Drupal vs. WordPress | Weighing the Pros and Cons

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The truth is, you need a CMS to run your website. CMS or Content Management System is necessary to publish your content, organize, and distribute it. However, with the increasing demand for CMSs and the abundance of CMS options, it’s a bit challenging to choose a CMS. The two most popular CMSs are Drupal and WordPress. In this blog post, we want to compare them as well as weigh their pros and cons. Finally, we will mention which is better for you, considering your needs. 

An overview of WordPress 

To answer what is WordPress, we should say that it was created in 2003. At first, it was a simple platform for blogging but after a while, it became a strong tool for all kinds of websites. Today, it can be considered the most common and popular website-building tool. 

Why is WordPress so popular?

The reasons for its popularity are:

• It is simple to use: Not only can experts use WordPress, but its simple interface makes it possible for everyone to learn how to use WordPress. 
• It is customizable: WordPress offers many themes and plugins. As a result, users can customize their website exactly how they like. 
• It has a large community: Most of the website owners use WordPress. So, its huge number of users and developers are always available to help with your problems or questions. 

An overview of Drupal 

Drupal was released in 2001, but it’s not as well known as WordPress. It is used more for building complex and high-traffic websites and its main features are flexibility and security. It is mostly used for government, enterprise, and educational sites. 

Why do some people choose Drupal?

Not every person chooses Drupal, but some choose it because:

• It is highly customizable: No matter how complex it will be, you can customize Drupal exactly tailored to your needs. 
• It has a powerful performance: If your website has high traffic and huge amounts of content, Drupal can handle it. 
• Security: For websites where security is critical, Drupal can protect them as it has strong security features. 
• You can manage users: If your website has different users, you can easily manage their roles and permissions.

Drupal vs. WordPress: A Detailed Comparison

Before we start our comprehensive comparison between Drupal and WordPress, let’s compare them quickly in a table format to have a complete overview of both:

1- Beginner-friendly or Technical Expertise

As mentioned before, WordPress is known for its ease of use, and even people with no technical knowledge can use it. Its interface has a simple dashboard including essential tools like post management, media uploads, and site settings, all in one place. With this user-friendly design, every person can create a website quickly without needing to learn complex configurations. Also, it will be easy to repair the WordPress database. 

On the other hand, Drupal is designed for users with more technical background. If website demands increase, it will be more complex to use Drupal, but it can handle it without any limitations. Every year, its interface improves so it will be harder for beginners to use it. 

2- Customizability and Flexibility

WordPress has a vast library of themes and plugins that you can use to add SEO tools, e-commerce capabilities, social media integration, and other features. For building different websites, WordPress is a flexible tool. However, the core CMS has some limitations because of depending on third-party plugins. It is generally customizable and flexible, but for more complex or highly structured websites you may face some challenges. Try to get to know the best WordPress plugins. 

Drupal covers the WordPress limitations in customizability and flexibility. It gives you enough flexibility to create specialized content types, define intricate workflows, and develop custom modules. It can handle complex and large-scale websites that need a high level of customization.

3- Scaling for Growth

You can grow with WordPress. If you want to know how much traffic can WordPress handle, you should know that it can easily manage website traffic ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 monthly visits. If you optimize WordPress performance, for example, using a reliable WordPress VPS hosting, you can even handle more. 

MonoVM, as a reliable hosting provider, offers flexible WordPress VPS plans for different needs. Click if you need a VPS for WordPress.

Drupal is more scalable than WordPress meaning it can handle even more traffic. It is designed to handle huge amounts of traffic and content without any extra actions. So, for websites that expect to grow a lot, Drupal can handle more. 

4- Performance Optimization

WordPress functions efficiently when performing different tasks at the same time as long as you don’t use multiple plugins or resource-heavy themes. You can maintain optimal performance by implementing some like caching, using lightweight themes, and using high-performance hosting services. The better you optimize its performance, the better WordPress functions. All you need is to learn how to speed up the WordPress site. 

Drupal is built to be quick and efficient, with performance optimization in mind from the start. It can manage a high volume of traffic and heavy loads without slowing down. You can also optimize it further with custom optimizations and tweaks.

5- Optimizing for Search Engines

WordPress offers valuable features and tools for making SEO-friendly content, even for beginners. It has many plugins that make optimizing content easier. Two important plugins are Yoast and All in One SEO. WordPress, with features such as customizable metadata fields, SEO-friendly URL structures, and a simple interface, allows you to develop search-engine-optimized webpages.

Drupal can help your website rank higher in search engine results too, but it may require some technical knowledge to set it up properly. Modules like Yoast and Metatag can aid with this. Drupal's clean code also helps search engines better understand your site.

6- Content Management

WordPress was originally designed as a blogging platform for content management purposes. So, the core strength of WordPress is content management. The powerful tools for managing content include post-scheduling, drafts, categories, and tags. Also, the intuitive media library of WordPress makes it awesome for organizing and managing images, videos, and files. 

Drupal also offers strong content management features, especially for complex workflows and websites with advanced features. It excels at managing custom fields, complex classification, and a variety of content formats. If a website needs complex permissions and manages several content roles, Drupal can handle it well.

7- Price Comparison

Both WordPress and Drupal are free, but generally, Drupal can be more expensive as you may need to hire skilled developers to work with it. Also, Drupal’s initial setup costs might be higher than WordPress. Added costs can come from hosting services, premium themes, plugins, and the maintenance needed to handle complex or high-traffic websites. And you should know that these costs can vary for different users. Drupal also can come with additional costs for development and maintenance, especially if you work with complex websites.

8- Security Measures

As WordPress offers regular updates, it is safe and secure. But sometimes it can be a target for attackers. For better security, you need to use trusted plugins and themes and keep them up to date. 

On the other hand, Drupal offers stronger security making it a better choice for websites that need a higher level of security, like those in government or finance. Drupal has a dedicated team that regularly monitors and resolves security issues. This helps to protect Drupal websites from hackers.

You may want to know how to build a WordPress site without going live. 

WordPress vs Drupal: Pros and Cons  

With all that, both WordPress and Drupal come with advantages and disadvantages. In the following table, you can see the pros and cons of both:

Drupal vs. WordPress: which one is better for you?

Now that you know Drupal and WordPress features, pros, and cons, it’s easier for you to decide which one to choose. But, if you’re still in doubt and can’t make a decision, here we help you by mentioning each use case:

Use WordPress if:

1. You have a small-to-medium business website, startup, or nonprofit. 
2. You have a small-to-medium online store.
3. You care about ease of use for marketers and less technical users.
4. You want cheaper themes.
5. You need a vast library of plugins to add features like SEO, analytics, forms, and more.
6. You own a large website with simple content needs. 
7. You own a news or information website that cares about blogs. 
8. You need an active community for support and troubleshooting. 

Use Drupal if:

1. You need a complex environment for government, higher education, and enterprise projects.
2. Your website requires many user logins and complex functionality.
3. You must handle complicated content types, multilingual configurations, microservices, REST APIs, and intricate authorization levels efficiently.
4. Your project requires highly customized layouts, presentations, and content based on specific business cases or user personas.
5. To manage configuration changes, you'll need expert tools. 
6. You seek high-level security, such as database encryption or PCI compliance.
7. You want to create web apps with extensive logic and integrations, including decoupled user interfaces. 

Conclusion

This Drupal vs. WordPress comparison gave you an overview of how they roll. Now, you know which one is a better choice based on your needs and the website you want to manage. If you want an easy-to-use CMS that enables you to manage all kinds of content, WordPress is a better option. But, if you want to run a complex website and need a stronger level of security, you should choose Drupal.