Drupal

Drupal became one of the most comprehensive CMS systems available. The script has a very specific programming enviroment, that could be described better as a programmer's platform than a simple CMS script.

The script as an Open Source is chosen by many programmers who outgrew simpler scripts like Quick.Cms or WordPress.
The CMS can be downloaded and viewed at www.drupal.org

Advantages

Includes a lot of functionality

Drupal includes lot of functionalities like: advanced menu management, polls management, graphics modification tool, users management and much more. These functions make it possible to create simple or advanced websites, blogs, discussion boards, social networking pages, etc.

Variety of content types

Drupal is famous for allowing to create and manage many content types, like: videos, polls, user management, text, blogs, podcasts, statistics, and others.

Advanced users management

An administrator can create new user accounts and establish their permission rights. Users can be divided into groups and can be given assignments. They can be given permissions to manage parts of your website.

Graphics management

The script includes capabilities of design elements editing. Available templates and themes make for a good start. Predefined page functions configurations make it easy to create both a simple as well as more complicated page configurations.

Page content management

Drupal allows you to categorize your content through URL addresses, paths, making your own lists. This structure makes for easy management, search and reuse of the content.

Plugins

The script has several thousands of plugins available on its website. Since Drupal is an Open Source, you can use as well as create your own plugins.

Support

On the Drupal homepage, there's a documentation, well developed discussion board, chat, mailing list, etc. You can find there plenty of information and help concerning managment and modification of the script.

Disadvantages

Installation and modification

The script is not very user-friendly and requires advanced knowledge to install and modify. Quick.Cms, WordPress and even Joomla are simpler to use, even thoug they do not offer functionalities as rich as Drupal does.

Compatibility

Drupal have planty of new solutions. If you're used to older systems, getting used to this script will take some time.

Efficiency

When considering scalibility and efficiency, Drupal is far behind other scripts like Quick.Cms or WordPress. If your website is very large, the script will generate a big server load. It is caused by the big range of possibilities provided by Drupal. There are however plugins that load a website to the server's cache, what decreases the server load.

Conclusions

Drupal is an advanced CMS system offering plenty functions, that in other scripts require installing many plugins (if they are at all available). Unfortunately it means, that any interference in the script's code requires advanced knowledge of PHP and HTML languages as well as CSS. Luckily for those with at least basic knowledge of these languages, there's a very good technical support. Using this script one has to be aware though, that as traffic on your website increases, there might come a time when the server adminsistrator shuts your site down due to too heavy server load.

Screenshot

  • Drupal screenshot - admin panel menu types
  • Drupal screenshot - admin panel page form
  • Drupal screenshot - admin panel pages management

Users comments

  • Argos
    2014-05-11 09:23

    Drupal is great, but not suitable for writers who just want to focus on providing contents. I've learned and tried for months. After I felt I already have enough knowledge use it so I started a test site using Drupal

  • metring
    2014-07-02 15:21

    I started with Drupal after reading a review on this website. After a couple of days I decided I don't have time to dig into it, install and set up several modules just to make one function work. I've installed Wordpress and Quick.Cms and in fact they do look much simpler. In couple of minutes I did what with Drupal took me a whole day.

  • Pablo Dicapo
    2014-07-23 18:34

    Drupal is quite interesting system, albeit not knocks but as all the ready-made solutions.

  • hastic
    2014-08-02 23:02

    Drupal has a great capabilities of configuration and adaptation, from simple photoblog, to Pentagon's website. Although for a simple photoblog or a website better and simpler solution as Wordpress or quick cms.

  • Jonh
    2014-09-26 15:36

    Drupal is good if you have time to waste. In fact Drupal sucks

  • Lumas
    2014-11-25 22:28

    Drupal is great for professional websites. It is very flexible if you have some basic knowledge of PHP, CSS and HTML. If website design is not your thing or you want to have your personal project up an running quickly, go for Wordpress.

  • Ron
    2015-02-01 00:16

    We just spent $300k developing a social and e-learning site that supports peoples career development, and more. Unfortunately, every little change that we would like to make required having to go back through 20k+ lines of code. We scraped our Drupal site and now rebuilding in Python:(

  • Drupal sucks royally
    2015-05-20 15:57

    Drupal sucks royally $ Anyone looking to get Druapl dont marry it with SQL Server. Drupal has very limited flexibility. There are plenty of simple and easier CMS systems that can put u on continual integration path. Dont bother with Drupal

  • Gregory
    2016-02-25 07:22

    If you just want a simple blog or landing page you probably should choose WordPress.
    If your project is more complex - Drupal is that you need. Don't listen anybody who says that Drupal has limited flexibility or functionality. There are thousands of modules that can provide different functionality - from highly customized shop to social network. Some people says that Drupal isn't flexible enough. This is redicilous. They probably should go to Drupal documentation and read some articles about Drupal API and hooks. And remember - Drupal can be not only CMS, but CMF. You can choose minimal installation profile - and build your own CMS or whatever you need.

  • Chandrakant Patil
    2017-03-12 12:01

    Drupal has a very good capabilities of configuration and adaptation. It is available with more than 16000 modules which can be addressed with Drupal core and add-on modules.

  • Xillio
    2018-09-24 16:05

    We encounter many migration to Drupal. Because it's flexibility it very popular.

Comment