Confused between the two eminent CMSs Drupal and WordPress?
If you have to start a new project and cannot decide which CMS to choose, either WordPress or Drupal. Then we shall brainstorm together and discover which platform will match the new trends and be able to survive the business turbulence for a longer time.
CMS (Content management system) helps you with organizing the content on the website, which is the core of any website. If the content is distracting and misleading, then the website is a failure. Therefore, choosing the right CMS for your website is critical.
WordPress is very popular among website developers. It has acquired a large market share, whereas Drupal is behind in this number race. But we cannot rely on numbers to make a decision. There are chances that Drupal will be a good choice for your business. You never know!
So, to avoid any confusion, we shall compare the two CMS giants based on different factors and then decide who wins the game.
Drupal and WordPress – A brief introduction
We’ve heard many times about both Drupal and WordPress. Most of us are aware of both CMS platforms. Let’s brush up on our knowledge once again.
Drupal – Drupal is an open-source web content management system written in PHP. Many eminent websites worldwide use Drupal as their CMS. Some famous websites built on Drupal are the Australian government, Pinterest Newsroom, Harvard University, Timex, Twitter, etc.
WordPress – WordPress also, is a free, open-source content management system written in PHP and integrated with MySQL. Initially, it was introduced as a blog publishing system but gradually evolved as a complete content management system. A few well-known websites built on WordPress are BBC America, MTV, Sony Music, Beyonce, PlayStation, Sweden’s official website, TechCrunch, The New Yorker, and many more.
Now, let’s compare both on some important aspects of a website’s success.
Comparative study of Drupal and WordPress
- Customizability
Both platforms are customizable and extensible to an extent. WordPress has more than 5000 themes and 50000+ plugins (free and premium) that make customization quite handy with this platform.
Whereas Drupal has more than 2500 themes and 35000+ modules. These numbers render the customization story themselves.
Also, Drupal needs professional help to customize the design, while you can customize WordPress design on your own with basic knowledge.
- Multilingual Support
WordPress doesn’t have in-built functionality to support multilingual features; nevertheless, it has a plugin to do this work.
Drupal has an in-built multilingual support feature.
- Overall Cost
Despite the fact that both CMS platforms are free and open-source, for more interactive and enormous projects, you need to buy plugins and themes. Furthermore, customization of big websites needs professional help. WordPress development is cheaper than Custom Drupal Development because of competition in the market.
WordPress has become a popular choice for website building. Therefore, agencies and freelancer developers have competitive prices for WordPress. But Drupal website developers charge higher for development and customization work.
- Security
Both the platforms, more or less, are equally robust when it comes to security. Drupal has, without a doubt, strong in-built layers of security to ensure the safest solution.
However, WordPress users have to integrate with plugins. These plugins can create danger for your website if not updated or not duly checked before applying to your system. Also, hackers can use malicious plugins to attack your website. So, WordPress requires a careful plugin investigation to evade security vulnerability.
- Up-skilling Need
WordPress and Drupal have different approaches when it comes to up-skilling. A novice with zero technical knowledge can easily use WordPress. It doesn’t require coding or software expertise to create a website on WordPress. It is said to be an intuitive platform with prompt support.
Yet, when it comes to Drupal, beginners cannot use it, especially those who don’t have technical knowledge. It is a little complicated as compared to WordPress. Content creation is also difficult in Drupal.
- Search Engine Optimization
One of the major factors to affect a website’s success is Search Engine Optimization aka SEO. No one can afford to overlook this aspect. WordPress and Drupal both the CMS are well equipped for SEO.
WordPress has plenty of SEO tools and plugins to ensure the performance of the website. These plugins are verified, and you can get them from the WordPress directory. But Drupal needs professional aid to improve the website performance for search engines.
- Responsive Design
With an increasing number of mobile users, it is inevitable for any company to make a responsive web design. Otherwise, you will lose a significant number of users.
WordPress gives you features to make responsive designs for all the devices. In the case of Drupal, you will get the responsive design with expert help.
Now you have the comparative study at one glance to decide which CMS to go with.
Future of your website with Drupal and WordPress
Drupal and WordPress are both reliable and established technologies. A large number of websites are catered by WordPress and Drupal. But the question is, how long will you be able to survive with these technologies?
WordPress regularly comes up with updates to dodge website vulnerability. To ensure your website’s complete security, WordPress tries to fix the issues with previous updates. Also, updating new features and upgrades is comparatively easy. At the same time, Drupal doesn’t come up with a new version every now and then. Their latest versions are certainly launched in a smaller interval, but previous versions worked for many years. Yet they provide database updates periodically.
One more factor that can affect your website’s future is user interface and experience. WordPress accord you a mind-blowing user interface with zero or minimal technical expertise, and it is a clear winner in user experience. On the other hand, as we said many times above, Drupal needs expert help to achieve the desired interface and experience.
Wrapping up
WordPress and Drupal are both capable of delivering the best of designs with outstanding performances. It is about your needs, budget, and future perspective; based on that, you can decide whether to choose Drupal or to go with Custom WordPress Development.
There is no doubt these technologies have made website building easier and faster. But both have different approaches to constructing a website and maintaining it.
Hopefully, this comparative study will help you to determine which CMS you want to choose. So, don’t waste time now; select either WordPress or Drupal and make yourself ready for the online world.
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