WordPress is the most popular CMS out there. It powers almost half of all websites globally. It’s also usually the first choice for beginners due to its intuitive and beginner-friendly interface. WordPress is used by many of the biggest brands – the likes of Sony, Forbes, Spotify, Mercedes Benz, and more have opted for it. But is it still the best CMS? The mainstream usage is no indicator of a quality CMS.
Then we have Drupal! This CMS allows users to create advanced, highly customized sites but the payoff is a high skill ceiling… meaning you need technical expertise. Drupal is often praised for being a quality platform, and though it does not have a huge market share, it is one of the most secure and reliable CMS.
So which one is better: Drupal or WordPress? Answering this requires a deep dive into each aspect of the two CMS, their use cases, performance reports, and individual needs. That’s what we are going to explore in this article. Let’s dig in!
Drupal vs WordPress: Customizations
When it comes to customizations, you have a lot more options with Drupal than WordPress. Drupal supports extensive customizations and offers a huge degree of flexibility in terms of both design and functionality.
WordPress currently has over 55,000 plugins in its directory that let you customize your site, but be aware: only a few receive regular updates. WordPress also has a lot of free and paid themes for various needs, and in most cases, these are sufficient. However, if you are looking for satisfactory results when creating a site from scratch? Well, the level of customization freedom Drupal offers cannot be matched by WordPress.
Drupal vs WordPress: Scalability
Website scalability is important for managing growth and traffic surges, as poorly optimized websites will slow down or crash under pressure and can negatively impact profits. Scalability is often overlooked by beginners because they don’t understand that future growth may need more resources. Also, many WordPress hosting providers do not advertise this as their entry-level plans do not allow sites to scale.
An e-commerce website that handles varying levels of traffic or an online gaming platform that experiences traffic surges during the weekend requires a scalable framework to ensure a seamless experience for every single user. Imagine that you’re checking out a casino platform to play bingo, for instance, but so are thousands of other users, especially on a Friday or Saturday night. You don’t want to experience lots of slow-down just because many people had the same idea as you! When you play bingo online for real money, you want the smoothest possible experience, with both the game and the payments system flowing perfectly and no lag impacting the fun. All elements of the site need to work beautifully for the game to be enjoyable – nobody likes it when lag crops up in a gaming session – and that means the casino needs to build its site to handle peaks of traffic effectively.
A well-optimized website that can scale with business needs and does not fold under pressure not only maintains user satisfaction but also keeps the games immersive consistently. Drupal is inherently more scalable for such complex sites, and its extensive customization options are advantageous for creating highly tailored solutions.
While WordPress is also scalable, it comes with challenges, and this can be frustrating once your customer base starts increasing. The scalability of WordPress is heavily dependent on themes and plugins the admin uses, as well as the hosting service. And since many WordPress plugins and themes cannot be customized, it makes the site vulnerable to attacks and exploits. You can avoid this altogether if you use Drupal.
Drupal vs WordPress: Ease of use
This is one area where the two platforms greatly differ from each other. WordPress is incredibly simple to use and requires little to no programming knowledge. On the other hand, Drupal involves a steeper learning curve, but once you understand the platform mechanics, it’s very rewarding.
Setting up a WordPress website is very fast even if you are loading it up with various features thanks to its huge plugin directory. It is ideal for small business owners and those who do not want to bother with learning how to code. If the need arises, you can always hire a web developer to make tweaks to your WordPress code. WordPress developers are usually cheaper to hire than Drupal experts.
Drupal vs WordPress: Security
WordPress holds 62% of the CMS market share, and this popularity also makes it the most easily targeted platform. A WordPress website can be secure, but it needs strong security approaches and regular updates to stay secure. In contrast, Drupal only powers 2.2% of websites online, which means it is rarely on the radar of hackers.
Drupal regularly releases security patches and is proactively being improved by its community. WordPress also regularly offers patches, but it still needs a lot of work from website owners to maintain security. This is because many WordPress plugins do not receive regular updates, and these are often exploited by bad actors.
Conclusion
If you don’t mind a learning curve, then Drupal is a much better option overall. WordPress might be easier to use, but it often fails to provide a quality experience to website owners who want complete control over their site. If you don’t care about customizations and want something that will work out of the box, then go for WordPress.