WordPress vs. Drupal 2019 — How To Make The Right Choice

With so many ways to build content on the internet nowadays, WordPress and Drupal remain two of the most reliable and customizable platforms available on the market. But how do you choose between them without inevitably regretting your choice going forward?

Here at Darwinapps, we work with these technologies because we see the potential for business growth in both of them. We understand why it may be difficult to choose one over the other, and we’re here to help you make the right choice. Check out our process now and engineer your way to the future!

If you’re totally new to this kind of technology, WordPress and Drupal are both Content Management Systems (CMS’s in short). They help web administrators and publishers create content faster, more efficiently, and more easily than actually building a website page by page or from scratch.

Let’s start with an overview.

WordPress vs. Drupal — What’s The Difference?

The first questions that come to mind are: “What’s the difference, and why should I choose one platform over the other?” These are great questions, and they deserve equally great answers. WordPress and Drupal are different in the way they work. Let’s see what that means:

WordPress

• Is a perfect solution for eCommerce thanks to the WooCommerce framework
• Makes it easier to do stuff on your own by following tutorials and documentation
• Is hugely varied and can make a standard theme look like no other site on the web
• Can take you as little as a few weeks to get your website ranking on search engines

Drupal

• Is complex, tech-heavy software that might require an entire development team
• Is much more nuanced than WordPress, giving you virtually infinite options
• Has security uncomparable to any other CMS on the market today
• Makes integrating other custom software a breeze (for skilled developers)

WordPress is actually younger than Drupal, having launched in 2003, but the platform dominates the CMS market today. Drupal was launched way back in 2000, and yet it “only” powers around 2.3% of all websites, compared to Wordpress’s whopping 35%.

Sure, the numbers matter, but the technology used on both platforms is top-notch, and we’ll see why in the next section. Right now, you can think of WordPress as the king of all CMS’s, with people constantly working to improve it given its open-source nature. Additionally, there are a multitude of apps (called plugins) being updated every day.

The WordPress vs. Drupal scenario comes up when you think about remarkable websites being hosted with the latter; websites for The Economist, NASA, and other important organizations. Why are they being built with Drupal? Because its tech is unparalleled.

Let’s analyze performance and features.

WordPress vs. Drupal — Performance, Features, and Benefits

If you want to make the right choice, you have to look at what you need as an organization or user. Both platforms are extremely stable and well-built, and both offer features which make it easier to achieve your goals. WordPress, for example, is recognized for its ease of use; one of the many reasons why it’s so popular.

Drupal, on the other hand, is recognized because of its flexibility. Unlike WordPress, the platform has built-in support for multilingual sites, benefitting large operations that span across multiple countries. The same can’t be said for WordPress, which requires separate plugins for multi-language sites.

Other than that, both platforms offer blazing fast speeds; whichever you choose, you won’t have to worry about that. After all, you’ve likely heard that speed is extremely important on the internet, so we’re happy to say that you’re safe and sound as long as you follow best practices.

Here are some common benefits for each platform:

WordPress

• You can quickly add new functionalities by installing plugins
• You don’t have to worry about code or programming
• You have everything packaged into a simple user interface
• You benefit from 24/7 support and a ton of documentation

Drupal

• You have custom-coded themes made specifically for you
• You have core support for multi-language websites and apps
• You can manage lots of data at once with the built-in taxonomy system
• You have access to in-depth customization for user roles and content types

As you can see, Drupal is more of a “hardcore” platform made for people who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, while WordPress is the perfect platform for beginners and professionals alike. This core difference makes both platforms important for their respective users in their own ways.

WordPress vs. Drupal — Security, Themes, and Extensibility

If you’re still asking yourself why NASA decided to go with Drupal, here’s the answer: there’s no platform on the market as secure as Drupal! In fact, Drupal’s lockdown security is its main selling point, and also the reason why the platform is so important for large organizations.

Not to bash WordPress, but their security gets very, very suspect when you start installing too many plugins. This is unlike Drupal’s “module” system, which guarantees enterprise-level security at all times, no matter how many modules you decide to install. Definitely an important contrast to consider.

When it comes to bespoke themes, Drupal is the way to go. Paid and free themes for WordPress are updated regularly, but they can be ill-optimized. If that’s the case, you won’t be able to do much about it; you might even have to rebuild the entire design at some point. On the other hand, themes for Drupal are usually custom-built for every need, perfectly adapting to your requirements.

In terms of extensibility, WordPress remains the absolute king. Yes, Drupal does offer many of the functionalities that you can implement on WordPress by default, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll get all the nifty tricks that WordPress plugins can do for you.

When new innovations start popping up on the internet, they’re more likely to be developed onto WordPress instead of Drupal — at least initially. However, you shouldn’t let this detract you from choosing Drupal in the first place; first-generation plugins can be finicky and even dangerous.

So, what’s our take? Both platforms are beautifully complex and offer the right degree of functionality mixed in with the support needed to run a full-time, round-the-clock operation. But choosing between one or the other? It’s less of a tough choice now, isn’t it?

WordPress vs. Drupal — Choosing The Right Platform

Finally, we can look into which platform is best for your needs. After discussing all the major selling points of these two CMS’s, you might be wondering what’s next. The only thing that’s left to do is review how easy it is to install these platforms and get your website online.

Once again, WordPress wins, and by a large margin. People at Drupal themselves realize that the platform’s interface might not be the easiest to use, and they’re fine with that — as long as the platform is secure, stable, and most of all, technically advanced, it works for them (and their clients).

This is where you come in. Do you want to dive deep into high-grade security because of privacy and intellectual property concerns? Or, would you rather have a casual experience building a site from scratch with simple tools offered by the biggest CMS in the world?

The great news? Darwinapps handles both platforms for you. No matter what choice you make, you’re making the right choice. That’s because we offer high-end support for any type of request; we engineer your way to the future. Discover how and learn more about our mission!

Make a statement with either WordPress or Drupal.