MODX vs. Optimizely Content Management System

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…
$39
per month
Optimizely Content Management System
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Optimizely Content Management System (CMS) is purpose-built for marketers, and fully composable for developers. The CMS supports the end-to-end content lifecycle, helping users to deliver on-brand, high-impact digital experiences that 'wow' audiences.N/A
Pricing
MODXOptimizely Content Management System
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Base
$39
per month
Pro
$99
per month
Business
$349
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
MODXOptimizely Content Management System
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalRequired
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
MODXOptimizely Content Management System
Features
MODXOptimizely Content Management System
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
MODX
9.9
3 Ratings
19% above category average
Optimizely Content Management System
8.5
167 Ratings
3% above category average
Role-based user permissions9.93 Ratings8.5167 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
MODX
8.0
3 Ratings
3% above category average
Optimizely Content Management System
7.9
164 Ratings
2% above category average
API6.13 Ratings8.0157 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language9.92 Ratings7.9125 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
MODX
9.4
3 Ratings
19% above category average
Optimizely Content Management System
7.8
192 Ratings
0% above category average
WYSIWYG editor9.83 Ratings7.7176 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness9.93 Ratings8.2164 Ratings
Admin section8.93 Ratings8.1176 Ratings
Page templates9.93 Ratings8.2170 Ratings
Library of website themes7.03 Ratings7.596 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design9.93 Ratings7.9174 Ratings
Publishing workflow9.93 Ratings8.2170 Ratings
Form generator9.93 Ratings6.7129 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
MODX
9.5
3 Ratings
24% above category average
Optimizely Content Management System
7.5
178 Ratings
1% above category average
Content taxonomy9.93 Ratings8.1163 Ratings
SEO support10.03 Ratings7.1162 Ratings
Bulk management9.03 Ratings7.0135 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions8.93 Ratings7.5141 Ratings
Community / comment management9.93 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
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User Ratings
MODXOptimizely Content Management System
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(3 ratings)
8.6
(220 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.7
(34 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.5
(89 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.2
(4 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
6.4
(2 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
MODXOptimizely Content Management System
Likelihood to Recommend
MODX
[MODX is well suited for] all websites, from blogs to corporate sites. It is fast scalable and really good. A small site can be build really fast, and a large site can be made extremely scalable. A website redesign is easy to implement with a new template, without having to redo the content. It got great user groups and users and back-office access can be completely customized.
While ecommerce is possible with some really good plugins I would only use MODX with ecommerce for sites where ecommerce is not the primary role. For pure ecommerce sites rather use a dedicated system like e.g. PrestaShop (i would say the same thing with other ecommerce plugins e.g. WP woo commerce don't do it unless its a site add on.)
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Optimizely
If you want to build a website quickly there are plenty of ways to do so with some great examples and plenty of support both from the company and in the forums. if you want to build a more complex structure you can but be ready to spend the time to build exactly what you need as a solid foundation goes a massive way before building out content and making those choices early and sticking with them helps
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Pros
MODX
  • Ease of use - the MODX platform is very easy to use for someone who may have limited experience in content management.
  • Content blocks - the content blocks within MODX add to the usability and customization of the website being managed.
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Optimizely
  • I think the user interface for content admins is very good and very competitive. And compared to other providers, the technology that CMS in particular has. So the way it integrated the net ecosystem is very well because it follows the MBC pattern. So basically it just allows really simple implementations for what would normally be complex components on any other sort of vendor that's out there.
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Cons
MODX
  • The user interface was confusing at times.
  • Not a plug and play CMS system.
  • The site manager doesn't always run fast.
Read full review
Optimizely
  • Magento did have some nice tools for creating product groups or carousels for promotion. Opti seems to be lacking in that.
  • A blog - maybe this is available and we don't have it installed, but a searchable blog would be very appreciated.
  • Structured Data/MicroData - maybe it's our install, but this seems to be missing
  • Meta data: we have access to limited types and need to make a request from IT, it would be nice to be able to access more to adjust for SEO needs.
  • When in a folder on the BLOCKS tab, it would be wonderful to hit the MEDIA tab and stay in that same folder.
  • I have some less technical people that will make folders with spaces - which Opti handles, but it would be great if it wouldn't accept a space or gave an error message not to use them.
  • I think I know why the extra code is added to urls and image links, but it causes issues when taking things from our testing site to the live site. For example, I need to copy the Navigation from Inspect Element on testing to put it in production. I have learned to work around it, but it's not my favorite.
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Likelihood to Renew
MODX
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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Optimizely
Since I work on the implementation side of things, and do not directly own licensing for Ektron CMS, I have to base this rating off of how I think it will be received or presented to customers looking to start a new site deployment. I try to remain CMS agnostic, though my specialty is with the .NET and Microsoft stack. Because of the experience I have working with Ektron, I tend to be more forgiving with the shortcomings as I am familiar with how to work around them or past them from experience. Being familiar with the community available also helps, as you become familiar with the best approaches to find solutions to your issues. Each product has it's ups and downs and all of them are only going to be as good as the company or development team implementing them can make them. This is EXTREMELY important to remember when choosing a CMS, as it can make or break your expensive investment.
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Usability
MODX
Great and easy to use for both the coder and the end user. Especially if setup correctly by the coder.
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Optimizely
From our editors perspective they find the CMS system easy and to clear to use. Our developers find it very easy to design on and appreciate the level of service support available. It's also always evolving and getting better every year. We find this investment reassuring and encourages us to try keep pace and see how we can continue to push the envelope and continue to improve all aspect of our websites and online touch points.
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Reliability and Availability
MODX
We have not had it go down due to bugs etc. especially when comparing it to other cms out there.
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Optimizely
Unplanned outages or errors are fairly rare in our instance. And when there are issues, they're usually fixed fairly quickly
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Performance
MODX
Damn its fast. really good page speed out of the box.
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Optimizely
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
MODX
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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Optimizely
I attended multiple trainings/tutorials early in the process. The vendor-supplied content about Optimizely was engaging for users/attendees (I often analyze training content, compliance programs, governance plans), which helps our OCM people by having good "word of mouth" about the product long before a rollout ever happens. I actually when the user-focused portion of the Optimizely Academy twice in 2022 to ensure I had a grasp on operability and to be able to support the training and OCM efforts
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Online Training
MODX
No answers on this topic
Optimizely
Ektron is one of the best solution for .Net platform. Over the years have improved the performance issues that the previous versions had. My only complain is right now you can't do Page builder pages if you choose to have a MVC architecture
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Implementation Rating
MODX
Good system
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Optimizely
I was not fully involved.
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Alternatives Considered
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 what we were looking for.
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Optimizely
Optimizely Content Management System is much more feature rich, and less complex that the other CMS platforms we have used. Optimizely Content Management System is more intuitive in how the content is structured and how easy it is to pull blocks of content to create the layout of a page.
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Scalability
MODX
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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Optimizely
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
MODX
  • Increased security permissions of the users and freelancers who worked on our website.
  • Gave our developers the ability to create any page that they wanted with custom code.
  • Hindered our Marketing team's ability to stay on top of our content strategy with changes.
Read full review
Optimizely
  • Flexibility with design that allows us to work towards our mission of 'Tennis Opened Up'
  • Speed of deploying content, meaning users can really on us for the most up-to-date content on tennis in Britain
  • Ability to have different logged-in areas for different user groups, allowing us to create more bespoke and personalised experiences
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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

