MODX : the hidden dragon
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I've become increasingly concerned about a topic of conversation I've intentionally begun to broach with web developers as of late. Perhaps our wonderful Mangolassi community can help me to understand where my thinking has gone so astray from the norm when it comes to Content Management Systems.
Somewhere around three years ago I installed my first copy of MODX Revolution on my sandbox and have never looked back. I've created some beautiful and efficient websites with great in-line content management features, robust and feature-rich social networks, even matched up with Magento to create a seamless content to shopping experience.
The code snippets, chunks, and plugins allowed me to work with whatever language appealed to me as best for the specific task at hand. Instead of having to teach a user a new CMS back-end, I just put all the tools they'd need directly on the front-end after they login to an authorized account. It's been a real game changer.
However, upon talking to other developers in-person, even as recently as this week, no one has ever heard of MODX. They'll swear by Wordpress to this day, building cumbersome plugins and even modifying the source directly, breaking any ability to update security patches. TBH, I'd rather go back to drupal than use Wordpress. Even for the end-user the CMS back-end for Wordpress is awkward and requires significant training. I've stumbled into some CMS conversations with developers that have left me speechless and backing away slowly.
I can't find a good explanation for this phenomena besides the dreaded "comfort zone."
How could they never have even heard of it, do they read IT forums, blogs, whitepapers? If not, why not? What's going on here?
Perhaps all MODX needs is a big PR push, but I feel as if the dev community is missing out.
Thanks for reading, and I hope I didn't step on your toes. Happy hump-day!
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Free. Supported on all major hosting providers. Well known with support from anywhere. All major features.
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@scottalanmiller said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
Free. Supported on all major hosting providers. Well known with support from anywhere. All major features.
Which one?
As for MODX I would have to say it needs to advertise more, I've never heard of it until today.
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Same here, never heard of it. Does not look free, which adds licensing complexity that is nice to avoid.
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@scottalanmiller said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
Free. Supported on all major hosting providers. Well known with support from anywhere. All major features.
That's true, I forget that a lot of people just use what's in their C-Panel, etc.. I had convinced one friend to try MODX once and he was caught up in permissions issues and never got it off the ground. Being comfy in linux and MySQL land myself, I've never had any difficulty. Perhaps the server install aspects ARE what drive people away. (those who've heard of it of course)
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@chrisnbrooks said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
@scottalanmiller said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
Free. Supported on all major hosting providers. Well known with support from anywhere. All major features.
That's true, I forget that a lot of people just use what's in their C-Panel, etc.. I had convinced one friend to try MODX once and he was caught up in permissions issues and never got it off the ground. Being comfy in linux and MySQL land myself, I've never had any difficulty. Perhaps the server install aspects ARE what drive people away. (those who've heard of it of course)
I'm pretty comfortable with Linux and MariaDB, but I still want PaaS for my websites. That doesn't make it impossible by any stretch, but it limits options significantly. And SaaS is even better.
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No licensing required, and I totes don't work for them, btw. I'm just a big fan /shrug
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I've heard of, and even ran the main website from my previous employer on ModX. I need to spin that up. It's been a long time since I've used it.
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@chrisnbrooks said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
No licensing required, and I totes don't work for them, btw. I'm just a big fan /shrug
It's free? Is it open source?
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@scottalanmiller said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
@chrisnbrooks said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
No licensing required, and I totes don't work for them, btw. I'm just a big fan /shrug
It's free? Is it open source?
Yep, written in PHP. Flexible enough however I've never found a good reason to modify anything.
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occurs to me I may have sounded a bit too harsh on Wordpress. Truth is I just got painfully bored of it.
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@scottalanmiller said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
@chrisnbrooks said in MODX : the hidden dragon:
No licensing required, and I totes don't work for them, btw. I'm just a big fan /shrug
It's free? Is it open source?
Yepp!
