Joomla VS ModX - Reloaded.

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[beryl]

Sorry for doing another thread with this, i just wanted to summarize with ive
come up with, that differenses Joomla and ModX. It would hopefully create more ideas to.
If you have anything to add, please let me know and il include it (if that´s possible?)

1. Adding Pages
Adding pages in joomla is done in a sertain order and takes alot of time due to
bad navigation (do in this order type) and constant page refreshes.
Ex:
- New section
- New category
- new menu item
- create page and publish it.

In modx it´s at the click of a few buttons!!

2. Templating system.
Joomla still uses tables and adds tables inside tables and also adds unusable divs when adding content.
Most of that cant be removed without hacking the core or module/component (also for joomla 1.5).
you are also placed inside blocks of code.
ModX makes css tableless design in notime with extremely flexible template system, that makes it look just like you want to.

3. Includes.
In Joomla there is only PHP include.
ModX have alot of different ways (Scripts, html, snippets, chunks, TV´s)

4. Performance
Joomla suffers from a lot of performance problems.
( http://forum.joomla.org/index.php?board=268.0 )
 MODX does not seem to have these problems, due to optimized code?

5.  SEF URLs.
Joomla requires add-on module to make this possible in a "human-readable" manner.
ModX has this feature built in.

6.  The menuing system.
It´s easy to make a custom css menu in ModX to match syntax.
It takes hacks and components/modules to make the same in joomla, and it will be restricted to look that way without hacks.
AND most of the good components/modules that add menus are commercial so you are mostly not allowed to change this.

7. Meta Tags
If you do not use commercial component (bulky to use), you have to use the integrated and limited stories/news component.
Meta-tags is usually site-wide as standard.
With MODx, it´s done at the same time as adding a new page.

8. Ajax functionality.
Joomlas system is locked up, its hard to implement any ajax functionality
at all, you have to rely on component and module hacks. And most of the good
ajax components or modules have different libraries, that often collide and require hacks.
AND since most of them are commercial you are not allowed to change them!

Thanx to ModX nice template system and core features, it´s easy to add ajax functionality.

9. User hierarchy
In joomla you are always limited to the 4 main levels.
In ModX it´s unlimited!

10.  Search
Joomla searches only category names as standard, and requires extensive hacking to
search the whole site´s content. Alternatively use some other component/module that
often are commercial.

Modx searches all site content.

[rthrash]

Thanks for the great summary. In all fairness, Joomla! (gotta love the exclamation...) has a boatload of integrated components and is a more mature product thanks to it's Mambo (makes me feel like dancin!) roots. Same goes for Mambo too, really. However, the single biggest reason MODx exists today is probably because it was so dang hard to create semantic, standards-supporting websites when we all started searching almost 3 years ago now. It still hasn't changed.

Whatever happened to the XHTML/CSS port of Mambo and the couple of guys that were invited to join the team about (again) 3 years ago?

If you need a lot of options to make a portal or other such type of site, then one of those two is definitely a better starting point, and they've got large communities around them that I'm sure offer great support. Even today, MODx is not about YAPS and still targeted at those that don't mind getting their hands a bit dirty and having the patience to learn what it is we think makes MODx so special. It's about making a site 100% the way you want it with multiple ways to get to the same end point.

And MODx now also searches (and shipped by default with the next release) all content and custom fields (TVs), too.

[beryl]

Ive read several threads where people say that ModX is for people that want to get their hands dirty, but if it is so scalable and modifiable, getting the right modules, plugins, TV´s, snippets and so on probably wont require one to get their hands that dirty in the future. Just like any CMS, when it matures, it gets (hopefully) easier to maintain and use. I don´t know about you guys, but i really like a CMS that have quality components, that actually work as they should.

[davidm]

Nice overview beryl, though maybe too much in favor of MODx (ugh, did I say that ? )

As Ryan says Joomla has a lot of history and existing modules, plus a wide user base : we do not (yet). That also means Joomla is tied to the past in a way that makes progress very hard for the dev team I guess : backward compatibility is a real drag, and core code overhaul must be a real nightmare (much heavier, in a way, than rewriting the whole app' with a modern codebase ).

That's where we really make a difference : we're the next gen so to speak

Whatever happened to the XHTML/CSS port of Mambo and the couple of guys that were invited to join the team about (again) 3 years ago?

Well I always wondered and when I asked at the time of the Joomla fork, they told me the guys from xMambo were joining the rank of the dev team. It would seem things didn't turn out for the best since Joomla still struggles to accomplish anything convincing in that department

Wild guess : ego struggles and ties to the past discouraged the guys from xMambo... but you'd have to ask them !

[Ricjustsaid]

This seems like a really good summary of the "MODx vs. Joomla" debate and I agree for the most part about everything you said. I mean, it might seem like Joomla would be easy to use... but I was pretty much overwhelmed with the whole system when trying to use it. It feels.... bloated to me. Sure, for some people it's nice to have everything packed into one installation. But what about people who don't need all the bells and whistles? MODx is lightweight, clean, and easy to extend as you see fit. It has... finesse.

I think that the fact that MODx isn't quite "mature" is on our side. Like David said, Joomla has to worry about backwards compatibility, and even though the developers know that the core needs an overhaul, it's going to be difficult to keep backwards compatible, and breaking it will mess a lot of people up. MODx doesn't have that issue, really, because a million people aren't using it just yet.

[rthrash]

Well if we needed to migrate data between significant changes though, our upcoming tools will handle that.

[davidm]

Probably because you devs have thought it out beforehand, and respected the best practices as far as coding is concerned

Same goes for the way we handled marketing MODx : we never tried to widen our user base and be everything to everyone, but to attract the right people at the right time and I think it worked nice so far   My understanding is the way the new codebase is built won't enclose us into a locked pattern like Joomla is, quite contrary... When we reach 1.0 (and probably even before), we'll be ready for a wider user base without being confronted to the same problem (though many choices will have to be done to ensure things run smooth, it will be a different game...).

