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Drupal or WordPress – Which CMS solution is best for my project?
If these two questions are popping up in your mind when choosing the right CMS for your business project, then here’s an ultimate Drupal vs WordPress comparison that will help you choose the right one. Content Management System (CMS) helps you manage your website content, and hence, choosing the right CMS is crucial for your business. WordPress is very popular powering 35.2% of all websites while Drupal is used by 1.9% of all websites.
Well, don’t get swayed by the numbers when comparing Drupal vs WordPress development. You need to be completely unbiased to understand both of these platforms well. Both Drupal and WordPress excel in their respective fields and come with their own advantages and drawbacks.
To make things simpler, here’s a detailed Drupal vs WordPress development comparison guide for you.
Drupal is a free, open-source CMS that is backed by the support of a strong, large community of developers across the globe. Many worldwide businesses are leveraging Drupal development and a good number of renowned websites in the market are built on the Drupal platform.
WordPress is a simple, free, open-source content management system that is used to develop a business website or personal blog site. A large number of prominent websites worldwide are powered by WordPress and today, it is one of the most popular CMS solutions available in the market. With WordPress, it is easy to develop websites without actually having some coding knowledge and skills.
WordPress.org is well-known for its 5-minute installation process. As most of the web hosting service providers offer installation scripts, users simply need to open them and follow instructions available on the screen. Users can rely on the script and avoid setting up databases and other setups that might confuse a beginner. If you want to install WordPress manually, you need to follow some additional steps, however, the process will still be shorter to complete.
The installation process of Drupal is quite straightforward, just like WordPress. Users simply need to download the latest version from the official site and follow the on-screen instructions. As compared to WordPress, it takes online a few minutes more to install Drupal, but you won’t face any problem during the process.
Drupal also offers special installation packages, so if you already have an idea about what type of site you are going for, you can automatically install specific modules with Drupal.
WordPress is easy to understand and beginner-friendly. Newbies can easily create a blog site on their own and publish posts without any problem. Just by exploring user interfaces, menus, and options, you will learn to change the look and feel of your WordPress website. Moreover, there are numerous online resources that you can use to learn new things and start using the platform like a pro.
Drupal is not recommended for beginners. It is complex to handle and requires at least some basic knowledge of HTML, and CSS to manage the website. If you want to create large, complex websites, you will have to polish your programming skills since you won’t get everything with a visual editor, unlike other platforms.
The WordPress repository offers tons of WordPress themes and plugins that help users to enhance their websites. You can add and modify features of your personal blog or business website without having any strong technical knowledge. WordPress has a wealth of thousands of plugins and so you can find plugins and themes for various purposes. Some are even properly coded and are backed by professional support. Hence, with WordPress development, you get everything needed to build a powerful website.
Even though Drupal is not as popular as WordPress, it surprisingly offers a huge number of available extensions. Unlike WordPress, you will need to leave the system and search for the modules manually before installing them. Although it’s not a big deal for professionals, beginners might get startled by the whole process.
Generally, Drupal modules are not as good as the WordPress ones. You usually need to pay for the right modules. The same is the case for themes as you will need to hire a professional Drupal development company for Drupal theme design and development services.
When it comes to creating a blogging site, there’s no better option than using WordPress CMS. WordPress allows you to create and publish blogs in a matter of minutes. The Visual Editor allows you to write and manage media, the Text Editor enables you to include the HTML and CSS code if needed. The entire content management system is user-friendly, and you will not face any issue while operating the blog even if you’re just a beginner.
Drupal, on the other hand, isn’t specifically designed for blogging purposes. To start writing your first blog post, you will have to enable the module. Although Drupal provides the text editor to write the content and insert media files, it just doesn’t feel good and easy to use as the one offered by WordPress.
WordPress is supported by a large online community of developers across the globe who are always ready to help. Once you start with WordPress development, we advise joining official forums and support groups. You also get access to countless online resources, tutorials, video guides, and podcasts that you can use to learn everything about WordPress.
Just like WordPress or Joomla, Drupal also has a huge, proactive online community of developers and contributors. Hence, you get access to detailed documentation, chat rooms, user groups, support forums, and other online resources that help you solve problems for free.
Drupal is famous for its Marketplace that strives to connect the user to professionals. This is the most easiest and effective way of finding professional help. However, hiring Drupal professionals cost more than WordPress experts.
Since there are hundreds of millions of active users of WordPress, WordPress sites are usually the first targets for malicious attacks and hackers who are constantly looking for security vulnerabilities in WordPress. To protect the WordPress website from hackers and malicious scripts, WordPress developers work incessantly to fix security holes and keep it safe.
WordPress also offers hundreds of security plugins that help you to strengthen your blog or business website. You may have to pay for some premium plugins if you truly want the best security for your website. Also, you must protect your site using a strong password that is easy to remember, yet difficult to guess or crack.
You will rarely hear or read about Drupal sites getting hacked. Well, although there are very few sites built with Drupal, unlike WordPress or Joomla, Drupal is very serious about the security of the websites. All security vulnerabilities and issues are regularly posted on the official Drupal site, and the developers work hard to fix the issues and patch up the system always.
