Whether you are creating a business or personal website, you might be wondering what content management system is the best option for your needs. There are a variety of CMS options to choose from, including Drupal and WordPress. Both choices present you with a range of features and benefits.
But which one is better for you? Let’s find out in this article that explores Drupal vs. WordPress – which CMS platform is good for you – debate.
Table of Contents
Drupal CMS
Drupal is known for being extremely powerful as well as developer-friendly. If you are building a complex site, Drupal can be an excellent choice.
It is often considered a more robust development platform than other CMSs and is used more often in building back-end solutions to work with the CMS front end.
Drupal’s most important advantage is its robust suite of features, including user account registration, RSS-Feeds, system administration, menu management, and page layout customization.
Drupal includes excellent building tools and templates, meaning you can avoid the need to start from scratch and ultimately save time, allowing you to grow a site rapidly.
WordPress CMS
WordPress is extremely easy to use and has largely developed a reputation as a blogging platform.
With the addition of numerous plugins, widgets, and themes, this CMS platform is now increasingly used for a variety of other purposes, including social media.
One of the main benefits of WordPress is that you do not need a lot of technical experience to get started. The intuitive design of WordPress allows you to get set up rather quickly. Thanks to the ease of use offered by WordPress, it is preferred by novices and experts.
If there is a disadvantage to this CMS platform, it’s in its security. With so many worldwide users adding open-source plugins (how WP works), this CMS is an easy target for hackers and cyber attacks.
Drupal vs. WordPress: Key Differences
Choosing the right CMS for your website is incredibly crucial. Drupal and WordPress both dominate over 60% of the CMS market share. It makes it difficult to choose between the two.
Let’s check out the major differences to know more.
Ease of Use
If you use beginner-friendly web hosting, you can install Drupal quickly. You’ll have the opportunity to install a variety of CMS in the backend of your Drupal hosting environment.
Drupal has many installations, also known as distributions. If you are aware of the type of website you intend to build, you can select one of these over a blank Drupal installation. After setting up Drupal with CMS hosting, you’ll have access to several customization choices.
On the other hand, WordPress is popular because it is so simple to set up and use. You can install WordPress on your host within a few minutes. Most hosting settings provide a straightforward one-click installation that will guide you through the WordPress installation procedure.
Also Read: Hiring a WordPress Development Company
SEO
Keeping your Drupal site updated may be challenging if you’re not a developer. Drupal cannot be updated directly from the UI. So, you need to hire a drupal developer to complete the task. Besides the challenging updating procedure, Drupal does a good job with SEO. The CMS was created with best practices for SEO in mind, including integrated coaching.
Additionally, you may discover several add-ons like Yoast SEO that can improve your SEO even more. The Drupal community is beneficial and supportive; however, it is considerably smaller than the WordPress community.
In the case of using WordPress, updating your site’s various components is simple. Everything can be done from the WordPress dashboard in a few clicks. Every part of your website must be kept current to prevent security problems.
Fortunately, WordPress is already fairly well-geared for SEO. You may add plugins like Yoast SEO to your website to improve your optimization efforts.
Speed and Performance
Drupal may be used to create websites that are high performing and load quickly. It is largely due to the CMS’s low resource requirements. It allows faster response times and lightning-fast server communication. It improves its ability to manage websites with hundreds of pages. You will also have the option to add other extensions to boost performance even more, such as turning on website caching.
Whereas speed is one of the major drawbacks of WordPress. It is not to imply that it cannot be quick, but many webmasters fail to properly optimize their websites. You may create a website that loads quickly if you know what you’re doing or even take the effort to adopt WordPress speed best practices.
In essence, WordPress can deliver outstanding performance. However, loading speed and performance will decrease if you take actions like using an excessive number of plugins, using a theme that is badly written, and failing to optimize properly.
Flexibility
Drupal customizations are managed through modules and extensions. Similar to WordPress, themes, and plugins allow for customization. Therefore, you can completely modify your Drupal site. If you don’t know how to code, implementing these customizations could be more challenging. Most of these extensions require independent search, installation, and setup; they are not as user-friendly as WordPress.
On the other side, there is a big range of plugins and themes for WordPress. A theme will be used to build the website’s foundation, and plugins will be used to add more functions. In addition to a substantial collection of free plugins and themes, most themes and plugins also come in premium editions. The paid versions frequently have better quality, more features, or professional support. Whatever kind of website you want to create, WordPress can help you do it.
Also Read: Cracking the Code: CMS vs. Custom Websites for Success
Table Comparison of Drupal vs. WordPress
|
Particulars |
Drupal |
WordPress |
|
Installation |
10 min; there are special installation packages |
5 min installation |
|
Appearance and Extensions |
A good number of extensions, but they are harder to install |
Tens of thousands of extensions |
|
Blogging |
Blogging module; not as good as WP |
Perfect blogging platform |
|
Support |
Community, Marketplace |
Community, pay for support |
|
Security |
Frequently updated security plugins |
Frequently updated security plugins |
|
Multilingual Options |
Activate language modules |
Should use 3rd party services |
|
Ideal For |
Medium-scale businesses to big startups having complex CMS work and high traffic. |
Startups & small businesses having simple CMS work & low traffic |
Also Read: Magento vs. WordPress- Which one is Best for Your Online Store?
Final Words
Overall, Drupal is considered a solid CMS, equipped with many features and well-optimized for performance and security. It is flexible, but it has a steep learning curve.
On the other hand, WordPress is an intuitive and easy-to-use CMS. While you may create incredibly expansive and highly personalized websites, it is still fairly user-friendly for beginners.
All in all, the above-mentioned states that WordPress wins the battle between WordPress vs. Drupal comparison. If you are still unsure which CMS platforms to use, connect with PixelCrayons.
