As the following diagram shows, MODx breaks the limitations that are generally found in CMSs and yet provides the simplicity necessary to quickly start developing.
Content management systems are used when one wants to create a site that can be self-maintained. It really does replace a programmer for maintenance. The websites for most companies have simple workflows, if any. And there are a lot of individuals who would like to have a website for themselves, just like everyone wanted to have a business card. Content management systems avoid having to pay professional rates for simple websites when you can create and maintain such sites yourself. You might want to use a professional to initially create the website, but still maintain it yourself in order to provide a quicker turnaround time in updating new content. These are situations where a CMS like MODx provides a solution.
Application frameworks take over where the limitations of CMSs begin—when you want more than what is possible. To use any application framework, you must know the language it uses. But if you really want to develop, then you better be a programmer—but a smart one who lets the system handle "the obvious things"!
MODx provides the ease of a CMS and the extendibility of a framework, which is made possible by exposing a new architecture that is both easy and flexible. It is possible to create very complex and custom sites in MODx. Hence, one can start developing a complete site in MODx without any programming knowledge and use expertise only for the elements that need programming skills, if they are needed.
Another interesting concept of MODx is how it handles templating. Unlike most CMSs available, there is no need to learn any templating language in order to introduce a theme to your site. Hence, it does not even have the small learning curve of a templating language.
MODx is designed to be intuitive; hence, it is easy for anyone to understand how to create sites quickly and effectively. Once you have learned the basics, you will realize that the experience keeps getting better.
MODx administration is AJAX-driven, giving you the ability to manage the site with abilities that are very user friendly. Sites created with MODx can also have AJAX-enabled features without much effort. Many built-in snippets, such as the AJAX search snippet available for MODx, come with interesting AJAX functionalities that can be used out-of-the-box.
MODx is search-engine friendly, which means that it has everything to help you get your site listed on Google or any other famous search engine.
MODx is an open source project and, like most open source projects, it has strong community support. There are countless places from which to get help when you are stuck, and almost all queries get answered within a day. Moreover, having community support means that support will keep getting better.
All of this makes MODx suitable both for a casual developer who would like a quick site and also for serious developers who want something easy to start with and the option to build sophistication gradually. MODx uses an architecture that helps to overcome most of the disadvantages mentioned under application frameworks and CMSs while retaining their advantages.