Looking at the Russian-speaking MODX from the outside, Nikolay Savin aka biz87 today looks like one of its main technical faces. He publishes news on key components, releases MiniShop updates, participates in the management of modx.pro, holds a high position in the platform's internal rating, and now directly advertises his own technical support services right there.

I have no claim against Nikolay in the spirit of "you are a bad programmer." That is not the question at all. The question is different: what is his real role precisely within the MODX community, and to what extent does his public image correspond to what we can verify through open data?

This matters because Nikolay has long been more than just another developer in the market. He effectively influences a platform that continues to speak on behalf of the Russian-speaking MODX community. Consequently, his professional role affects not only his own clients, but also the technical agenda set for the entire community.

The context of why I stopped considering modx.pro a neutral community platform in the first place is detailed separately: “modx.pro is not a brother to the community and end business”. Here, we are talking specifically about Nikolay's role within the established system.

Under what rights does Nikolay actually manage modx.pro?

In 2021, a note was published on modx.pro about the transition of important projects to collective management. miniShop2, pdoTools, and the code of modx.pro itself were moved to the MODX Russian Speaking Community GitHub organization, and roles were distributed among several people.

Nikolay Savin was listed there as the chief moderator of modx.pro and the person responsible for technical decisions in miniShop2. Not the owner of the community, and not a person to whom the platform was exclusively transferred. Source

Later, Nikolay himself published the community's development results and plans, wrote using the collective "we," and talked about what had been done with the site and components, as well as what would happen next. 2021 Results, Plans for 2022.

However, I still haven't found the official moment when he received the rights of a co-owner or manager of modx.pro.

At the same time, in comments that were subsequently deleted, Nikolay wrote to me quite directly: “I am a co-owner and manager of this project.” There he also reported that the RSC had effectively come to an end and only he and Ivan Bochkarev remained. I still have the email notification containing the text of that comment. I have already described the story itself in “How the MODX community died” and the open letter to Nikolay Savin.

After that, modx.pro was completely redesigned. The "About Us" page was also changed. But the public narrative regarding the RSC and the administration remained, and Savin himself is still not designated there as a co-owner or manager.

A simple question arises: who actually manages the community platform today, and why do members of this community have to find out about this by accident from comments?

When everything is calm, we see a "community." When a dispute over authority arises, it turns out there is a specific co-owner and manager capable of deleting a publication or blocking a participant.

For a private website, this is legal and normal. But then we would at least like to honestly understand that this is a private site with specific owners, rather than some abstract public structure.

What about MiniShop

Now in his advertising, Nikolay calls himself the “developer of miniShop2 and MiniShop3.”

The story with miniShop2 is not entirely what one might easily imagine from this phrase. The component itself was created by Vasily Naumkin. After his departure, the rights to miniShop2, judging by public messages, initially ended up with Ivan Bochkarev. Later, critical projects were transferred to the collective management of the modx-pro organization, and it was there that Savin took responsibility for technical decisions in miniShop2. Source

Therefore, I would not yet make loud conclusions about to whom and how exactly the history of MiniShop "belongs." Savin wrote code, released updates, and handled technical decisions. But he was not the original author of miniShop2 and joined an already existing, mature project later.

With MiniShop3, another question arises: who is actually driving the development now?

Looking at the recent history of releases and commits, a very large volume of substantive development is done by Ivan Bochkarev: API, migrations, manager, Vue, orders, import, refactoring, and other major changes. Savin also has code, but a noticeable part of his activity looks like the work of a maintainer: accepting changes, fixing minor things, putting together a release, keeping the project operational. MiniShop3 Releases, MiniShop3 Repository.

I am not claiming that Savin "is not a developer of MiniShop3." He writes code. But there is a difference between "I participate in development and maintain the project" and the image of the product's main technical engine.

And we return to the same question once again: what is his actual role today?

What Nikolay publishes as the technical face of the community

I flipped through several pages of his publications on modx.pro. The bulk of recent years consists of component announcements, releases, updates, and plans for MiniShop and other products.

This is normal content for a maintainer or product owner. But for a person who effectively turns out to be one of the main technical faces of the community, something else stands out: there are noticeably fewer deep engineering publications.

