http://osakabentures.com/2011/08/drupal-vs-wordpress/
Choosing Between Blog Platforms: Drupal vs WordPress
Posted by OsakaSaul on August 13, 2011 in English | 9 Comments
Drupal has much to offer, such as the ability to define content types, their structure, required fields, and assignment of accessing and editing content as defined by user roles is nearly as simple as it is in WordPress (now). Consistent content input removes inconsistencies associated with multi users sites. The resultant is web pages that look neater. Drupal Filters can strip off any undesired formatting – but without loosing the authors intent as this is retained in the database for future reference. This is cumbersome in WordPress. Drupal also opens up opportunities to write mySql reports using the Drupal friendly Views Add in component and extract this content and place anywhere on a page or peripheral area such a left side bar.
Drupal Japan
Let me share with you the Japanese Drupal Logo
The new version Drupal 7 does provides easier access in the backend. (It used to be more annoying to access.) You can slap up a Drupal site in about the same time as a WordPress site, but often choice comes down to which has the most amazing free templates for new users.
From Dries Buytaert, Founder and Project Lead of Drupal
WordPress looks better on the outside (administration UI); Drupal looks better on the inside (architecture, API design).
WordPress is better than Drupal at blogging, but Drupal excels when you have more sophisticated needs. Non-technical people tend to like WordPress better because it is easier to use. People with a formal background in engineering seem to like Drupal better because it is better to develop on/for. There is a gray area in the middle that I would describe as follows:
Designers that developed some PHP coding skills tend to like WordPress because they can quickly ‘hack’ WordPress and get their job done.
Developers that developed some CSS/PS skills tend to like Drupal because they don’t want to hack Drupal — they want clean code that is maintainable and upgradeable. (I know it is dangerous to generalize and I recognize that there are many exceptions.)
For the past 3 years, the number one stated objective for Drupal is improving usability. The result of that collective effort is a completely new administration backend, improved information architecture, and more. It will soon be available as Drupal 7. I expect Drupal 7 to have a positive impact on Drupal’s adoption, both with a non-technical and a technical audience.
If you don’t want to deal with installing, upgrading or scaling your Drupal 7 site, take a look at http://drupalgardens.com — it is free, and allows you to build a Drupal 7 site similar like you would on WordPress.com or SquareSpace. It is designed to take additional complexity out of Drupal.
I think Drupal Gardens could be a game changer for Drupal as it eliminates many barriers to adoption for Drupal. If you previously discarded Drupal because it was too hard to use, I recommend looking at Drupal Gardens. It is early (we’re still in beta) but keep an eye on it (we have 25,000 sites already)
From Stanton Champion, Marketing Manager at uTest
WordPress is a terrific blogging tool, and we use it for our blog sites. It works very smoothly for rapid content creation, and it’s easy enough that I can allow get in the company to write without having to spend time training them. Creating original content is a big part of our strategy, and having a platform that makes that easy is a plus for us.
Drupal, on the other hand, is a powerful but difficult tool. It requires more training for even basic content creation, and it takes a lot of time to get it up and working correctly. For big sites with lots of moving parts, Drupal is a great system. But for blogs, it’s overkill. In the time it would take me to properly train everyone to use Drupal, they could already be publishing from a WordPress.
WordPress:
fast easy content creation platform
low training overhead
easy to setup and get going
simple to add new sites and blogs as our content needs expand
Drupal:
sophisticated CMS that can do anything
high training overhead
difficult to setup and get going
great for complex sites that need to do a lot of different things
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Saul Fleischman (edit profile)
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Vitaly Tennant 5 days ago
Thanks for this breakdown Saul. I'm sure in the time to come Drupal is gonna get better, but for the time being, lots of plugins are still made specifically for Wordpress ... which gives it more leverage.
Keri at Idea Girl Media liked this
Keri at Idea Girl Media 4 days ago in reply to Vitaly Tennant
Vitaly,
Agree! :)
~Keri
Brandon Clapp 4 days ago
I agree, drupal can be more flexible and expandable than wordpress, but it does have more of a learning curve. I've still yet to figure out the API.
Fransgaard 5 days ago
The two aren't immediately comparable in my experience. It simply breaks down to Wordpress being a content management system whereas Drupal is a content management framework.
As pointed out Wordpress is easier to deploy and get in to for a wider audience but drupal is a lot more scalable and as such used for organisations like NATO, NASA, the White house and playboy.
Historically from a UX point of view Drupals admin interface is a disaster for majority of users and one of the main reason why it is somewhat inaccessible for regular people. I don't know if it still holds true as it's been more than a year since Ive worked on. Drupal site.
But Wordpress admin UX seems to improve with every release.
Keri at Idea Girl Media 4 days ago in reply to Fransgaard
Thanks for your words, Fransgaard.
I'm not a web developer, per say, but I do run my website and blog on my own, and have become somewhat savvy in navigating around websites and some of the code/langugage.
I had been working with a client - their web developer set their site up in Drupal. The client needs easy, but wants a good, sound site.
I suggested Wordpress, as there is a need for blogging - content management. But they opted for Drupal.
When we went in recently to make some minor adjustments and check on the blog, the interface was not user-friendly at all.
Not having a ton of experience with Drupal, I appreciate this insight and feedback. I'll stick with Wordpress for now. :) ~Keri
