Why I shifted focus from Drupal to MODx

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[ifthenelse]

A few months ago, I was working with Drupal, trying to use it to implement a website for a volunteer group I work with. After looking at Joomla, I felt that Drupal was the best choice given its flexibility and more importantly, its ability (or so I thought) to meet certain delegated administration requirements.

But after peeling back the onion with Drupal, I came to the conclusion that while its core architecture has some good aspects, on the whole it is a software development train crash. There are too many cooks in the kitchen, and the developers have allowed (even encouraged) too many others to implement add-ons which define what should be basic functionality. So much so that Drupal now is very inconsistent in how it does things - especially regarding security. Things like implementing templates are more difficult/tricky than they should be. Also, there is so much going on inside Drupal that it uses an extrordinary amount of computing resources even to do simple things. For all it is capable of, Drupal is, in my opinion, collapsing under its own weight. Frankly, it is a mess.

(I know what I'm saying about Drupal is harsh, but I have over 25 years experience as a software developer, including Unix kernel development and years of major software system lead design/architecture experience.)

Then I ran into MODx. A bit less mature than other options, but it has a much better thought out core, and it hasn't spiraled out of control like Drupal has. It also is reasonably performant. In less than one day, I was able to put together a basic site together that took me two weeks fighting with Drupal to create. I was able to focus on getting the CSS and other elements right instead of dealing with all the wierd idiosyncracies of Drupal.

Security is a particular area where I think MODx can have a particular advantage - I have some security background, and while I do think there are areas where the MODx model can be improved (the existing role based implementation doesn't work well with certain use cases), at least it is built on a foundation that can actually work. The hierarchical document tree is key - enhance the system to include the appropriate container and document-level security (possibly one thing might be to add specific access controls to document groups, containers, and individual documents - for example, implement access control lists.). Throw in some specific inheritance features and MODx will have a document security capability that no other open source CMS I've worked with can handle (at least not easily).

The bottom line is that I'm quite impressed with MODx so far. To its core developers: please, please, please - don't let it get away from you like what happened with Drupal. Do make it easy for others to extend, but keep what should be in the core where it belongs. Make the core solid, focus on the glitches,  document well - and MODx will succeed.

I do hope that Drupal can be turned around by its developers - at least in version 6 they are trying to fix some basic things (the menu stuff is being reworked for example). But I'm not hopeful it will be anytime soon. I think that Joomla is in far better shape than Drupal. If its core developers can get past some key limitations (security and tree depth, for example), then Joomla will be a winner - it is already very easy to set up a basic Joomla site with pretty good functionality. MODx is, in my mind, a bit more difficult to set up a basic site with than Joomla, but far easier to set up a site with anything approaching the flexibility of Drupal.

Good work folks!

[rthrash]

Wow.

[OpenGeek]

Security is a particular area where I think MODx can have a particular advantage - I have some security background, and while I do think there are areas where the MODx model can be improved (the existing role based implementation doesn't work well with certain use cases), at least it is built on a foundation that can actually work. The hierarchical document tree is key - enhance the system to include the appropriate container and document-level security (possibly one thing might be to add specific access controls to document groups, containers, and individual documents - for example, implement access control lists.). Throw in some specific inheritance features and MODx will have a document security capability that no other open source CMS I've worked with can handle (at least not easily).

The bottom line is that I'm quite impressed with MODx so far. To its core developers: please, please, please - don't let it get away from you like what happened with Drupal. Do make it easy for others to extend, but keep what should be in the core where it belongs. Make the core solid, focus on the glitches,  document well - and MODx will succeed.

First, thanks for dropping by and providing some wonderfully insightful observations about the differences among these projects.

Second, do not worry about us losing control of the software.  We are slowly and carefully crafting a (hopefully) sustainable vision with simplicity, flexibility, and performance foremost on our mind.  I also think you'll like where we are heading, with new user management features, more flexible security models, and access control that can be applied to just about any core or custom object imaginable.  These items are absolutely essential to our plans of providing a great content management framework.  And we'll do our best at improving the documentation to make it easier for others to enjoy; I think you'll see a marked improvement in this aspect after the 0.9.7 release is rolled out.

