Drupal vs WordPress

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By Vijay Singh Khatri

You likely landed here because you have decided to build a website using a Content Management System (CMS) but are confused about whether to go for WordPress or Drupal. If that’s exactly the case for you, you need not worry as at the end of this write-up, you will be able to decide which one to use for building your website.

Before we get into the comparison, let us first discuss what WordPress and Drupal are. While you might already know that these two are content management systems, it would be better to gain a clear understanding of what makes them unique.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular and largest content management system launched in the year 2003 as a basic blogging platform. Today, WordPress hosts 39.5% of the websites that are currently active on the web and has a market share of 64.1% in the CMS market.

Here are some of the most famous entities that use WordPress to manage their websites and build a strong web presence:

  • Whitehouse.gov
  • Sony Mobiles
  • University of Washington
  • Mercedes Benz
  • TechCrunch
  • The New Yorker

In 2021, WordPress is still the leader of all the content management system (CMS) platforms and offers the best user experience. It beats every other CMS by offering ready-made niche-specific templates and themes that help to reduce development costs and save a lot of time. These templates are easy to edit. You only need to replace the content according to your needs.

WordPress is recommended for individuals, professionals as well as business organizations of all sizes because it helps to build a wide variety of websites ranging from simple blogs to sophisticated e-commerce websites.

What is Drupal?

Similar to WordPress, Drupal is also an open-source CMS software that allows you to create websites easily. All you need is hosting and a custom domain name. It also offers themes and plugins that allow you to customize your website’s features and functionalities. It was launched in the year 2000, much before WordPress, but still, it lags behind WordPress in terms of market shares. Drupal hosts 2.3% of the total websites active on the web and has a 4.6% share in the CMS market.

Here are some of the famous entities which use Drupal for managing their websites:

  • University of Colorado
  • State of Colorado
  • The Economist
  • Dallas Cowboys
  • Nasa.gov

Advantages of WordPress and Drupal

In this section, we have mentioned the advantages of WordPress and Drupal separately.

Advantages of WordPress

  • Easy to install – WordPress offers one-click installation from a hosting’s cPanel.
  • Easy to use – WordPress comes with an inbuilt dashboard that allows you to easily create and manage new web pages, posts, and also lets you change themes, add plugins, and more.
  • Responsive websites – WordPress offers responsive website designs that work best on desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.
  • Hassle-free media management- You can easily add images, videos, and other media elements to your WordPress website. WordPress CMS comes with a drag and drop page builder that allows you to customize web pages with ease. Additionally, you can also access the different image editing tools.
  • A huge library of pre-built themes – WordPress offers various niche-specific themes that help you to customize the look and feel of your websites.
  • Installation of plugins – With plugins, you can add advanced features and functionalities to your website. WordPress offers both free and paid plugins that are quite easy to integrate with your website.
  • Flexibility – With WordPress, you can create a personal blog, a static or a dynamic website, an e-commerce store, an LMS website, and much more. Additionally, you can choose from the existing niche-specific templates or start building a website from scratch.
  • E-commerce integration – With WordPress, you can easily integrate your website with e-commerce plugins such as WooCommerce, which is a free e-commerce plugin. Such a plugin will make it easier for you to sell goods online and keep track of the inventory.
  • Minimal coding – If you are using WordPress, the need for coding is reduced because this CMS comes with several GUI-based tools for building and customizing web pages. You can manage content, create posts and edit posts, and add photos, videos without the need to code at all.
  • Dynamic community support – One of the best features of WordPress is its extensive community support. The WordPress online community has a large number of active users including professional WordPress developers. The community offers reliable support to both beginners and expert developers as and when required.
  • SEO-friendly – Search engines support WordPress sites because the code used is clear and simple, and it is quite easy for them to index the content. Additionally, there are various SEO plugins available for WordPress that will enable you to optimize your website and increase your website reach.
  • Offers high security – Securing your WordPress website is very easy because it offers many security plugins and tools. If you are using WordPress for building a business website, you need not worry about the security of your site. There are several security plugins that can make a website hack-proof.

