite its best not to use the folder structure in your urls, especially if you have already built the site. you may find some image files that cant work out the paths. However MODx is a truly SEO CMS with the flexability of using per page or site-wide meta tagging. If you incorporate all the MODx placeholders into your template you can achieve some great results for chosen keywords in your pages. We have found it is best to use the standard freindly urls configuration for MODx . example…
www.sitename.com/great-long-tail-keyword.html
Blogging..
While it is possible to spend a day creating template-variables, ditto templates, and tinkering with webuserlogin snippet for a blogging platform in MODx most users would agree, why bother? use Wordpress.
This is not to say MODx is no good for blogging, and that Wordpress is no good for basic CMS brochure sites.
There are many Wordpress sites which have been stripped down and de-featured in order to be used as a simple 3 page website or business brochure.
Nice write up. I am a fan of both systems (but MODx is my #1), I appreciate the flexibility in MODx and find it easier to go out-of-the-box, on the other hand I like the UI of WP and the widget concept. Truth is that you probably can’t go wrong with either one
Not a bad little comparison of both systems. However, with Wordpress, I think the real question to ask whenever someone is thinking of using it is this: Is the purpose of site periodical or blog-like in nature? If so, then Wordpress is a great solution if that’s what you’re after.
Even though I’m a big MODx guy (after all, I’m part of the development team) I chose to run my own blog on Wordpress for the simple reason that I can’t blog on my iPhone with MODx. It’s by far one of the best blog apps there is.
However, if the site to be built requires a lot more than just simple periodical/blog-like functionality and isn’t the primary focus then Wordpress isn’t likely to be the best choice. Granted, there’s tons of great plugins, themes, and ways of serving content that aren’t necessarily blog-like. However, when it comes to many of the Wordpress plugins be prepared to do a lot of hacking if you plan on doing a highly customized solution.
MODx on the other hand is an open-ended solution. You build everything from the ground up as you see fit. The templating engine, plugins, snippets, and other features of MODx are designed to work with you rather than against you. Some of the best snippets and plugins for MODx are highly customizable and provide ways of creating the functionality you’re looking for. If not, then creating your own solution isn’t all that difficult (provided you’re a fairly decent PHP coder).
I think the thing to realize about these two platforms is that they were designed for two completely different things. They both can achieve similar things but each one was really designed to meet a specific need. The primary function of Wordpress is online publishing and blogging. With MODx, it’s creating highly customized sites while allowing the developer/designer complete control over the process.
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