[davidm]

This is the kind of testimony that just make me go "wow" just like Ryan

A few months ago, I was working with Drupal, trying to use it to implement a website for a volunteer group I work with. After looking at Joomla, I felt that Drupal was the best choice given its flexibility and more importantly, its ability (or so I thought) to meet certain delegated administration requirements.

Just out of curiosity, since you're talking non-profit organisation and more particularly volunteer group, did you use Drupal along with CiviCRM ?

[luke.stokes]

Great post. If you're interested, we did some interesting custom things with MODx security back in 0.9.1 for www.everynation.org. We had hundreds of security groups for all of the churches and campus groups. We created a filter system to display only the groups of security of interest for someone (like just NorthAmerica or NorthAmerica:USA, etc)

I also built a MassModifyDoc groups tool that was useful for adding a security group to an entire folder structure. I'm pretty sure I sent all this stuff back to the modx community. After we got the website off the ground they moved the day to day management out to the Philippines.

...and MODx has been so great, I haven't had to think about the site since It's great having sections of the site modified by people all over the world.

Though we do have an upgrade on our list of to-do's...

[TheWhippinpost]

Yes, I (also coming from Drupal) echo entirely what ifthenelse said - Keep ModX's evolution managed - just as you have - and I think it will soon kick some serious ass

[goman]

Just out of curiosity, since you're talking non-profit organisation and more particularly volunteer group, did you use Drupal along with CiviCRM ?

If CiviCRM supported MODx, we'd be all over it!

Chad

[timthesurfer]

I completely agree that MODx should aim to remain as nimble & unbloated as possible. having looked at, and worked with, several cms systems, I would say that the vast bulk of them add far too many features & options that are rarely used. Yes, they might gain an extra 2% of functionality - but at the same, they become more convoluted & complex & bogged in code bloat for the 90% of users who are really only truly interested in the core features anyway.

I think there's a good metaphor that CMSs should be run like restaurants: Don't try & cook evertyhing; focus on just doing a few dishes brilliantly. If you can succeed at that, you'll have hungry eaters lined up every single day you're in operation.

[a7]

Just a short note on this - I am a fan of drupal, I think it is an awesome system and building websites with complex needs with drupal really feels like being able to do magic - ... once you get how it works.

So I know that Drupal has weak points, like that you need some time to learn how it works (and why it works the way it does). I don't know anything about MODx yet but will test and compare it along with a few other systems like silverstripe, CMS made simple, wordpress as CMS and TypoLight. All seem great systems to quickly build more or less simple websites - especially if the websites have a simple hierarchical structure and no esoteric needs in terms of content types as an example.

However I must say the article by ifthenelse is pure FUD - He doesn't actually say !anything. Therefor it is not worth anything until proven with facts.

MODx probably is a great system, I can't tell weather it is or not yet, but I can tell you that Drupal is awesome and if you want to read a comparison of Drupal and MODx that has at least some facts in it I can recommend following page: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=142492 Please send me a message if you know further quality comparisons.

[BobRay]

However I must say the article by ifthenelse is pure FUD - He doesn't actually say !anything. Therefor it is not worth anything until proven with facts.

I wonder if this comment is typical of the Drupal forums?  I must say that we're used to much more polite and civil discourse around here. The OP raised some interesting questions about CMS architecture and development and spoke from his experience as a user with both Drupal and MODx.

I think you'll find that most of the people here are ready to admit that Drupal is a useful CMS and that, for some people, it might be a better fit than MODx.

We would welcome your comments as well on how MODx and Drupal compare, but those opinions would carry more weight if you tried a little harder not to insult other forum members and if you actually installed MODx before posting your opinions.

Bob

[BobRay]

(I know what I'm saying about Drupal is harsh, but I have over 25 years experience as a software developer, including Unix kernel development and years of major software system lead design/architecture experience.)

Then I ran into MODx. A bit less mature than other options, but it has a much better thought out core, and it hasn't spiraled out of control like Drupal has. It also is reasonably performant. In less than one day, I was able to put together a basic site together that took me two weeks fighting with Drupal to create. I was able to focus on getting the CSS and other elements right instead of dealing with all the wierd idiosyncracies of Drupal.

