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WordPress and Drupal are two of the most widely used CMS (Content management software) platforms across the globe. And knowing which CMS platform would do best for you is entirely dependent on your short and long term business goals. But in case, if you are looking for an open-source and user-friendly platform, you can prefer either of the platforms. But if you ask other people, chances are you may get a diverse range of opinions on using both the platforms.

We shall all agree with the saying, “if the only tool you have in your hand is a hammer, then everything starts looking like a nail.” When we talk about the past, we only have WordPress. We were in love with it. An easy to use platform was convenient, for both content editors and developers. We all were active in the WordPress community. But, along the way, people encountered the need for the development of more enterprise-level software, more content types, and more luxurious end-user experience. That’s when drupal came into existence.

As compared to WordPress, Drupal is much harder and a complete beast. And there are numerous websites today, preferring Drupal as a CMS, for enterprise-level solutions because of its flexibility and caching features.

Let’s see through this article, how the two CMS’s can help steer you in the right direction, by deciding which is right for you. But before we dig deeper, let’s have a quick introduction to both of the CMS in comparison. Since both are the content management systems, both have their own, self-hosted solution and are capable of handling the content on your website.

Table of Contents

Drupal

It is a free open source content management framework and offers a back-end framework, for at least 2.3% of all the websites worldwide. The framework has been existing longer than WordPress. But somewhere still lacks WordPress’s Gawdy share of the market. Drupal allows its users to create blogs, personal or business sites, online stores, including social media networking sites. Although, the framework is more suitable for experienced users, who at least have an idea about web technology and coding.

So who’s using Drupal? Here are popular websites

University of Colorado
State of Colorado
The Economist
Dallas Cowboys
Nasa.gov
Wmg.com
Whitehouse.gov

WordPress

The world’s most popular content management system launched as a blogging platform back in 2003, is more than that. It has evolved into the standard CMS choice. And now we can create a website even from scratch using WordPress. As per the reports by w3techs.com WordPress is the most preferred CMS. And more than 60 million websites are using it today. That also includes 33.6% of the top 10 million websites as of April 2019.

Here are some notable websites running on WordPress,

thenewyorker.com
time.com
techcrunch.com
nationalarchives.gov.uk
sony.com

Now let’s break down the difference between WordPress and Drupal.

1. Ease Of Use

As compared to WordPress, Drupal has a more intimidating interface. Also, installing Drupal to your host is easy as compared to WordPress, as Drupal has different hosts, which allow us to install various content management systems, including Drupal, in the backend of the hosting environment. But the platform is sophisticated when it comes to creating a customized theme. Many drupal websites sport a highly customized theme. So you need to hire a Drupal developer to get something that looks good.

But when we talk about WordPress, it’s quite easy to start from scratch and build a fully-functional website. This platform is convenient for experienced and even for beginners. So that’s it. Ease of use is one the primary reason why this platform is being used and preferred by the people for developing their sites. And WordPress can be easily installed on the host platform, with a simple one-click install option.

2. Website Security

As compared to WordPress, Drupal is highly secured, and in fact, security is the crucial feature offered by drupal to its users. As we all know, website security is a paramount concern for all the site owners. And Drupal has earned goodwill by being one of the most secure content management systems available today. The framework is used to power the high authority and government websites. Drupal further strengthens its security with regular updates and has high-security standards.

But when we talk about WordPress, it has vulnerable plugins, which makes them generally more comfortable to hack. As a result, WordPress carries a large portion of risk with them. Also, the reason being WordPress is a highly popular web development platform which makes it a prime target for most of the hackers and malware. At times, it happens while using WordPress, users deal with several plugins, so there is a higher chance of installing a plugin that is badly coded. Nonetheless, we have third party plugins or WordPress security, which can reduce the chances of security vulnerabilities.

3. Flexibility

Here comes the next point, i.e., flexibility. Although finding the right solution for everything is a daunting task. WordPress consists of various free plugins and WordPress themes that you can use to create a website. Moreover, there are several themes and plugins available for Drupal as well, but most of them are used to design custom development websites. But let’s face it, customization becomes a cumbersome task unless we are good at coding. Most of the extensions have to be located, installed, and set up on your own. Also, it’s not as intuitive as WordPress. This is the reason; Drupal websites are unique as experienced developers create them all.

Whereas, when it comes to WordPress, many people prefer to work with the framework, as it has its plugin available for everything, starting from the SEO to social network, extending functionalities and more. Additionally, the plugins in WordPress are easy to manage without even needing a developer. Customizability is a good advantage for WP with the help of which the developers can change different aspects of their websites whenever needed.

4. Learning Curve

Another point of conflict between Drupal and WordPress is the Learning Curve. Drupal has a steep learning curve, which makes it complicated for the beginners or a non-technical person to use. Whereas, when creating a drupal website, you need to have some technical knowledge and skill to even manage the website on your own.

Whereas WordPress’s learning curve is something that beginners can pick up quickly and is incredibly intuitive and user-friendly. WordPress is best suitable for people who are non-programmers and want to develop their website from scratch. WordPress offers a fully functional way to do anything with your site, for instance, reformulate distinct aspects of the website according to the tastes and preferences.

5. Speed

Page speed is the most crucial aspect and an important factor in getting high ranking and increased conversion rates. You can offer a delightful user experience, with the most beautiful piece of design on the internet, but it’s not worth the effort if your site is taking time to load. And it’s a fact that people switch to another website if your website is taking too long to load.

Drupal has a slight advantage here. Websites developed with Drupal are fast-loading as well as high performing. The fact behind its loading speed is, it’s not very resource-intensive and also lightweight as compared to WordPress.

As a result, it has become the first choice for those who want to develop a website with a vast amount of pages. Whereas, speed is the shortcoming for WordPress. You need to have a regular check on plugins to have a fast loading site. The reason behind this could be poorly coded themes, maximal plugins, etc.

Decision-Time

Are you still not sure which one is best suitable as per your business needs? Matellio is experienced in developing customized websites and applications using WordPress, Drupal, and many other CMS platforms. We can guide and help you in making the decision about the CMS that makes the most sense for your business.

Get in touch with us today to learn more.