MODX vs WordPress.
MODX and WordPress - already essentially two completely different CMSs. Yet these CMSs are regularly compared. Not surprisingly so, because who doesn't know WordPress? With its ease of use and the thousands of themes and plugins it has to offer, anyone can put a website live in no time. At the same time, of course, we are big fans of MODX for a reason. In this blog, we will therefore show you the important differences between these two CMSs. This way, you can make the best choice for your company and hopefully you will also understand why a MODX website will often be a bit more expensive than a WordPress site.
The differences at a glance.
The differences at a glance:
- Usability: MODX is very flexible for developers and non-developers alike, where WordPress is easy to use for any non-techie
- Themes & Plugins: Almost 1,000 MODX Extras, while WordPress has 55,000+ plugins and 31,000+ themes.
- Speed: While MODX is in the top 3 CMSs in terms of speed, WordPress is in the second-to-last spot.
- Security: MODX is very secure, as there is an established MODX team controlling the code. WordPress, on the other hand, is less secure, as anyone can add plugins and themes.
- Support: Both MODX and WordPress have many agencies spread around the world, support forums, a community and online documentation.
- Community: MODX has a dedicated MODX community that organises Bug Hunt days, meetups and hackathons. WordPress organises WordCamp and various meetups every year.
As you have seen above, there are many differences between WordPress and MODX. But there is much more to tell, so read on quickly!
MODX and WordPress in brief
Core words appropriate to MODX are flexibility, security, scalability, search engine friendliness and connectivity. This flexibility even goes so far that you can hang different digital products in the same CMS. For instance, you can manage your website, webshop and intranet in one place and in different languages. And this can always be extended. So MODX always grows with your business.
WordPress, on the other hand, is the most widely used CMS, which is not surprising. Wordpress is incredibly accessible and allows anyone without any programming knowledge to easily create a website and style it according to your own house style. With the wide choice of plugins, you can also add useful features. So any company - no matter how small - can easily start digitising its business.
In essence, MODX and WordPress are already very different and it is therefore good to look at what you as a company need - not only now but also in the future. That way, you can make the right choice in CMS.
Usability
The biggest difference is in usability. MODX offers an awful lot of freedom for developers to create what they want. So we can achieve everything the customer wants with MODX. So one of the reasons we ended up choosing MODX (because yes, we too worked with WordPress in our younger years) is this flexibility.
So, one of the reasons we ended up choosing MODX is this flexibility.
In addition, it is also quite understandable why many people are such big fans of WordPress.Users can choose from pre-made themes, easily update them here and there, and thus completely create their own website. Add useful plugins to this, expanding the possibilities and making you more visible online. WordPress is great for anyone to use.
Speed
With the advent of Google's Core Web Vitals, speed has taken on an essential role in creating online findability. Research by Sistrix1 shows that choice in CMS can also contribute to this. They analysed 18.5 million domains and came up with the following results:
While MODX lands in the top three fastest CMSs (yay MODX!), we see WordPress appear at the very bottom in the second-to-last spot. Aaiii, that's not so good. But not surprising either: MODX is built from the ground up for speed. The CMS does not add any additional proprietary code to the front end of the website (on which PageSpeed is based), nor does it require it via weird plugin systems. Something that other CMSs like WordPress do suffer from.
Find out more about why MODX is so much faster? You can read all about it in our blog about MODX speed
This keeps a CMS like MODX clean, whereas with WordPress, with its many plugins, you often have to load in a hefty amount of code of which only a small part is actually used. What you can also suffer from is plugins that contradict each other or are incompatible with the theme your website is built on. This slows down the loading speed of your website, thus preventing you from achieving a high PageSpeed score.
Security
In principle, all CMSs guarantee the security of the online products created. However, there is a big difference in security among different CMSs.
Security has been paramount since day 1 of MODX's inception. An established team within the MODX community checks every contribution made to the CMS for vulnerabilities before it is added to the new version. Existing code is also continuously monitored, vulnerabilities are looked up and addressed immediately. This way, you guarantee a secure MODX site.
Hackers are more focused on WordPress sites. Largely because there are an awful lot of sites made with WordPress, making it the most likely to succeed. In addition, anyone can create plugins for and add to WordPress. As a result, as a WordPress site administrator, you can also install poorly programmed and sometimes even unsafe plugins. It is therefore always good to check how many times a particular plugin has already been installed and look at the reviews to determine whether a plugin is safe.
Learn more about how to have a secure CMS with MODX? Read all about it in our blog about MODX security
Support & Community
On professionals.modx.com you can find all MODX agencies from around the world. This includes Sterc. Here you can go to get a new MODX website, webshop or other digital product built and get help with any questions you may have. In addition, you can also request a website audit to find out where you can further improve your site to become even faster, more secure or more user-friendly. MODX also has a global, dedicated MODX community that is constantly working to improve the CMS.
P WordPress also has an awful lot of agencies that work with WordPress, you just have to find these yourself. WordPress itself does not have a page dedicated to all agencies working with WordPress. In addition, WordPress has the big advantage that - because there are so many users - you can find an awful lot online. So documentation and support forums aplenty! So you can quickly find a solution to your problem.
So, as you can see, with WordPress you can indeed quickly put a new site online that also looks nice. The big advantage of a MODX agency like Sterc is that we help you keep your website or other digital product as user-friendly, secure and fast as possible. In addition, MODX's flexibility allows you to easily expand your website, add new products in the same CMS or display your site in additional languages. So your website always grows with you and you don't have to set up a completely new environment or download unnecessary plugins when you want to make a big addition.