Thanks for taking the time to post this. I, too, have spent more years than I like to admit as a software developer and although I never installed Drupal, Joomla, or Mambo, I could see right away that MODx was a much better fit for me.  As a relatively new member of the MODx team, I am continually impressed by the forethought I see in MODx's architecture. When I want to do something that the current core doesn't quite do, nine times out of ten, I find that the developers have already built the hooks in to do what I want.  Similarly, when MODx has a bug, nine times out of ten, it's really a browser bug, a MySQL/PHP/Apache bug, or a hosting error. The one time out of nine that it's a realy MODx bug, it's usually extremely easy to track down because the design is so sensible.

The robustness, too, continually amazes me. I've run a number of MODx sites for some time and I have yet to have a site go down or malfunction due to a bug in MODx. Given the laxness of PHP, I never expected this kind of reliability from a CMS.

Security is a particular area where I think MODx can have a particular advantage - I have some security background, and while I do think there are areas where the MODx model can be improved (the existing role based implementation doesn't work well with certain use cases), at least it is built on a foundation that can actually work. The hierarchical document tree is key - enhance the system to include the appropriate container and document-level security (possibly one thing might be to add specific access controls to document groups, containers, and individual documents - for example, implement access control lists.). Throw in some specific inheritance features and MODx will have a document security capability that no other open source CMS I've worked with can handle (at least not easily).

MODx security is somewhat in transition as we move to 0.9.7. Given your background, it would be great to have you take a look at the 0.9.7 alpha release and comment on the new security system and how well it would meet your needs (If you're not too busy).

http://wtf.modxcms.com/downloads/

Thanks again for the great feedback.

Bob

[Photowebmax]

My brief experience with Drupal sort of echoed the OP, but I don't have the developer experience to put it all into good words.

I installed Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, Textpattern, CMS Made Simple and a couple of others. I probably spent more time with Drupal than the others.

I found Drupal to be sort of overwhelming in that there is just so much there. Rather than having a closely followed set of core modules there are like hundreds of them. I also found the Drupal bulletin board to be all over the place. Here the board seems more focused, more agreeable and more concerned about leaving good bread crumbs for others to follow.

In the end I decided to stick with Wordpress for blogs, MODx for CMS needs and regular XHTML & CSS for static sites...

Max

[ChuckTrukk]

If you guys remember, I was looking at Drupal a few months back for a really long time. From what I saw, I can echo others sentiments that Drupal:
- can be very heavy after adding needed articles
- can be a pain to design for

On my local MAMP server, I had to increase the RAM given to Apache several times after adding many modules. The modules are great for functionality. But they all add up in resources needed. I feel Drupal is great if you've got a really big budget for hardware and design, and need a highly interactive community site. The biggest pros for Drupal I've seen are:
- CCK (similar to TV's and using snippets instead of module addons- think 5 star rating snippet)
- Views module - this is GREAT!!!!!!!!!
   + the functionality can be done with ditto/html but the Views WYSIWYG is awesome if power hungry
   + not available for 6.0 yet and is the main reason I didnt use Drupal for that project
- Multi-sites (though this increases the need for good hardware)

But you really need either a good team (1 for programming and 1 for design) or some pre-built sites you know well and deploy/customize.

Chuck

[a7]

However I must say the article by ifthenelse is pure FUD - He doesn't actually say !anything. Therefor it is not worth anything until proven with facts.

I wonder if this comment is typical of the Drupal forums?  I must say that we're used to much more polite and civil discourse around here. The OP raised some interesting questions about CMS architecture and development and spoke from his experience as a user with both Drupal and MODx.

I think you'll find that most of the people here are ready to admit that Drupal is a useful CMS and that, for some people, it might be a better fit than MODx.

We would welcome your comments as well on how MODx and Drupal compare, but those opinions would carry more weight if you tried a little harder not to insult other forum members and if you actually installed MODx before posting your opinions.

