The Best MODx Hosting

What is MODX?

MODX has developed two award winning, flexible open source content management systems with an active, international community for continued development and support. With MODX as your CMS, you get a fully customize site with your own templates, and your CMS never prevents you from getting the design you want for your site.

How Does MODX Compare To Other Popular CMS’s?

While MODX Revolution is frequently used as a CMS because of its custom features, it is frequently compared to three different content management systems that are also open source and widely supported: Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla.

If you are considering MODX against these three widely used website CMS platforms, here’s how MODX stands out by comparison:

MODX or Wordpress?: If you are seriously considering MODX, then you have probably already reviewed Wordpress and determined it either a) isn’t flexible enough for your development needs or b) you want to make some mods to the PHP framework and need something less complex to build on from scratch. MODX can suffice as a blogging platform and Wordpress can be used as a platform for custom web development, but they are better served for their core purpose.

MODX or Drupal?: On the surface, Drupal and MODX appear to be very similar in performance and options for developers. MODX has the advantage over Drupal, however, because most users who edit content will find its administration area to be friendly and easier to use than Drupal. Both platforms allow you to build sites from scratch, but the complexity of using Drupal both pre and post development may lead many to try MODX.

MODX or Joomla?: When it comes to user experience, Joomla leaves a lot to be desired for developers, designers, and content managers when compared to MODX. Despite its larger community of developers and wider use, experienced developers still tend to find Joomla to be frustrating and un­friendly to themselves, front­end designers and content managers. By comparison, MODX’s ease of use make it a wiser selection for multi­user websites.

How To Install MODX

You can download MODX Evolution or Revolution from MODX’s website, as it is not readily available as a “one­click” installation via the control panels of most hosting providers. To install MODX on your site, you'll need access to the root directory and a MySQL database. Check with both MODX and your hosting provider for full parameters and prerequisites. If you aren’t comfortable downloading and installing MODX, there is a directory of local MODX pros on their website and the team at MODX can be hired directly, too, to help you take your next steps.

How Much Does MODX Cost?

MODX is an open source content management system, so it shouldn’t require any fees to download. There is also a cloud developed by MODX for hosting and they normally offer a free trial for that solution. If you’re considering a third party for hosting, you shouldn’t need to make any changes to your package. While there aren’t as many plugins (called ‘Extras’ in the MODX ecosystem) available for MODX as there are for other open source CMS platforms, there are themes and Extras available to get you started.

If you choose to purchase premium extras for MODX, then you will obviously incur a fee. With MODX’s emphasis on ease of design and SEO­friendliness, first time users who are experienced with development and design probably won’t need to spend a ton of money on Extras to go from nothing to something.

Choosing a Host:

There are a ton of open source content management systems out there to choose from as you set out to build your website. What sets MODX apart from other CMS options? As we mentioned above, it is engineered for custom development and adaptable to the latest search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

Designers, developers, and marketing pros across the web love using MODX because of how it can be custom built to meet their needs.

Compared to a lot of the more popular CMS’s, MODX provides developers, content managers and designers a custom, scalable platform to build a website that can grow and evolve. Freedom for designers, freedom for non­technical content authors and freedom for your site to grow and change with your business.

One way MODX does this is by providing shortcut codes, sometimes called "hooks," allowing you to create your site with a minimum of code, making for a clean website search engines like. MODX will also auto­generate certain meta tags that help with SEO, and the way your site is displayed in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Revolution Or Evolution?

MODX actually has two CMS releases ­ Revolution (referred to in their community as ‘Revo’) and Evolution (aka ‘Evo’). Revolution is the most popular version of their CMS today ­ if you are looking for their most up to date, feature rich, and community­driven platform ­ Revolution is the solution for you.

MODX Evolution, on the other hand, is their original platform. While it receives patching updates to remain stable and secure, you won’t find a lot of new features, cutting edge Extras, or community­driven development on the Evolution platform.

To make the most of your website on the MODX platform, you should probably use a Revolution, not Evolution.

That said, if you are married to the MODX Evolution platform, there are many hosting providers with the capacity to host it. Confirm your server requirements and check with your MODX hosting provider to make sure what you are using is compatible with your CMS.