Drupal vs WordPress | Choosing the Best CMS for Your Business

Overview

Drupal vs WordPress are two of the most widely used Content Management System (CMS) and and best CMS platforms in the world. Both WordPress and Drupal are powerful content management tools to build great websites. We all want our websites to be fast, powerful and easy to manage content. This is achievable with either cms system. If you’re looking for an open source and user-friendly content management solution for your CMS needs, either platform will do. WordPress vs Drupal both systems can be extended and customized to do many things.

Obviously, both drupal vs wordpress content management systems provide you a self-hosted solution to create and manage all of the content on your website. Now, in this guide we will discuss the difference between Drupal and WordPress , popular content management systems. You will come to Know which CMS platform is right for your business depending on your short and long-term goals. This article will help you determine which one is best for your business.

  • What Is Drupal?
  • What Is WordPress?
  • Drupal vs WordPress: Which Should You Choose?
  • Conclusion

1. What Is Drupal?

Drupal is one of the most versatile free and open-source web content management system, originally launched in 2000. It is written in PHP language and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal is a flexible CMS based on the LAMP stack.

Drupal helps in providing an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide. It’s ranging from personal weblogs to corporate, political, government to large community-driven websites and with a large, supportive community.

How many websites are using Drupal?. According to W3Techs, Drupal is used by 2.0% of all the websites and has a 4.6% share of the content management system market. This is 1.3% of all websites.

What are popular websites using Drupal?:

  • The Emmy Awards
  • The Australian Government
  • University of Colorado
  • Entertainment Weekly
  • The Economist
  • Dallas Cowboys
  • Nasa.gov
  • Mint
  • NCAA
  • Tesla
  • Keap

What are Drupal advantages?

  • Access controls – Drupal open-source content management system (CMS) has a built-in access control system where you can create new user roles with individual permissions whereas WordPress single-site ships with 5 basic user roles and user permissions.
  • Extensibility – Drupal custom content types and views are more flexible than WordPress custom post types.
  • Taxonomies – Drupal taxonomy system is more flexible than WordPress, which makes it ideal for handling lots of content data.
  • Lower development cost – Drupal open-source project has no acquisition cost for the software. It’s downloadable for free from Drupal.org and its developers are usually affordable.
  • Support for multilingual sites – Drupal multilingual functional support is baked into the core, whereas WordPress websites need to use third-party plugins for multilingual support.

How many modules does Drupal have? At its official directory, Drupal offers 48,158 modules or plugins most of which are free. You can add functionality and extend the functionality of your Drupal application with thousands of modules contributed by drupal community.
How many themes are there on Drupal? As of Jan 2022, drupal.org offers 2,988 themes at its official directory. Drupal 9 comes with prepackaged more than seventy core modules and nine themes.

2. What Is WordPress?

WordPress is the world’s most popular free and open source content management system. It was originally launched as a blogging platform back in 2003 and its features include a plugin architecture and a template system called Themes. WordPress is the most popular blogging software on the market that is written in PHP as the scripting language and it uses MySQL or MariaDB database.

How many websites are using WordPress?. According to W3Techs, WordPress powers 43.2% of all the websites on the web, including those without a content management system (CMS) or with a custom coded CMS. Another way, WordPress powers over one-third of the internet and it holds a 65% share for content management systems(CMS) market.

What are popular sites using WordPress?:

Here’s the list of top websites and big-name brands using WordPress.

  • Whitehouse.gov
  • Washington.edu
  • Coinmarketcap.com
  • Tradingview.com
  • Indeed.com
  • Salesforce.com
  • Techcrunch.com
  • Mercedes-benz.com
  • Newyorker.com
  • Godaddy.com

What are WordPress advantages?

Here are the top reasons why WordPress is so popular and why you might want to consider switching to a WordPress platform for your business website. WordPress benefits are:

  • Ease of use – WordPress is very easy to use, more user-friendly and has an intuitive interface. Create new pages, blog articles, images, etc. on a regular basis is so simple and can be done quickly, especially for non-developers.
  • Extensibility – WordPress makes it possible to extend WordPress without the need for custom development. Add an event calendar, video gallery, Twitter Feed, Facebook Box, and more with third-party theme and plugins.
  • Scalability – WordPress sites are very scalable as as your business grows. As an administrator, you add hundreds of pages or blog posts on your website and the performance of your site will not be compromised.
  • No HTML editing – WordPress is a self-contained platform and it does not require HTML editing software. Anyone can create a new page or blog post, format text, upload images, video files etc. without the need for additional HTML or FTP software.
  • Lower development cost – WordPress offers more design and layout solutions and its developers are usually more affordable than Drupal developers even for small businesses.
  • Support – WordPress global community helps and provides support for any issue or view support documentation to get answers.

How many plugins does WordPress have? As of December 2021, WordPress.org has 59,756 plugins available. Each of which offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs.
How many themes are there on WordPress? There are 9,159 free themes, plus thousands of more premium themes. Tools like the WYSIWYG theme customizer and the Gutenberg editor make it simpler for casual users to create unique content.

3. Drupal vs WordPress: Which Should You Choose?

Drupal and WordPress are open source CMS solutions built on the LAMP stack, which means they are free to use and download. It is almost impossible to say: Which is better, Drupal or WordPress?. Instead, a more helpful question to ask is “which is better for specific website that I’m building?” You should focus on choosing the right tool for your specific business needs. There is not a simple answer to the WordPress CMS vs Drupal CMS debate.

WordPress should be the default tool to create a website because it is user-friendly and easy for non-developers to add functionality. You can quickly create an attractive and functional site at low cost. It is easy to find both free and professional support. WordPress is the best tool for most situations. Unless you already know the specific reasons why you need what features Drupal offers, sticking with WordPress will make your web journey much easier.

Drupal is one of the main competitors of WordPress. ****It well be a better choice if you are building a site with complex data organization that needs to be customized and more flexible. Most Drupal sites support a custom coded theme or a highly customized theme. It means you need a developer to get something that looks good in Drupal. Drupal interface is incomprehensible for most casual users and many developers, especially compared to the WordPress TinyMCE Editor and the Gutenberg Editor. In general people expect a much richer user experience and functionality than Drupal offers.

Market share growth shows that both WordPress Drupal have grown over the years. Why Drupal is better than WordPress? In the real world, Drupal is more secure than WordPress as WordPress relies heavily on third-party extensions which make it more vulnerable than Drupal. Over time, WordPress has grown in functionality and it largely dominates all of its competitors and remains on an upward slope.

Conclusion:

What is the best choice Drupal versus WordPress? It’s now up to you: If you are looking for an initial investment at low cost then go to WordPress. If you are a beginner and website will be simple and functional then go to WordPress. If you are looking for a robust and complex solution then go to Drupal.

What open source content management platform do you prefer_?. Do you have any questions about difference between WordPress_ and Drupal?, Please get in touch.

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