Cascade CMS vs. Drupal

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cascade CMS
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Cascade CMS (formerly Cascade Server) by Hannon Hill is a content management system, with built-in tools to help users eliminate stale content, increase digital outreach, and promote end-user adoption and accountability. Cascade CMS is designed for decentralized web teams in most major industries, including higher education, government, healthcare, and technology. Included is Clive, an engagement and real-time personalization tool for collecting information and using it to craft personalized…N/A
Drupal
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Drupal is a free, open-source content management system written in PHP that competes primarily with Joomla and Plone. The standard release of Drupal, known as Drupal core, contains basic features such as account and menu management, RSS feeds, page layout customization, and system administration.N/A
Pricing
Cascade CMSDrupal
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cascade CMSDrupal
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cascade CMSDrupal
Considered Both Products
Cascade CMS
Chose Cascade CMS
  • The learning curve is minimal compared to Drupal.
  • Implementation is easier
  • Cascade Server is secure
Chose Cascade CMS
Because the (bad) Cascade decision was made quickly by a small team, we have a larger team and a longer timeline, with a growing list of functionality that we expect a replacement system to have. We've been looking into a number of other products to replace Cascade. Highest on …
Chose Cascade CMS
There are several fine CMS products on the market, and each serves its purpose. For our needs, Cascade CMS is the best alternative.

Chose Cascade CMS
WordPress was never evaluated when we decided on Cascade around 2008. We looked for an enterprise level system that would have vendor support and had more developer resources at the time. Our resources have diminished so having plugin solutions like WordPress would solve many …
Chose Cascade CMS
We knew we didn't have the department size (i.e., human resources) or time to work with open source products like Drupal and Joomla, and while we still use WordPress for offshoot blogs by some departments and programs, we needed a more robust CMS that would centralize design …
Chose Cascade CMS
We selected Cascade Server because it manages users more easily. It also requires less coding skills than MS SharePoint does. Drupal on the other hand is freeware so your user support for Drupal is what you would get for not paying for something. Cascade Server dumbs it down …
Drupal