[beryl]

Sorry for waking up this thread, but something interresting have happened!

A friend of mine (fetto) that has used both mambo and Joomla for years, got quite aggitated when i said i went over to ModX.

So he posted a thread on Joomla about these points yesterday, i can say that the response was uplifting. Seems like most of these "issues" doesnt even exist in joomla anymore, according to this thread:

http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,163278.0.html

The only things that i can see, that is different in joomla vs modx.

1. Joomla has more components and modules.
2. User hierarchy will be fixed in 1.6. (currently 1.5 is about to be released)
3. Performance? Acctually, this is a complex question. Hard to compare!
4. Joomla´s templating system is different, and still will consist of blocks of code.
5. ModX have more flexibility when you want to dig into the code.
6. ModX uses tags instead of blocks of code, in templates.

This should summarize it.
It would be nice if a real Joomla developer could join this discussion though, maybe spice it up :-)

[davidm]

Your friend got agitated ? Why is that ?

Anyway, the more I read that thread @Joomla's (and others at the Joomla forums), the more I am convinced there is a HUGE gap in terms of philosophy, and I am not speaking only of codebase here.

Yes it's true there has been nice improvements to Joomla! templating, like the ability to pass variables to a template,or template overrides also allow to override core output, true.

I find the templating system way more cluttered and not really humanly readable (yeah, I know there are advocates of pure PHP in templates, since it does not add a layer to be parsed...). I don't know if this new options match MODx snippet parameters or not, only got a couple of hours to play with Joomla 1.5.

Even if it does, one thing seems to be missing though, and that's the real power of MODx : most MODx extensions give you the ability to push the granularity of output control thanks to what I call "micro-templates" (you know the &tpl parameters snippets have... sometimes they have more than one micro-template like Wayfinder or Ditto).

The generated HTML is fully in your hands, not the system's. Placeholders make it possible to define precisely where and how you want any variable of the document and/or the snippet to be displayed. There is no limit to what you can do. And you don't have to master PHP to do it, that's why XHTML/CSS designer like MODx so much !

Again, everyone has different projects, differents skills and therefore will choose different tools...
I'd be curious nonetheless to compare developpement time between a MODx website and a Joomla website on several "test cases"... maybe one day a contest ? That would be fun !

[MadeMyDay]

2. User hierarchy will be fixed in 1.6. (currently 1.5 is about to be released)

Sorry, but LOL! 1.5 "is about to be released" since about a year...

And one important point is missing: The document hierarchy is also reduced to 3 levels (section/category/item). No way to display a 4 level deep hierarchy without tweaking. There are also "static items", these are not categorized in the backend, they are only categorized in the frontend if you point a menu item on them. So you can have a boatload of documents in the backend in one view without categories. And afaik they are not changing this document management (nor in 1.5. neither in 1.6... again: LOL, sorry ).

[rthrash]

Getting back to what I said earlier, Joomla! is the right solution for lots of people. Is it still difficult to build a semantic, validating XHTML/CSS site that doesn't have the same semi-rigid structure left over from it's Mambo lineage? For me, that's why I started MODx in the first place but for many that simply doesn't matter and all the robust, readily available function-specific modules weigh heavier.

As far as releases on our end goes, 096 is about to be released in earnest (features are locked down), and 097 will enter an extended beta immediately after that. With 097 and beyond, MODx will actually be a very very different animal with much more robust features that enable it to play on a very different field. 097 has been in development alongside the legacy codebase for more than a year, and much of the little annoying things (to me) about MODx will be rectified including API consistency, merged user systems that retain the flexibility of our current split manager/webuser system, true parser, ability to override the core system completely and still maintain a straightforward upgrade path and much more.

[MadeMyDay]

Is it still difficult to build a semantic, validating XHTML/CSS site that doesn't have the same semi-rigid structure left over from it's Mambo lineage?

Yes, still the same. They refer to version 1.5. with which you get besser possibilities of templating. But none knows when it will be released. They threw a beta on the market more than half a year ago, but this only was early alpha. Since then they changed a lot of stuff so the next beta also will be including new features/changes and so on. I think that there is no 1.5. final this year. So no progress in templating either.

[davidm]

Progress is always hard when you drag the past behind you... especially when you've been an "institution" in the CMS world for many years. The task is not easy. I really do think they won't reach the next step without breaking up with the old codebase... tough choice, but at some point it's either evolve or decline...

[olafmol]

for us the biggest problems with Mambo/Joomla where the fact that lots of modules where either broken/buggy, or where messing up the output HTML and CSS. To solve this we had to dive deep into the code and it seemed much quicker to develop from scratch again. Furthermore the blog-structure with a very limited number of possible levels was also a huge problem for the websites we have to develop.
Right now MODx is our CMS of choice

Olaf

[beryl]

With agitated, i meant that he have been using joomla for i think 4 or 5 years
And he just can´t get off it, no matter how much i try to talk about the issues around it (He has only seen
a few, and has only used super moderator hierarchy on his sites). Since he has been digging some modx code
for me, i hope that he realises that it is better to evolve than decline, as one other person mentioned earlier.

About breaking the joomla code base, i think it might be possible to work around such issues.
But at what costs? As a system grows, it has to evolve. Old users will have to adapt to new codebase and features.

It´s like this, you have a core and plug in things to it.
If there are limits of what can be plugged in, the core might be useless!

And one Joomla user in the thread have obviosly taken offence by this thread, i shure would like to know of what?

The forum is an open place baby, join the crowd

PS: 0.97 smells nice.. drooool!!