What is Drupal?

3 min readJul 31, 2018

Drupal is a popular free open source Content Management System (CMS) software. It is written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License, which guarantees users the freedom to run, study, share and modify the software. It is used to make applications and websites and basically simplifies the online management of content and users. Some of its features include easy content authoring, reliable performance, and excellent security. It uses various functionalities like poll managements, graphic modification tools, user managements and advanced menu managements etc.

What are the advantages?

Some Major highlights of Drupal

It is an open source software

In Drupal, the core software, contributed modules, and large number of themes are all free. This help reduce web development costs for businesses and users.

2. It is customizable

Features, operations, layouts, and designs are all customizable and gives developers a wide variety of selections to choose from to address their clients’ needs.

3. Facilitates rapid deployment

Allows companies to deploy core features and functionality rapidly.

4. It gives extensive API support

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google analytics provide an extensive API support for Drupal. Developers can create custom modules by using such API.

5. It is mobile friendly

Smart device users can view Drupal websites the same as that of desktop users.

Wordpress vs Joomla vs Drupal

Cost is around the same for all three platforms. Drupal is the most complex out the three because it requires a working knowledge of PHP, HTML and other programming languages to make any meaningful changes. Drupal comes with the steepest learning curve and requires the most knowledge.

WordPress — It is beginner friendly and easy to use. You can make a highly functional website suitable with no prior programming knowledge. Like Drupal, WordPress is customizable, secure, mobile friendly, easy to localize and collaborate on as well as easy to pass on to clients. It has the largest community and ecosystem but can be a challenge to scale.
Joomla — In terms of user friendliness and scalability, Joomla places in between Wordpress and Drupal. It is mainly known to be used for social networking and e-commerce companies. It has a steeper learning curve than Wordpress, but it’s still widely used by popular brands.
Drupal — It is used to build large sites with various features and customizations. Also, it offers a lot of power, capability and scalability(more robust back-end), but hard to use for beginners. It requires prior programming experience, such that companies may hire developers to utilize Drupal.