newbie question

i recently started playing VT2, and it seems that some mods (QOL) are unofficial and require playing on modded servers to use them. it looks like i can't do any leveling or weapon upgrades there, so i plan to move to modded servers after maxing out all my characters and fully upgrading my weapons. but are there people on modded servers (can i matchmake without issues)? also, i'm currently only playing adventure mode, but are there people in chaos wastes or weaves? which mode is the most popular?