drupal vs wordpress brand development featured

Drupal vs. WordPress

1 April
2020

Posted by
Lyndsey

What is a Content Management System?

You probably guessed it but a Content Management System (CMS) is a System for Managing Content… 

Most websites have a CMS attached to it to allow site administrators to easily add, edit, review and delete content instead of having to email a developer every time they want to fix a typo. 

CMS’s have become more than that though. They have evolved into platforms that extend to the realms of Digital Marketing, e-commerce and even software development.

Two of the most popular CMS’s are WordPress and Drupal.

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WordPress and its benefits

WordPress is by far the most popular CMS out there and now makes up 43% of the internet. It’s popularity through the years has resulted in the maturing of an ecosystem of themes, plugins and support which now allows anyone to quickly put together a web presence.

It’s quick

Download WordPress, download a theme, change the content to suit your needs and add plugins to add the functionality you need. If you have a little experience you could put a project together in a matter of minutes/ hours.

It’s easy

The learning curve is not steep for WordPress. The CMS itself has a relatively friendly UI and an intuitive layout. Without investing time in learning the platform, you will be able to perform some basic tasks like adding and editing content. 

When you do run into difficulty, there is loads of documentation and support forums where you are sure to find the answer to your question.

It’s cheap (the initial investment is anyway…)

WordPress itself is free to download and use. However, there are a lot of Premium themes and plugins which you may require so it’s advisable to bear (grr) that in mind when costing your project.

Developers

There are (and always will be) a lot of WordPress developers out there should you need one. This is because of the size and scale of the WordPress ecosystem.

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Drupal and its benefits

Drupal, while not as popular as WordPress, has developed a reputation as being the CMS of choice for enterprise level projects. This is primarily as a result of its security and scalability. Drupal is better suited to projects that have more stakeholders involved and require a lot of planning and flexibility.

It’s secure

Drupal is built with security in mind and dispatches security updates regularly to keep on top of it. 

Security is WordPress’ Achilles heel. This is partially because of its popularity. Hackers play a numbers game and because of this there is more software developed which is used to hack WordPress sites. There are also more WordPress plugins available which can be targeted for hacking.

It’s scalable

Drupal leverages software development best practices which makes it a much more scalable solution. It has a modular approach to development which makes code more reusable, testable and interoperable. 

It can integrate with your business operations

Drupal’s infrastructure allows flexibility when integrating with your business operations. Whether that’s integrating with a third party technology or generating reports based on web activity or user input. Whatever your business needs are, Drupal will be able to conform to them.

It can deliver consistent brand representation

Drupal’s modular approach to code also encourages the development of web projects with more consistent brand representation. Additionally, Drupal’s user permissions system and sign off process can be leveraged to protect brand consistency. 

It’s a long-term value option

Drupal requires more of an initial investment to get the project off the ground. But for projects that need to be scalable from the beginning, Drupal provides a more long-term value option.

Multi-User flexibility 

Drupal comes with a dynamic users module which gives us huge flexibility when managing user roles and permissions. This is incredibly useful on an enterprise level where there are multiple users managing content for different departments across an organisation.

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WordPress is good for…

Getting out of the blocks quickly and cheaply for projects that might not require some long-term attention. It’s really good for:

  • DIYers
  • SMEs, small business owners and sole traders looking for a web presence
  • Bloggers

Drupal is good for…

Long-term, enterprise-level projects, that have multiple stakeholders involved and that need to be reliable and scalable. It’s really good for:

  • Government bodies
  • Educational institutions
  • NGOs
  • Growing businesses
  • Newspapers (online publishers)

Piquant is a leading Drupal development agency based in Limerick. Check out our web development work. 

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