Hello Bob, I am not speaking for the drupal community only for myself.
The only thing I said is that posting negative allegations about other systems (especially in the open source world) without naming facts is FUD.
I did not say anything, espescially nothing bad, about MODx. I'll probably come back and post here once I've got something to say.
Also I don't think there is a problem with posting opinions like the Photowebmax or ProWebscape did as they only posted opinions but things like:

"So much so that Drupal now is very inconsistent in how it does things - especially regarding security."

Are simply bad for open source itself. You read FUD about Joomla here, Drupal there and about MODx somewhere else how would you want to stop it without naming the facts.
There are Security audits, security mailinglists, security guidlines for writing modules, ... - there is a whole team at drupal caring about security. Even people like Rasmus Lerdorf work to improve Drupal security.

“I love finding custom CMS because I know I can break into it. If I see Drupal and its up to date I just give up.”

- paraphrase of Rasmus Lerdorf

So if you want to read some more about drupal security here is some information:
http://drupal.org/security
http://drupal.org/security-team
http://drupal.org/node/36526
http://drupal.org/project/security_scanner

I am not comparing MODx with Drupal yet so my opinion about how they compare does not carry any weight. I only think such a statement shouldn't be left uncommented as they leads to false assumptions.
And here the top 5 Reasons why Developers don't use Drupal http://www.nicklewis.org/node/968

[splittingred]

There are Security audits, security mailinglists, security guidlines for writing modules, ... - there is a whole team at drupal caring about security. Even people like Rasmus Lerdorf work to improve Drupal security.

Just because a lot of people work on something does not make it a *better* product.

“I love finding custom CMS because I know I can break into it. If I see Drupal and its up to date I just give up.”

- paraphrase of Rasmus Lerdorf

This, my friend, is far more FUD than anything else in this thread. Please don't come onto our forums and spread propaganda like this.

So if you want to read some more about drupal security here is some information:
http://drupal.org/security
http://drupal.org/security-team
http://drupal.org/node/36526
http://drupal.org/project/security_scanner
I am not comparing MODx with Drupal yet so my opinion about how they compare does not carry any weight. I only think such a statement shouldn't be left uncommented as they leads to false assumptions.

Fair enough.

And here the top 5 Reasons why Developers don't use Drupal http://www.nicklewis.org/node/968

That article is horrid. Let me expound:

1. 'Our API is Only as Powerful as the Developer's Knowledge of It '
That's a lame excuse - any API is like that. Drupal is not alone. What makes a good API is three factors:

1. Power - A good API is powerful, fast, and does what it needs to do with excellent efficiency.
2. Accessibility - if an API is too obfuscated and hard to understand, then it's not likely it will find wide adoption. Well thought-out APIs are not only powerful, but have excellently designed models that are easy to quickly understand.
3. Extensibility - A good API can easily be overlayed and developed on top of, and should be easily able to be adapted into other MVC or OOP design frameworks (or non-oop frameworks, for that matter).

2.Developers Hold a Deeply Held Believe that *their* tool is the best
Nonsense. This is a generic, stereotyped attack on developers. I personally dont find my frameworks to be the best in everything. I wish PHP had the scaffolding capabilities of RoR. I wish MODx had the revisioning and rollbacks of CMSes like Stellent. They are better in those areas. The writer of this article is horribly biased toward PHP, by his statement: "Oh, btw, RoR sux."

3. Developers Often Don't Form Opinions From Experience
You've got to be kidding me. Maybe beginners dont, but most every serious dev I know always checks out a product or toolkit before making a statement on it. Most, as well, also try to implement that software or language into a project at least once.

4. Anti-PHP snobbery.
Bah. I hear this in any community. In fact, I'm willing to be there's more Anti-Anti-(languagehere) snobbery that there is opposition to the software. What does this have to do with Drupal in particular? There's _tons_ of PHP CMSes.

5. Drupal Doesn't Speed Up Development for Developers Who Aren't Drupal Ninjas
This is a major core problem with Drupal. It doesn't have the core principle of good API - easily accessible and understandable without compromising power or flexibility.


All in all, that was a bad article, that really didn't produce any good pro-Drupal arguments. It seemed to bash developers more than anything. If you want to gain developers, it's a pretty bad idea to go around bashing other developers.