MODX vs. RWS Tridion Sites

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
MODX
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
The MODX Digital Experience Platform provides everything you need to build, host, and maintain amazing websites your way. The vendor says that with MODX CMS and cloud hosting, users have complete control over their creative vision and the experiences they deliver, without restriction or compromise. They can focus more on building great digital experiences, and less on hosting and maintaining. If you ever need help, MODX Professionals are available worldwide and direct support from…
$0
RWS Tridion Sites
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
RWS Tridion Sites provides web content management capabilities, connecting people, processes, and information across teams, brands, and markets, to deliver impactful online experiences globally. RWS Tridion Sites' DPX platform enables the use of either traditional or headless publishing. It includes advanced features such as automated personalization, multilingual capabilities and Semantic AI. The BluePrinting® technology at the core of RWS Tridion Sites simplifies reuse and…N/A
Pricing
MODXRWS Tridion Sites
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Base
$39
per month
Pro
$99
per month
Business
$349
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MODXRWS Tridion Sites
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPAYMENT FORMS MODX Cloud accepts major credit cards and PayPal for your hosting subscription. We can only accept check (cheque) payments on the Enterprise Plan, annually. CANCELLATION You may cancel your MODX Cloud account at any time. Before you cancel you'll be reminded to backup and remove all your live websites and then follow the instructions for cancellation. If you cancel within the first month, we'll provide you with a full refund. REFUNDS If you cancel within the first month, we'll provide you with a full refund. All other cancellations will be effective at the end of your current billing period. We do not provide refunds for remaining days or months on monthly or annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
MODXRWS Tridion Sites
Considered Both Products
MODX
Chose MODX
After having built sites with wordpress, joomla, drupal, october cms, craft cms, magento, presstashop, opencart, os commerce and more it is my number 1 (october cms is 2).