Advantages of Drupal

  • Best for creating dynamic and complex websites – Drupal is designed for expert website developers to create complex and dynamic websites. If you want to create a dynamic website with Drupal but have little to no knowledge of coding, you might need to hire a Drupal website developer.
  • Free to use – Drupal is a free and open-source CMS that competes with other CMS platforms like Joomla and WordPress.
  • Flexibility – You can create and manage different types of content. You can add fact sheets, blog posts, articles, sub-sections, and more.
  • Scalable – Drupal CMS is highly scalable. You can scale your online business very quickly, depending on the website’s size and traffic.
  • Multilingual support – Drupal comes with a built-in option to add content in different languages, which is unlike other CMS platforms that might require you to use plugins.
  • Dedicated community – Drupal has a large online community that is very active and provides assistance with comprehensive documentation, support forums, chat rooms, and more. The best part is, all of these are free of cost.
  • Strong security features – Compared to WordPress, Drupal is less prone to hacking and is highly popular among large and security-conscious organizations and government institutions.
  • Access permissions for users – Drupal has a built-in access control system that allows you to easily create and assign roles to people working on your website project with individual permissions.

How Easy is it to Use WordPress and Drupal?

In short, WordPress is the best and the most recommended CMS platform for both beginners and experts. However, you can also go for Drupal if it meets your requirements better. Nonetheless, let’s scrutinize both CMS platforms in terms of usability.

Ease of use in WordPress

With WordPress, you can easily create a fully functioning website that looks good and performs exceptionally well. By using a pre-built theme, you can even create a basic site in a day.

Additionally, the WordPress interface is simple to understand and even a beginner can quickly interact with the different features available on the WordPress platform. There are tools like the classic editor, Divi editor, Gutenberg editor, and more that make your website creation easier and meaningful.

Ease of use in Drupal

With Drupal, it is entirely the opposite. While there are Drupal themes available, these themes come with custom codes that need to be customized. It means that if you have zero knowledge of coding, you might need a developer to create a website with Drupal, which can be costly.

Additionally, the Drupal interface is very confusing for beginners.

How to Add Features with WordPress and Drupal?

You can add more features and enhance the functionality of your website with plugins and add-ons in both WordPress and Drupal. However, WordPress offers more plugins compared to Drupal.

Plugins offered by WordPress

WordPress offers 53,000+ free plugins and thousands of premium plugins. Also, the CMS allows you to choose from 5300+ free themes and several premium, niche-specific, and highly-optimized themes.

Plugins offered by Drupal

Drupal offers 39,000+ modules and 2,500+ themes. If you are looking for plugins and themes compatible with the latest version of Drupal (Drupal 8.x), then the number reduces to 4,000+ modules or plugins and 250 niche-specific themes.

What About Security in WordPress and Drupal?

WordPress and Drupal are both highly secure platforms. However, keeping in mind the frequent updates and access to third-party solutions, Drupal is more secure.

Security in WordPress

WordPress’s integration with several third-party applications and plugins isn’t completely secure. According to Wordfence, plugins are 55.9% vulnerable to downtime and hacking. Additionally, 74% of the hacked websites have used WordPress as their CMS.

The fact that WordPress relies on third-party apps and plugins makes it more vulnerable to security threats. However, by using the right security plugins and following effective security measures, you can easily strengthen the safety of your WordPress website.

Security in Drupal

One of the best features of Drupal is its lockdown security, which makes it a very popular CMS platform for government institutions and large-scale companies. Drupal has accounted for only 2% of hacked websites which is quite less. Additionally, Drupal also publishes detailed security reports and is more transparent about its security than WordPress.

Which One is the Best: WordPress or Drupal?

It’s important to choose the right CMS platform if you want to make an interactive website. When it comes to choosing between WordPress and Drupal, we must say that it depends on your requirements.

For instance, if you are building a website with complex data that needs to be fully customized and secure, then Drupal is a more relevant choice. However, use Drupal if you either have some coding experience and knowledge of web development or you are open to hiring a professional Drupal developer.

On the other hand, WordPress is the go-to CMS platform for creating a fully functional website quickly and that too without the need to code. One of the best things about WordPress is that it allows you to create almost any type of website. Also, the huge WordPress community provides all the essential help you need to tackle any issues that you might face while creating a website.

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