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Why we use Drupal instead of WordPress

Photo by Fotis Fotopoulos Unsplash, screens

Years back, when I was looking for an easy to use web-shop, and cart systems like Magento weren’t available yet, I checked and evaluated different Open Source systems, to name some: WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. It took me a lot of time and development installations, even some failures until I decided to go with Drupal. 

Here are some of the points that are important to me

  1. Improved security: Drupal is known for its robust security features, which can make it a safer platform for websites that handle sensitive data or are at risk of being targeted by hackers.
  2. Great flexibility: Drupal offers a wide range of customization options, allowing users to create a website that is tailored to their specific needs and goals.
  3. Better scalability: Drupal is a scalable platform that can handle high traffic volumes and large amounts of data, making it a good choice for websites that are expected to grow over time.
  4. Stronger support & community: Drupal has an active community of developers and users, which can provide valuable support and resources for those who are building or maintaining a website.
  5. Improved performance: Drupal websites are often faster and more efficient than WordPress websites, which can improve the user experience and help with search engine rankings.
  6. Improved accessibility: Drupal is designed with accessibility in mind, and includes features that make it easier for people with disabilities to access and use the website. This can be a valuable selling point for customers who want to make their website as widely accessible as possible.
  7. More reliable updates: Drupal has a well-organized update process that can be more reliable and easier to manage than the update process for WordPress. This can be important for customers who want to ensure that their website is always up to date and secure.

From a site builders perspective the following is important to me

  1. Flexible Content types: In Drupal I have content types which allow me to add fields to them. This very practical especially for standardized content. In a shop I have several different products, but the content structure is the same. There will be always a product picture, a product description, a price, etc. With the fields I’m free to create any content type I want. In WordPress I’m limited to posts and pages, which of course can be heavily altered using the block system but still, for the next post or page I have to start again.
  2. Extensive Taxonomy: While different content types gave me already a wide variety of possibility with Taxonomy I can drive this even further. In WordPress I’m limited to the category and the tags. In Drupal I can create an unlimited set of categories and tags. Think of it as the possibility to have categories, tags and flavors, or colors, or car models, etc.
  3. Views: Views are database queries with which I can query the content, taxonomy, users, etc. Whatever I have put onto the site, can be put in lists. This comes very helpful for example if I want to put a list on my blog that shows all posts that have more than 50 comments, or all comments that are older than a year, or all photos that I ever put up in specific content type. The sky is the limit. In WordPress this is simply not possible.
  4. Easy User management: User management in Drupal is simple. I can create several different roles and in the permission table grant rights for different roles. This is very fine granular and far more than WordPress is capable of. I can add a role for specific jobs, like for example only for changing the header image of the front-page. This means: The author and editor can see and do what they need to see and do, and not be overwhelmed by things that only the site manager or administrator need to see and do.
  5. Non-cluttered back-end theme: WordPress is very cluttered when it comes to the administration and the worst part is that most site owners access their WordPress with an administrator account, and then have far too many options available to them. With Drupal I can decide which roles have access to what and therefore the back-end looks tidy and manageable.
  6. Non-cluttered front end: WordPress shines with the availability of easy to install themes. But this is very it usually ends. WordPress themes come with far too many possibilities and options. Both beyond the capability of a standard user. And while they look pretty they also come with a lot of overhead on the technical site, like not needed libraries, CDN (Content delivery network) loaded fonts, and other CDN loaded libraries. Usually WordPress themes are bigger in total file size and by that load slower.

At Chase and Snow we offer WordPress to Drupal migrations. Contact us today and together we find a solution that suits you and your business.

Ps. even though we don't build pages with WordPress, we're happy to fix and improve your existing WordPress websites, and manage their updates so that they remain functional and secure. Contact us!

This text was written by our web developer Dominik Jais.