When installing WordPress, you will be asked to select a language for the admin area. You can even change the language any time you want. Fortunately, there are plenty of plugins that allow you to translate the entire website into different languages. However, if you’re serious about creating a fully-functional multilingual website, then you will have to pay for premium plugins or services that will help you build a professional multilingual website.
Just like WordPress, Drupal also allows you to manage multilingual sites efficiently. You simply need to enable the modules that are responsible for languages, and you can translate the site into your preferred language.
While WordPress has a market share of 59.7%, Drupal has 4.7%. On GitHub, Drupal enjoys 3.4k stars and 1.7k forks while WordPress enjoys 13.2k stars and 8.1k forks.
WordPress not only makes website designing and development cost-effective but also makes WordPress maintenance and support cheaper. Moreover, you don’t need to hire a web designer to make any changes to your website every time.
When you opt for WordPress development, you can manage your website from anywhere since it is browser-based.
WordPress helps in building websites that are SEO-friendly. The websites have simple codes and are good enough to get indexed on Google. You can customize the SEO elements for all web pages and this way you can determine which web pages rank higher on search engines.
As more and more people are using smartphones to access products, services, and businesses, it is indispensable for businesses to go for mobile responsive web design. WordPress offers responsive features that allow you to build a responsive website without creating separate websites for mobile versions.
Another amazing benefit that you’ll enjoy with WordPress development is the seamless integration of social media. With WordPress, you can easily get connected to the social media community without logging separately into Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+ accounts and share new updates with people with ease.
Ensuring site security has been the primary concern for many businesses that are opting for WordPress designing and development. This problem can be significantly addressed by hiring professional WordPress web designers and developers for your website.
Drupal can create a wide array of content types like blogs, videos, polls, statistics, and podcasts and manage it easily. Therefore, you get access to a flexible design platform from Drupal that helps you create websites that are content-rich and can be used across various markets. You can also edit the design elements as you want and also configure webpages that are simple as well as complex.
Drupal is also known for its scalability to make any kind of significant changes on the website. You can keep on adding content and pages to your site and grow it along with your business. Therefore, Drupal is one of the best CMS solutions if there’s a need to add several webpages and content.
Drupal is a fully customizable CMS solution available in the market. Drupal offers more than 42,000 plugins and modules that enable you to adjust, tweak, and implement several custom features added to the website, ranging from SEO, social media, security, and CRM.
When it comes to ensuring security, Drupal is the most promising CMS solution. Drupal regularly releases security patches to protect your website against malicious attacks and hackers. And therefore, Drupal is the right platform for building enterprise solutions.
Since Drupal CMS is an open-source platform, there’s no licensing cost to use it. It is supported by a large active community that offers a platform for the exchange of ideas, open discussions, developer support, and public documentation for free.
Comparison Features | WordPress | Drupal |
---|---|---|
Definition | WordPress is an open-source CMS solution used to build blogs, websites, and web apps. | Drupal is an open-source content management system used to build a variety of websites. |
Learning Curve, Beginner-friendly | WordPress is easy to learn and has a flattened learning curve. | Drupal is not recommended for novices and has a steeper learning curve. |
CMS Market Share | 59.7% | 4.7% |
Blogging | Perfect for blogging sites | Not specifically built for blogging. |
Plugins Available | More than 54,000 | More than 42,000 |
Community Support | Large Community | Smaller Community |
Security | Frequently updated, offers security plugins | Regularly updated, offers security plugins. |
Installation Time | Takes 5 Minutes | Takes 10 Minutes |
Tesla | Pinterest Blog | Tourism Fiji | Warner Music Group | Lush | BBC Good Food | Australian Government | Whitehouse.gov | Youth on record | Redhat | NBA | Doctors without borders
BBC America | The New Yorker | Quartz | Thrive Magazine | The Next Web | Van Heusen | Time Inc. | IFC | TechCrunch | Fortune Magazine | ProBlogger
When it comes to choosing between Drupal vs WordPress development, ask yourself these questions to find which CMS is best for your project.
Both Drupal and WordPress are free, open-source platforms and are used for building websites for businesses. If you’re creating a blogging site, then WordPress is the right option for you. WordPress and Drupal are free to install, however, you need to hire Drupal developers as it has a steeper learning curve and therefore, Drupal development costs may be higher than WordPress development. Besides, WordPress offers thousands of free plugins and themes, which makes development faster and easier. The clear winner in the Drupal vs WordPress battler can be determined by your project requirements and budget. If you can’t decide which CMS solution is right for your project, you should consult with someone who supports both Drupal and WordPress, and is willing to listen to your ideas and requirements.
Consult with ExpertsIf you’re a developer or agency that offers web development services for your clients, you may add both of these systems to your toolkit. This way you’ll be able to gain more projects from your clients.
If you’re looking for a web development agency for your dream project, Orange Mantra is your perfect partner who can provide you with the best-fit solution for your project.
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