WordPress is a very popular platform and a lot of bloggers use it for their sites. It is an easy to use and easy to upgrade platform with a lot of free tools and a big community, but finally it is just a simple blog system. On the other hand Drupal is a complex content management system (CMS), which is often terrible for newbie, but after few hours of practice it becomes a real magic for its users. Here we will give you some idea for several features, where Drupal overcomes WordPress so much that you will consider moving your WordPress site immediately to Drupal.
There are a lot of reasons why so many big companies and organizations use the Drupal CMS, but we will start with several small features, which give to Drupal incredible power. Firstly Drupal has a fine tuned user roles and user permissions. In Drupal core there is a build in capability to give the specific user a given role and to adapt the permissions allowed for each user. For example permission to write, edit or delete content, permission to use specific modules and to administer specific part of the site. The second very useful tool in Drupal is Views. It allows you to show your content and data in different ways and in different location on your site. The third thing in which Drupal outperforms WordPress is the way it manages and displays dates and time. Dates have various formats, which are built in the core of Drupal and could be arranged in a way it never happens in WordPress.
If we need an extremely powerful website with totally unlimited functionality (capabilities for photo gallery, forums, event calendars and much more), with multiuser support (including roles, permissions and workflows), Drupal gives us a lot of power. However to receive the level which will allows us to master all the Drupal robust features, we need to invest some time on learning its architecture.
Finally, to summarize our review and comparison between the Drupal CMS and WordPress we want to emphasize the main difference between them. As a blog content system WordPress is excellent for small blog like sites. It has its own advantages, but when compared to the huge capabilities of Drupal, WordPress could not win the competition at all. Drupal combine power and flexibility and it is the perfect decision for medium to large web projects, for projects which are not standard and need specific customization. Drupal is not only a content management system, it is also a web development platform. Drupal can support large base of features, like shopping carts, user profiles, photo galleries and beyond. Drupal is exceptionally user friendly and also easier for web spiders to crawl through it. In two words Drupal allows every web site dream to become a reality with relatively low efforts and in short time.
About the Author: Jim Bragu is a Drupal speaker and writer. He has been discussing all things Drupal related for over five years. Be sure to take time to review his suggestions on the top drupal 7 hosts for 2012. He also has recommendations for business drupal hosting.
It’s natural. Small blog – small needs, huge blog – extended needs. For me, WordPress is enough. But I admit that when I am bigger I will probably need something more than just free basic tools – I will need Drupal or anything else to be on top that time.
Thanks for sharing this useful and informative post. I am blogging on blogger platform and have also worked on WordPress. Drupal looks to be another great CMS. Should be the right choice for any blogger 🙂
Hey Jim,
Since I started blogging I have never used any other content management system besides WordPress. So it would be hard to switch to another CMS like Drupal. However, for just SEO purposes I would be willing to use Drupal just because web spiders can crawl through it easier. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Agreed – Drupal seems more at ‘basic’ blogging. It’s easy to learn and use, and for a small group of writers it’s perfect. There’s also a wonderful community behind it for support. But for my next blog, I think I’ll be needing something with a little more ‘under the hood’.
Hi Jim,
This post surely is interesting and it really does sound like Drupal is much better than WordPress. If one’s goal is to not only have a blog but also have a business type of blog with which he/she can sell products or services, then Drupal is the more beneficial option than WordPress.
Thanks for sharing!
I’m using WordPress now because I am engage in small online business.I’m willing to try Drupal also.Thanks for sharing your ideas about Drupal.
Hi Gary,
Yes – I do agree in general. Overall (depending on the type of website) drupal may offer advantages that wordpress cant, and some of the bigger website do tend to lean more towards drupal.
Drupal is Open Source
Drupal is open source software maintained and developed by a community of 630,000+ users and developers. It’s distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (or “GPL”), which means anyone is free to download it and share it with others. This open development model means that people are constantly working to make sure Drupal is a cutting-edge platform that supports the latest technologies that the Web has to offer. The Drupal project’s principles encourage modularity, standards, c
No doubt that Drupal has an edge over WordPress. WordPress is user friendly and good for blogging and small websites. Drupal is good for CMS.
I have not used Drupal before, but maybe I’ll try it in the future. Until now, I am quite pleased with WordPress.
I use wordpress and prefer it to the other platforms, but this article is written with no factual backing at all. WordPress is great but for certain scenarios drupal would be better.
Nice topic & Very helpful answers for beginners who start working on WordPress website