Where are the architectural analyses? Where are the studies of PHP itself? Where is serious work with databases, performance, and application internals? Where are the new technical approaches that make surrounding developers stronger?

Judging by his public footprint, I can see much better how Nikolay has evolved over recent years in management, moderation, release processes, sales, communication, and product promotion.

This is also development. It is just largely not the development of a programmer as a programmer.

13+ years of experience — but along what trajectory?

In his GitHub profile, Savin indicates 13+ years of experience. The number itself proves nothing bad and nothing good. Over thirteen years, one can grow significantly, or mostly gain experience within the exact same working model.

Savin clearly has not stayed at the level of 2013 PHP. His work involves PHP 8, Composer, APIs, Vue, migrations, and static analysis. There is growth.

However, looking specifically at recent years, his public engineering activity looks ambiguous. According to his public GitHub contribution graph, there were 112 contributions in 2024 and 83 in 2025. In 2026, activity increased sharply, but in MiniShop3 itself, a significant portion of the ongoing development is still done by Ivan Bochkarev.

Nikolay biz87's GitHub profile.

The contribution graph does not measure qualification on its own: it includes more than just lines of written code. But combined with the nature of his publications and the history of MiniShop, it suggests a quite reasonable question: is programming still Nikolay's primary professional activity, or is he primarily a manager, maintainer, and salesperson by now?

Based on his public footprint, the second option seems increasingly like reality to me.

In a regular company, this wouldn't be a problem at all. Programmers become managers, and managers delegate development. The problem starts when a person simultaneously remains one of the main public technical authorities of the community and controls the resources that build that authority.

His own rating, his own showcase, his own advertising

In my analysis of modx.pro, I already showed how the user rating algorithm changed several times with Savin's participation. Old authoritative participants lost their positions, fresh activity gained more weight, and Savin himself ultimately ended up at the top.

I am not claiming that the algorithm was specially rewritten for Savin's first place. We cannot read motives directly from a person's head. But the conflict of interest itself does not disappear: a participant in the rating simultaneously influences the rules by which this rating is calculated.

Now another detail has emerged.

In August 2026, Nikolay launched a new commercial block on modx.pro and wrote himself:

"A commercial block has appeared on the main page and under notes. It advertises me."

Why himself? Because the format is being tested. The ad leads directly to his profile on modx.pro, and his rating, publications, comments, and long-term history on the same platform are used as proof of expertise. Source

A closed loop is formed: the platform generates internal reputation, the platform manager participates in the rules for calculating it, and then uses this reputation to sell his own services while securing advertising spots for them on the same platform.

Each element can be explained on its own. But taken together, it hardly resembles an independent technical authority.

Who actually performs the work being sold?

Now Nikolay is advertising MODX technical support in the first person:

"I will figure out why the site is down or lagging."

Not "the team will figure it out." Specifically "I will figure it out."

At the same time, back in 2016, he was publicly looking for additional programmers due to a high volume of orders and wrote separately that he was building his own team. “Programmers wanted for cooperation”.

In other words, a model where orders come through Savin while some of the technical work is performed by other specialists definitely existed for him.

There is another old example as well. When his VPS services started going down, MySQL and HTTP stalled, and he needed to find the cause, Savin posted a job listing looking for a server administration specialist. Source.

These are old cases and they do not prove anything about every single order today. But against the backdrop of current advertising, the question is quite normal: when a client comes specifically for Nikolay Savin's expertise, who will actually perform the work?

Does Nikolay personally diagnose the project? Does he write the code? Does he troubleshoot the server? Or today does his role consist primarily of initial contact, estimation, and delegating the work further?

The client may ultimately receive an excellent service. The question is not about the quality of the unknown executor. The question is whether the client understands whose expertise they are actually buying.

Why this matters for the MODX community itself

Because a technical community inevitably evolves in the direction pulled by the people with the most influence.

If the main platform mostly teaches how to install components, discusses component releases, and sells components, it cultivates matching specialists. I analyzed this problem separately in “The pdoTools and miniShop Ecosystem: Fast Start, Expensive Tail”.

