Comments on: Experience of WordPress as a CMS

By: Alfred Armstrong

Alfred Armstrong — Thu, 03 May 2007 13:14:20 +0000

Laura, I had a play with Modx and the impression I got was it seemed to be about building pages much more than the backend, which seemed a little thin. I could be wrong, but it felt more like Smarty with a nice admin GUI than a proper framework or CMS.

Please correct me if I’m mistaken!

By: Laura Whitehead

Laura Whitehead — Wed, 02 May 2007 21:01:42 +0000

Hello Alfred (I’m from South Devon, so nice to meet another fellow web dev locally!).
I’ve used quote a few CMS for various clients (Drupal, Joomla and so on), WP is good and easy, but I’m really following and working well with Modx. It takes a while to get your head round it all, but it has amazing potential, and very usable and as a designer let’s you be in control; you can create what you need and adapt what is already there. I’ve been mainly working with Modx now for about 8 months, and the forums are really very friendly and supportive with whatever your query. The only poor part of Modx is the blogging side, which isn’t really what it is meant for anyway! It can be done and well, although I’m still fumbling with the blog side, which WP does infinately better!!!
Give yourself some time and give it a go. Happy to talk if need be.

By: Wayne Smallman

Wayne Smallman — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 20:34:41 +0000

I’ve been looking at using WordPress as a CMS for a couple of clients.

But as Alfred knows, I’m not luvin’ WordPress and it’s arcane template architecture…

By: Alfred Armstrong

Alfred Armstrong — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:49:49 +0000

Kian Ann, yes, WordPress is easy to get going with. I find Joomla a bit overwhelming, frankly. I had a quick look at MODx and I think once it gets a bit more mature and people start authoring extensions for it, it could be quite something.

But work-wise at the minute, everything’s turning out Drupal.

By: Kian Ann

Kian Ann — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:42:37 +0000

Hey Alfred,

Joomla! is a great CMS for small businesses to use.

But I love WordPress as a CMS too, so much easier to configure and install.

Then again, maybe its just because I’m not used to Joomla yet.

By: Alfred Armstrong

Alfred Armstrong — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:00:35 +0000

Neil, I don’t know MODx but I’d be interested to hear of your experiences. Another thing I currently find missing from WordPress is the ability to define different content types (apart from blog entries and pages), although I think it’s get-aroundable, probably.

Drupal is too complex for typical small sites to be worth the trouble, certainly. Joomla is easier to set up and it’s better for e-commerce, if that’s relevant.

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:43:53 +0000

Personally, I always use WordPress as a small, adaptable CMS for clients, but using blogging software for small company projects feels inappropriate. This has led me to investigate alternatives – Drupal is clever but counter-intuitive, Expression Engine is v.nice but costs money. At the moment, I’m thinking of using MODx. Do you know it at all? If so, what do you think?