What is a Content Management System?

Learn how a CMS helps non-technical users manage content on the web, and why you should choose MODX.

By Ryan Thrash  |  Updated: November 14, 2018  |  5 min read
What is a Content Management System?

Why another open source PHP Content Management System (CMS)?

For many, the world has transitioned from bricks and mortar to bits and bytes. A website is the go-to place to learn about businesses, organizations, events, people and more. While there are a variety of solutions from visual website builders you see advertised on TV, to complex applications that take hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) to implement, these are all varieties of software designed to help you manage the information you want your site visitors to see—a “Content Management System”.

A CMS that is purposely designed to help you securely create, update and manage a wide variety of content types, should allow non-technical users to login and intuitively manage content with little training. For bloggers, developers and advanced users looking for more, our MODX Revolution content management system can help take your website projects to the next level quickly, and make the straightforward to maintain in the long term. For non-technical end users, if you’ve ever cringed when “calling the web guys” to make simple site updates, chances are MODX fits equally as well, too.

Why MODX Revolution CMS?

MODX Revolution, “Revo” for short, is a compelling Content Management Framework that non-developers can actually use and understand. You can certainly use it to build a bespoke marketing site. You can also use it to create applications that would traditionally require deep developer expertise. Because of its track record for security, marketing departments in many Enterprises have adopted it because it’s the perfect balance of simplicity, flexibility and capability.

MODX Revolution CMS’s Devlopment Philosophy

MODX has been rightly dubbed “infinitely configurable”, meaning that you can change the way it works. MODX's CMS was originally created with these guiding principles:

  • Enable it to output super-clean code or virtually anything you wish (no forced template systems or theme system required),
  • Easy for non-technical users to adopt and maintain content on an ongoing basis
  • Make it flexible and let developers work in a way that’s comfortable,
  • Permissions system that makes it easy to create restricted access to things for both visitors and content editors, and
  • Really listen to and encourage outside input (hence being Open Source).

MODX Revolution makes it easy to build HTML5/CSS3-powered sites and custom web applications. There’s no complex template system to learn, and has a robust API developers can use to integrate with other software or build custom functionality. Jeff Veen does a great job of summarizing the not-so-subtle-nuances of what’s broken, with so many Open Source CMSes—even today, after more than a decade. We think we’ve done an admirable job addressing every one of those points with [MODX Revolution]().

MODX Revolution CMS is a Smart Bet

MODX CMS software has a reputation for both truly enabling creative freedom and making smart bets for its software. Three examples:

  • With its first public release in 2005, you could have powered a mobile responsive HTML5/CSS3 website, even though these technologies didn't exist at the time. Similarly, you don’t wait until the software that powers your website catches up to take advantage of whatever technologies or techniques come next. MODX Revolution is already compatible with them today.
  • With our first release of our “next generation” Revo CMS in 2010, MODX chose to use PDO to power its data access layer. The latest release of Drupal (D8) has *finally
  • caught up and is just starting down the optimization and performance stage of its implementation. Wait until you see what comes next from MODX!
  • MODX Cloud has provided a fully functional Cloud hosting platform, tailored to MODX Revolution, since 2012. If you need a quick way explore MODX, want advanced content staging workflows for your Revo sites, or simply want a hosting solution done right that makes maintaining sites correctly as easy as clicking a few buttons, give it a try.

If you want to stay focused on creating and managing your content, and not on chasing the platform that powers your site, MODX Revolution is a very smart choice. At MODX, we think differently about managing content destined for the web. Our philosophy is to embrace flexibility and simplicity, and not to create a platform that restricts you in any way.

Benefits of MODX Revolution CMS

Benefits for Organizations

  • MODX Revolution is a proven platform with a track record of more than a decade

  • Architected for security—Two Factor Authenticaion (2FA) Extras to enhance it

  • Easy to adopt thanks to customizable back-end Manager—no extended training sessions required to be productive

  • Open Source means no proprietary, per-seat or annual renewing licenses

  • Available Commercial Support, straight from the Source

  • Deploy on premise, or in MODX Cloud hosting platform to make maintaing and creating sites fast and straightforward

For End Users & Site Builders

  • MODX Revolution makes it easy to build HTML5/CSS3-powered sites and custom web applications, or whatever comes next
  • Hundreds of pre-existing and highly-flexible Extras, support a wide variety of custom functionality

  • API and code examples make creating new Extras straightforward

  • Accessible Manager Theme for users that require assistive technology

  • Create the content your way: Rich Text Editors, Markdown, HTML code or more

  • Easy to use day-to-day