Drupal or WordPress?
There are hundreds of articles debating about Drupal Vs WordPress as a content management system (CMS) for web sites. People want to use tools to solve problems without spending time to learn it. Most of the comparison articles you find in internet world are developer’s perspective. Developers can convince a user based on his/her ability.
We as a web solution provider worked with both platforms for our end clients. Lately after the recession, the clients are not interested in spending huge sum of money on development or hiring developer to develop costumed web application. They wanted to build solution for themselves, if required hire a developer for minimum setup. With this perspective I have compared the tools.
- COST
Both the tools are open source and free, and can be installed on LAMP environment which is more or less cost effective compared to Windows platform. Initial cost for both the tools is same.
When it comes to customization, the cost involved in setting up a simple web application Word press wins. A fresher with six month experience can easily build a decent web application in word press compared to a Drupal developer with same amount of experience. This is with respect to small to medium scale website.
- TIME
Time required to publish a web application hardly takes few hours in today’s world. To launch a marketing web site for a company we in KNS took about 24 hours in Word press compared to 40 to 60 hours in Drupal, of course it varies with the experience of the person working on the project. We can launch the same web site with same duration if our developers are experience in Drupal which in turn points to COST.
- SECURITY
After the launch with hardly few months, we got a mail from a client claiming that, there was security breach in one of his Word press site. This is the at most concern for all word press application. We did spend time on researching the hack and resolving it, but the client has to close his website for couple of days.
Since the community is vast for word press, the developers get enough tips and tricks to avoid it. But as a whole, Drupal wins in this part of the feature.
- SETUP
I had a client, She was not technically sound but her learning curve was short. We were discussing about her business and we wanted leverage her business in social networking media, so I asked to start a blog, developed a sample site in Drupal and asked her to use it. After few days, she mailed me saying not interested. While chatting with her in another context she helped me to understand that the tool which I gave her was bit difficult to setup and learn. I asked her to install word press, with some help she could start using it on her own.
Similar kind of experience can be recorded more than on occasion. Both have excellent front end accessibility but backend, Word press wins.
- UPGRADE & MAINTENANCE
Unless you are highly trained developer, you cannot upgrade or maintain a Drupal website. The module/plugins which are supported in Drupal 6 are not supported in Drupal 7, same with the themes in Drupal. From the clients perspective he is not satisfied with the time line mentioned by the developer or the cost involved in upgrading the application.
Bottom Line:
If you want to start a small organization without any web development budget or in house technical skills, start with Word Press. It’s easy and most importantly simple to move to Drupal later.
If you have a web development budget planned for the year and if you can hire an experience Drupal developer or if you have in house experience Drupal developer, you can go for Drupal 7.
There is no particular conclusion on which tool is better, at end of day it boils down to the cost. One can choose which is better based on how heavy his/her pocket is.
This has been said, we can accomplish the same quality in using both the tools. Cost and time are deciding factors.
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