Chose MODX
The other company that we looked into was Wordpress and all of the features that it offered our organization. What MODX offered to us from development to everyday use just made more sense for our organization as a whole. Wordpress is still a great CMS platform, just not exactly …
Chose MODX
As said before, MODX is a coder's dream because of the flexibility it provides to own your code and has true creative freedom. Because of that, there is a bigger learning curve when it comes to a non-developer trying to iterate on the CMS with content additions and changes. To …
RWS Tridion Sites
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Interwoven teamsites, Documentum, Adobe - teamsites and documentum are old and limited. Adobe rocks but I like where I am and Tridion does a lot of the same things. No need to reinvent the wheel or move to a lateral product.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
It is a nuclear missile compared to the other handguns and knives on the market today. But it also requires nuclear technicians and expertise that a handgun doesn't require. Do you need to decimate your competition and you have the investment capabilities necessary to put a …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Tridion is much better for multi-site installations, though Sitecore is a bit easier for content editors to know content types are being used based on visual icon indicators. We've had content editors pick the wrong templates by accident, but Sitecore's visual indicator …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Adobe CQ is SDL Tridion main competitor. Sitecore is designed for smaller companys. Adobe CQ is all java and thus has limitations. Sitecore is also all .net and has limitations. Both use a dynamic model and everything is compiled at runtime. SDL Tridion can be published in a …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Tridion again seemed to be more enterprise level then EpiServer, EpiServer allowed for faster ramp up time of a intuitive .NET framework, but Tridion seemed to have more tools and overall functionality once the CMS was customized towards the needs of the customer.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
I did not play a role in selecting this product so I can't say how it stacked up. I do know that Tridion is an improvement over the last CMS.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
I feel that SDL Tridion's User Interface is to difficult for content authors to understand. I worked with a client that used Tridion for years and she still would get lost in the UI and had to ask questions. There was close to 30% of continual time spent on the project simply …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
SDL Tridion is far superior to CommonSpot. It is much more user friendly and increases efficiency.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
I believe the biggest selling factor for SDL was its customer service and it ability to be responsive. We knew that it was a company that was going to be around for a long time and would continue to provide the support that we would need in the long term.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Tridion's strength is really hosting multiple websites across development, test stage and production.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
The decision to purchase Tridion was made at a corporate level removed from the technical teams. Against our previous open source solution, this has been wildly expensive, impossible to find experienced developers for, and has required completely retooling our organization.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
SDL has a better API and also handles high server load much better. Also, the built-in integrations for translations are more suited for performing lots of translations for many sites. However, Umbraco, like Tridion, has a great community and finding solutions with both …
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
We didn't chose WordPress because can't handle the traffic we generate. Sitecore is what we are currently looking at and it looks like a much better alternative to Tridion.
Chose RWS Tridion Sites
Adobe does a great job in managing sites. Its user interface for authors is intuitive and leaps and bounds better than SDL Tridions new 2013 UI. The ease of install and management makes Adobe CQ a much better product. However, Adobe CQ (AEM) has limitations. It cannot scale as …
Features
MODXRWS Tridion Sites
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
MODX
9.9
Ratings
20% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
9.0
Ratings
11% above category average
Role-based user permissions9.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
MODX
8.0
Ratings
5% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
9.1
Ratings
18% above category average
API6.10 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language9.90 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
MODX
9.4
Ratings
20% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
8.5
Ratings
10% above category average
WYSIWYG editor9.80 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness9.90 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Admin section8.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Page templates9.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Library of website themes7.00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design9.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publishing workflow9.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Form generator9.90 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
MODX
9.5
Ratings
26% above category average
RWS Tridion Sites
7.6
Ratings
3% above category average
Content taxonomy9.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
SEO support10.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Bulk management9.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions8.90 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Community / comment management9.90 Ratings3.00 Ratings
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User Ratings
MODXRWS Tridion Sites
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(0 ratings)
9.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
6.3
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MODXRWS Tridion Sites
Likelihood to Recommend
In my opinion, MODX is usually the choice of a developer who wants to build out custom designs that create really interesting web pages, but when it comes to being easily used and edited by your marketing team, you can run into a lot of issues and end up making simple changes a more involved process.
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SDL Tridion works well for organizations with a large website with a lot of content to continuously create and manage. The use of page templates and component presentations makes creating new pages fairly straightforward. It can be a little cumbersome when it comes to trying to "break from the norm" and build web pages that are outside of the template-driven format; however, there are ways around this to create pages that break away from the normal page-template format of the website. In this regard, SDL Tridion can be pretty flexible, allowing us to create a lot of custom functionality to keep up with constantly changing web trends.
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Pros
  • Custom design capabilities.
  • Works well with plugins.
  • Permission systems for users.
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  • Makes it easy to spin up a new site quickly
  • Allows for numerous users to work on the same site without conflicting with each other's changes
  • Allows you to unpublish changes or revert to old versions if you make a mistake
  • Allows you to time publishing actions (for example, you can set it to happen overnight)
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Cons
  • Content Blocks - I mentioned this as a strength, but it also has its quirks. There are times that things do not function properly within the content blocks we have set up.
  • More Customization - The ability for the average user to customize more without having to know a ton of code.
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  • If you are hoping to orbit the planet with a CMS, Tridion is built to leave the solar system. It is a very very powerful solution built for very serious enterprise businesses in hope of robust capabilities, which could be good or bad.
  • Supporting business users is a hefty lift and requires significant training and regular retraining, and support.
  • It's a niche solution that originally came out of Europe and was largely unknown in America. But today it's growing in popularity across the United States.
  • Finding capable support, and developers specializing in Tridion capabilities isn't always easy. And 8 years ago it was nearly impossible, involving finding European developer support shops in order to get the assistance needed. This is changing though and American developer firms are becoming more widely available.
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Likelihood to Renew
It is the CMS we use the most, not because we know it well but because we literally tried many of other CMS and this one did it for us.
However having said we really do not like the one shoe fits all approach. E..g for eCommerce we usually use PrestaShop etc. if a specialized CMS can do a task rather use that.
However for a general CMS [MODX] is hard to beat.
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I am giving this a semi-high rating because we have already got Tridion up and running and we are still in the process of moving the sites over to Tridion. It is unlikely we will be moving things to a new CMS AGAIN in the near future as the cost to get Tridion was high.
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Usability
Great and easy to use for both the coder and the end user. Especially if setup correctly by the coder.
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The editor user interface is very user friendly and in-site editing makes simple updates fast and easy. The extensibility of Tridion is a big plus and the ability to add our own options into the default Tridion interface helps us integrate with external systems. Finally, the user permissions and security system helps us deploy it within our large organization.
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Reliability and Availability
We have not had it go down due to bugs etc. especially when comparing it to other cms out there.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Damn its fast. really good page speed out of the box.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Great community support on slack.
If you have a paid plugin great support also esp from modmore
If you have cloud hosting MODX support is fast and all servers are optimized for MODX
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Good system
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
The other company that we looked into was WordPress and all of the features that it offered our organization. What MODX offered to us from development to everyday use just made more sense for our organization as a whole. WordPress is still a great CMS platform, just not exactly what we were looking for.
Read full review
Interwoven teamsites, Documentum, Adobe - teamsites and documentum are old and limited. Adobe rocks but I like where I am and Tridion does a lot of the same things. No need to reinvent the wheel or move to a lateral product.
Read full review
Scalability
Very scalable. e.g. in the [MODX] manager you can manage multiple websites at once without having to login else where. it is very convenient and this way resources and be easily managed and shared.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • The positive impact that MODX has had on our organization is that it has allowed us to generate more organic traffic to our site.
  • We are also able to push more paid advertisements to our site on our lead generation landing pages.
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  • SDL is a very complex system. Creating custom components by external vendors turned out to be expensive.
  • The learning curve is very slow, so training takes a lot of time and cost.
  • The revamped corporate site looks clean, modern, and is mobile-friendly.
Read full review
ScreenShots

MODX Screenshots

Screenshot of MODX Manager InterfaceScreenshot of SEO Management - page levelScreenshot of Screenshot of Easy editing landing pageScreenshot of Edit files directlyScreenshot of Create & edit custom fields