MODx 2.2.4-pl

I have worked with Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress and many aother CMS.
ModX is simply a long way ahead.

Techies call MODx a Content Management System (CMS for short). It's also a pretty schwanky Application Framework. A robust and flexible API and an event override system makes building engaging web projects

I've been developing with Modx Rev for a couple of years. Along my developer journey I have used just about every CMS available. As with anything worthwhile there is a bit of a learning curve. But once you've moved beyond this - almost anything is possible! Really. Its more than a CMS it's a development framework. Simple sites can be setup in minutes while the more complex sites and integration with backend systems is entirely doable. For your schizo clients - multiple sites (contexts) can be hosted within a single instance of modx. As far as bugginess - with very very few exceptions the CMS has worked as advertised and is fantastically stable. In the rare event a bug is found the Modx team is quick to fix; in the meantime the Modx community is even quicker to help out.

Bottom line - if you're a casual developer stick with consumer grade CMS solutions. You'll continue to be very happy. If you're committed to serving your clients a solution that is geared to meet their ever changing requirements and keep up with the pace of today's change - give Modx a shot. It's worth the time and energy. Have fun and good luck!

This is my opinion after few months learning and trying to make MODx site. I am professional programmer but no too much experienced in PHP and web development.
MODx (2.2.0 at the moment) is great CMS, good overall ideas which helps you make sites you want, not what CMS developers designed. Don't expect to make ready to publish site out of the box in minutes. It's not simple but after some learning it gives you real power in website design. But not everything is is ideal, so be prepared for troubles.
MODx separates data from presentation. Your stuff is kept in tree resource list. This list is interpreted by MODx and you modules to present it in browser the way you like. You just insert MODx tags in HTML/PHP text and MODx fills it. There are some samples (not too many) but you have to dig into them to get how it is working.
Pros:
+ You can easily adapt every HTML/CSS template to MODx
+ MODx is modular and very neat in generating content, you can use many modules filters and you can easily make your own additions
+ There are many good fan tutorials on the net about basics
+ You can edit everything needed to development through manager, this includes even color-coded PHP code.
+ Good user rights
+ Making multilingual, multiidomain sites is quite easy
Cons:
- if you hit the wall with your site it's hard to move further - not too much support from other people or developers, docs are ofter lacking descriptions or is obsolete. You are on your own and this can be frustrating. Not everyone wants to dig into sources or is a PHP/AJAX/Frameworks expert.
- many 'standard' features you might expect are missing in the core install and you have to add them as add-ons (like blogging, or site navigation). Add-ons are even less documented and supported.
- Administration manager is slow even on very simple sites. This is because of MODx construction - all resources ar in the tree and it refreshes quite slow; MODx can cache everything but when you edit your site cache have to be cleared almost every time you edit anyting or change settings.
- There are not too many actively developed add-ons
- Things in MODx community seems slow and sleepy. I wouldn't dare to say dead but definitely not promising.
Overall I really like MODx ideas and how it is working but development of MODx-based site is frustrating because of lack of help and docs and I don't know if I will stay with it.

Totally agree with ggedamed about 2+ Revo. The only positive option is the convinient work with templates. All beyond this, the only problems are. Terrible resource management tree (if you've got a lot resourses it will rather knock out the site). Unpredictable functioning. Not espetially user friendly interface. Too many bugs. EVO was fast but highly obsolete. For smaller sites Wordpress is much better! My opinion.

Thanks for providing such useful information. I really appreciate your professional approach.
modx website development

My main problem with MODx Revolution (v 2.x.x) is the admin interface slowness and (un)usability. Some examples:
- I have to wait 20 secs for every operation; the developers will say that my system is the source of the problem, I'll say that my system works fine for every other CMS I've tried.
- if you are a mouse user you have to do everything one-at-a-time; I mean, try to install 20 addons...
- you cannot copy (Ctrl+C) text from admin interface - this is plain stupid
- some addons (last I tried the Articles addon) are plain broken, even they are "stable" versions

Why am I using it though, you ask? I love the templating system and maybe I'm nostalgic. You know, MODx was once the most promising CMS. But this is not enough and I'm searching right now for a CMS with a templating system as convenient as MODx's. When I find it I'll switch completely.

The previous version (MODx Evolution, last version 1.0.5 since January 2011) is fast and stable. Sadly, it was abandoned by the dev team (despite what they're saying on their site). I migrated a few sites from Revolution to Evolution, but I must change to a supported CMS.

It is true, MODX is quite difficult to grasp at first, but if you like flexibilty or you are mainly a designer which looks for a CMS that does what you want and NOT one that tells you what to do, then MODX is for you. If you are looking for something that works out-of-the-box, then it's not, try Joomla, Drupal or WordPress instead.

I personally think that you'll find Joomla or Drupal easier at first, but *much* more difficult to use when it comes to customization, or at least, that was my experience with it.

Also, if you find MODX Revolution too complex or slow, try the previous version, MODX Evolution, it is lighter and more simple to use, but also perfectly capable of serving out a small (50-500 pages) and medium (3000-4000 pages) sized website.

Used MODx for some two years. The changes they've made have complected the whole idea of simplicity and this new cloud thing they are doing, I personally think is just stupid. The changes the developers of MODx are making has force me to move on.

CMS Made Simple is just that, simple.

modx is impressive I have played with joomla, drupal, wordpress, typo3, cmsmadesimple and some custom ones.

modx basics are very quick to learn i.e. a basic website. However it is so flexible and deep the I am after using it for quite a while still learning new tricks and features. You can make it very user friendly for a administrator/client and at the same time make it look any, and I mean anyway you want.

It does not mean it is a CMS for all jobs. E.g. if you need a e-commerce, LMS, CRM, Blog etc site use the system that is best for the job. However when it comes to the majority of all websites modx can do it. I am a fan.

ModX is more than a beauty, it is a star. Speed, flexibility, performance, that's all in.

So what's the trick? There is one drawback: you have to take some time to learn it.
For me it was worth doing it as I lost a lot of time with other CMS like Drupal or Joomla trying to customize them to my customers' needs.

ModX is different. You have have to adapt your need to the CMS. The CMS adapts to your needs. This is so incredible, but true.

Out of pure curiosity I started to play with this CMS and made a case, which included multilanguage and some customization. I'm a TYPO3 user and it's clear MODx can't match the functionallity TYPO3 has, especially if you want to keep it managable for editors. Content elements is something I mis with all other CMSes, but MODx has some nice tricks up its sleave and is very flexible. On top of that it's really easy to learn and customize. And I've always been a great fan of Smarty for templating.

Modx Revolution is not quite ready to be used like Modx Evolution. I believe it'll take some more time. Thanks to a previous post here, I've also found that Textpattern (with the Tinymce WYSIWYG Editor plugin) works really well for smaller sites. Both CMS offer great flexibility for webdesigner (own html4 or html5, grids etc., without having to adjust to particular site structure, stylesheets etc.) and are very user friendly.

modx evolution was almost perfect, revolution (i.e. modx 2) has all features, but it's admin is so terribly slow I'm moving to other CMS. Too bad. :(

After 6 months of use as a programmer and administrator, the biggest impression was TERRIBLY SLOW, and not so good backend. A shame because the mods could really be a great CMS.