Optimizely Content Management System Screenshots

Screenshot of Content delivery: Developers can use modern GraphQL and REST APIs to query content from any source and send it to any channel or device.Screenshot of User roles and permissionsScreenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Add an image: Optimizely Visual Builder offers a range of editing features designed to make content creation and layout building intuitive and accessible to both technical and non-technical users. A drag-and-drop system is used to add, move, and rearrange elements within the layout, for quick and flexible content organization.Screenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Create an experience: Create an Experience functionality in Optimizely Visual Builder offers a code-free way to build and manage captivating digital experiences. It offers pre-built content blocks or elements (like text, images, buttons, forms, etc.) that can be positioned on the page layout as desired. Visual Builder offers extensive options to customize the appearance and behavior of these elements. Users can modify colors, fonts, sizes, animations, and even add interactive features providing flexibility in arranging content, accommodating various design needs and responsiveness across different screen sizes.Screenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Publish: The Visual Builder displays changes in real-time as they are made. This includes side-by-side previews for different devices like desktops, tablets, and mobiles. Before publishing, the Interactive Preview mode can be used to test elements like forms, buttons, and other interactive components to ensure they work as expected on the live site. Changes can then be published directly from the Visual Builder interface, making them instantly available to site visitors.Screenshot of the central location to manage assets, editing and publishing content.