If the actual manager of this platform is himself increasingly busy managing the existing ecosystem and selling its products, where should the impulse for serious engineering rethinking come from?

A manager is not obliged to write code eight hours a day. But a person with such influence determines what is considered development, what beginners learn, which technologies receive attention, and which specialists become visible.

And MODX is already in a very unpleasant spot. Why I consider it a legacy platform and why MODX 3 fundamentally failed to solve this problem is detailed in “MODX is legacy that isn't going anywhere”.

This creates a chain:

legacy platform → old component stack → market for maintaining this stack → platform around this market → manager interested in preserving the working ecosystem

No conspiracy is required here. The system simply develops its own economic incentives.

This is precisely why I care who actually acts as one of the main faces of the MODX community. If engineering growth stops being the center of activity for people at the top, it gradually becomes a problem for everyone learning from this environment.

Why this matters even more for end-business owners

An online store owner is not required to know the internals of MODX, xPDO, pdoTools, or MiniShop. They hire a specialist precisely so that the specialist knows this.

And then they hear:

This is complicated.

You can't just do that.

It will take a long time to redo.

We need to wait for the new version of the component.

This will be expensive.

At the same time, the specialist may be speaking with complete sincerity. Within the specific MODX stack, the task really might be complex.

However, there is a big difference between "the task is objectively complex" and "the task became complex because of the technological foundation your business continues to sit on."

This is one of the main practical problems of legacy software, which I write about in the concept regarding MODX. You can update PHP for years, install new components, modernize individual parts, and keep the system operational. Sometimes that is precisely what needs to be done. But this does not turn the foundation into a modern platform.

You cannot simply turn a Lada into a Ferrari through another round of tuning. You can change the engine, suspension, and brakes, and each subsequent job will indeed be complex and expensive. But at some point, the owner must ask: am I paying for the complexity of my business task, or for the limitations of the vehicle I am continuously offered to drive?

For a MODX project owner, this is especially important because the contractor often lives inside this ecosystem for years themselves. Their knowledge, reputation, components, clients, and income are all located there. This does not mean they are consciously holding the business on legacy out of malice. It is much simpler: a person naturally proposes the path they know best and are accustomed to earning money from.

Therefore, it is useful for the end business to look beyond the internal rating of modx.pro and the prominence of a specialist's name. It is useful to ask who will actually perform the work, what alternatives exist inside and outside of MODX, and whether they are once again paying for complexity generated by the old stack itself.

This is why we separate existing MODX support from gradual migration away from it: legacy sometimes needs to be maintained, but maintenance must not automatically become the strategy for the next ten years.

So what is the real role of Nikolay Savin?

He writes code — that is visible.

He maintains MiniShop — that is also visible.

However, based on the totality of public footprints in recent years, I see him primarily as a manager, maintainer, organizer, and promoter of the existing MODX ecosystem. Programming has not disappeared anywhere, but it no longer looks like the center of his activity.

And this is where my grievance shifts: no longer toward Nikolay as an independent programmer, but toward Nikolay as the de facto face of the community.

If you manage a platform that speaks on behalf of the community, use its rating and history as proof of your own expertise, advertise your own services through it, and have the administrative ability to silence dissenting participants, then questions about your role cease to be a "personal attack."

I am also a member of this community. Moreover, following a technical dispute, I was stripped of my ability to speak on a platform that continues to be called a community platform. Therefore, I consider it completely normal to ask directly:

Nikolay, who are you today for the MODX community? Under what rights do you actually manage its main Russian-speaking platform? What exactly are you personally developing today? What is your real role in MiniShop? What portion of the technical services sold in the first person is performed personally by you?

And the most important question: where is this management model leading the community itself? Toward the growth of engineers and the search for new technical solutions — or toward further maintenance and sales of the ecosystem built around existing legacy?

The problem with MODX today is no longer just old code. Code can be changed gradually — which is why audits, improvements, and managed migrations exist.

It is much harder to change an environment where maintaining legacy has transformed from a temporary necessity into a sustainable economic model.

And if we truly continue to call modx.pro a community, then the community has the right to know who manages it, what role this person actually performs, and where they are steering the technical agenda.