The CMS market has a great competition going on between WordPress and Drupal. Both companies want to increase their market share. They believe that with the improved functionality of their CMS, customers will eventually come to them.
Both Drupal and WordPress have strengths and weaknesses. Instead of focusing on the Drupal vs WordPress market competition, you should consider which CMS is best for you.
Before making a decision, you should know your needs.
You should ask yourself and your staff these questions before deciding which CMS best suits you.
Table of Contents
1. How is your content structured?
If your content is like articles, then all the information is shared on one page. WordPress publishing tools have made this content management system suitable for people looking forward to writing articles on their sites.
On the other hand, Drupal allows you to see content as pieces in a corresponding field. If your content has many different pieces you wish to dig deeper into, then Drupal is the right choice for you.
2. Do you want to distribute your content on your website or many different platforms?
Both WordPress and Drupal can make excellent websites. However, the question is do you want the content to be distributed only on the website or on many other platforms? WordPress has a policy of publishing content majorly on the website.
If you wish to push the content on other platforms like apps, then Drupal has the advantage. There is no point in doing a Drupal vs WordPress comparison.
If the website content is your priority, then WordPress is superior to you. However, if you need the content to be distributed on multiple channels, then Drupal should be your obvious choice.
3. How much money do you wish to spend on customization?
WordPress has many designs that fit different customers. If you want to cut costs and create a decent website, then you should choose WordPress. If you want a customized website for your business, then Drupal can be your choice.
4. Does publishing speed matter to you?
When creating content on the internet, you always have to consider at what pace you will be publishing the content. Drupal and WordPress can publish your content quickly as soon as your site is launched. However, WordPress has always focused on making it easy and faster for anyone to publish content on their site.
Anyone can set up a free site on WordPress and publish their first article within half an hour. Drupal is usually great for large projects that different team members can access. If speed is an important factor, you should consider WordPress.
However, if you want a well-governed website, you should choose Drupal. In this Drupal vs WordPress comparison, no one CMS holds the advantage. Each has its advantages, but you must decide which CMS can benefit your business more.
5. Do you want a site that is easy to build?
With WordPress, you can get started with the site aspect as soon as you buy the domain. They have a pretty easy-to-understand building dashboard where you can construct a site from scratch. Once you begin building the site, you can do things without any need for learning.
WordPress also makes building a site easy with multiple plugins. They also have a plugin named Elementor, which helps you build a site by dragging and dropping website elements. Drupal is also easy to start and use, but things get a little more technical once you start.
Then the learning curve starts. If you have no technical skills, you should hire a developer. Anyone can use WordPress to build a site which is why it is the most used CMS.
6. Does your SEO team know the basics of programming?
It can be pretty difficult for any beginner to update a Drupal site, but those who do know the CMS can easily manage to optimize the site for search engines. Plugins like Yoast SEO have made it easy for your site’s content to be optimized.
It is the right choice if your SEO team has the technical skills to update a Drupal site. With WordPress, you can update every aspect of your site without programming.
WordPress also has plugins for SEO like Yoast SEO. It also has a huge community of people who have their site on the platform.
If your team has any SEO-related questions, they can ask them there. If you compare the communities of both Drupal vs. WordPress, then WordPress is the clear winner.
7. How important is loading speed for your website?
With the help of rapid server communication, Drupal can help you create high-performance and fast-loading websites. It is equipped to handle websites that have thousands of pages. You can also add extensions like website caching to improve speed.
Loading speed is one of the biggest drawbacks of using WordPress. Many people just focus on designing the website and adding plugins but do not consider the site’s health. When you add a lot of plugins to your site, the website’s speed slows down greatly.
There are a few practices that you can implement to ensure that your site loads with good speed. You can also decide to use a WordPress Managed Hosting plan, and then the speed of your site will be fast. If speed is a factor that matters to you, then Drupal is the better CMS.
8. How crucial is security for you?
Everyone wants their website to be secure, but nothing on the internet can be fully secure. Your goal as the website administrator should be to achieve the maximum level of security. That is to protect yourself from all possible threats.
Drupal sites are generally less prone to attacks than WordPress. However, there are two reasons for that. Drupal does not have a big marketplace of themes and plugins. Many people use WordPress rather than Drupal, so the chances of a WordPress site getting hacked are higher.
The core of WordPress is very secure, and it provides every website with a great level of security. So when it comes to security, no one CMS can come out on top.
9. How do you want to design your website?
In Drupal, websites are designed and customized with the help of extensions and modules. In WordPress, websites are designed with the help of custom themes and plugins. However, once you start to customize your Drupal site, you will see that it can be difficult to do so without any programming knowledge.
If you have a website development team with the required knowledge, then Drupal can be a good option. However, if you only have a team with knowledge of website design, then you should rely on WordPress.
Conclusion
Drupal is a great CMS that can build a highly secure, flexible, and high-performance website. However, it has a steep learning curve. Developing a website with Drupal without having a technical team is almost impossible.
The worst part is that if your technical team gets stuck somewhere, the Drupal community is not big enough to answer all their questions.
If you do not want to spend time learning the technical skills required to manage Drupal, or you do not want to hire developers, then Drupal is not right for you. WordPress is an extremely easy-to-use CMS.
Building a website on WordPress is like child’s play. Just because something is easy to use does not mean it cannot produce great results. Multiple businesses successfully use WordPress for their business. You can create a solid WordPress website with the right hosting provider, theme, and plugins.
If you compare both content management systems, then WordPress reigns supreme. There is a reason that it is the market leader when it comes to content management systems. However, whether it can meet your needs or not is for you to decide.
Reference: Top 3 CMS Comparison WordPress vs Joomla vs Drupal for Websites