No answer on this topic

Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
Cascade CMSDrupal
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
8.0
19 Ratings
0% below category average
Drupal
10.0
65 Ratings
22% above category average
Role-based user permissions8.019 Ratings10.065 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
7.1
13 Ratings
8% below category average
Drupal
9.5
62 Ratings
21% above category average
API7.012 Ratings9.158 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language7.37 Ratings10.053 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
7.1
19 Ratings
7% below category average
Drupal
9.3
68 Ratings
20% above category average
WYSIWYG editor6.119 Ratings9.161 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness6.018 Ratings9.166 Ratings
Admin section8.019 Ratings9.568 Ratings
Page templates9.017 Ratings9.567 Ratings
Library of website themes5.52 Ratings8.658 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design7.015 Ratings10.063 Ratings
Publishing workflow9.019 Ratings9.167 Ratings
Form generator6.47 Ratings10.063 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Cascade CMS
6.9
18 Ratings
6% below category average
Drupal
9.5
67 Ratings
26% above category average
Content taxonomy8.013 Ratings10.063 Ratings
SEO support7.014 Ratings10.062 Ratings
Bulk management9.014 Ratings10.059 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions6.011 Ratings8.661 Ratings
Community / comment management4.85 Ratings9.161 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cascade CMSDrupal
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cascade CMSDrupal
Likelihood to Recommend
9.9
(44 ratings)
10.0
(77 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(26 ratings)
8.2
(18 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(4 ratings)
10.0
(9 ratings)
Availability
6.7
(4 ratings)
9.7
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.9
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(5 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
5.0
(1 ratings)
6.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(4 ratings)
5.1
(4 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cascade CMSDrupal
Likelihood to Recommend
Hannon Hill
Cascade Server is well suited with it's WYSIWYG editor being better than most editors that I have used in other systems. In context, editing makes adding content easy compared to the last CMS I used where you had to wing it and view the page outside of the CMS to see if it was correct. The ability mix HTML, CSS, and the Script of your choice anywhere and with ease.
The scenarios were Cascade Server is less appropriate would be in the use of compilers or programs like Visual studio. You need to go out of Cascade Server and go to other environments to perform tasks and then copy the result to Cascade Server. You can write directly in Cascade Server, but it's easier to do in and editor that is specific to a function.
Read full review
Drupal.org
Well, I'm definitely biased, I've been working with Drupal for 12+ years, and I can say it's appropriate for any size/scale of a project, whether it's a small catalog website or a huge corporation. If I want to dial it down to a specific use case, Drupal is best what most customers/clients that have high-security standards, and need to have extensive editorial experience and control over their website's architecture. Due to its core design, Drupal can connect with each part of its own and any external third-party resources quite easily. For a less-suited scenario, I might say that if you don't have enough budget to get proper work done, sometimes just using WordPress with a pre-designed theme might sound better to you, but if you have the budget and the time, always go with Drupal
Read full review
Pros
Hannon Hill
  • Cascade CMS makes no assumptions about your content. Templates control how the content gets displayed.
  • Workflows are intuitive and allow for one or more people to review content before it is published.
  • The published site is static (no database connection) which allows for faster page loads and reduced risk of attack.
Read full review
Drupal.org
  • Content Types... these are amazing. Whereas a more simplistic CMS like Wordpress will basically allow you to make posts and build pages, Drupal 8 gives you the ability to define different types of content that behave differently, and are served up differently in different areas of the website.
  • Extensibility... it scales, ohhhh does it scale. They've really figured out server-side caching, and it makes all the difference. Once a page has been cached, it's available instantly to all users worldwide; and when coupled with AWS, global redundancy and localization mean that no matter where you're accessing the site, it always loads fast and crisp.
  • Workflows... you have the ability to define very specific roles and/or user-based editorial workflows, allowing for as many touchpoints and reviews between content creation and publication as you'll require.
Read full review
Cons
Hannon Hill
  • Cascade CMS is not an out-of-the-box pre-built system that you can install, turn on and expect to be serving sites and pages on day one. It's not a blogging system like WordPress, or a drag-and-drop system like SquareSpace (both of which I've used for their own purposes). You need to have someone tasked with management and system administration – and if you implement the on-premise self-hosted version, you ought to have several people. We have the university's IT shop handling infrastructure (server hardware, containers, clustering, operating systems, load-balancing, DNS, database servers, NAS/SAN drives), our Web & Design team managing Cascade CMS (system settings, sites, templates, permissions) and managers coordinating each respective academic unit (A&S, business, education, law, marine science).
Read full review
Drupal.org
  • Security and new release notifications are a hassle as they happen too often
  • Allowing them to write PHP modules is a big advantage, but sometimes integrating them is a small challenge due to the version the developer is working on.
  • Steep learning curve, but worth it
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Hannon Hill
Changing systems would require too much effort. Our institution is using Cascade Server, WordPress and Drupal but we only serve 2200 students so we have 1 too many content management systems. Reflecting on current technical resources we would like to drop down to 2. This effort hasn't moved forward because of the extensive work required to migrate content and train users in a new system.
Read full review
Drupal.org
The time and money invested into this platform were too great to discontinue it at this point. I'm sure it will be in use for a while. We have also spent time training many employees how to use it. All of these things add up to quite an investment in the product. Lastly, it basically fulfills what we need our intranet site to do.
Read full review
Usability
Hannon Hill
Cascade CMS is completely usable on mobile devices, we can train our content editors in a single 2-hour session, and we support 1,000 users with a very small team.
There is a level of complexity for the system administrators, site managers and web programmers who implement templates and content types. But the complexity is neither arbitrary nor inconsistent – and once learned provides a powerful environment within which we can develop robust sites that are beautiful and powerful, yet easy for our content editors to manage.
Read full review
Drupal.org
It's a great CMS platform and there are a ton of plugins to add some serious functionality, but the security updates are too complex to implement and considering the complexity of the platform, security updates are a must. I don't want my site breached because they make it too difficult to keep it up to date.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Hannon Hill
Amazing customer service and VERY customizable.
Read full review
Drupal.org
Drupal itself does not tend to have bugs that cause sporadic outages. When deployed on a well-configured LAMP stack, deployment and maintenance problems are minimal, and in general no exotic tuning or configuration is required. For highest uptime, putting a caching proxy like Varnish in front of Drupal (or a CDN that supports dynamic applications).
Read full review
Performance
Hannon Hill
Does a great job.
Read full review
Drupal.org
Drupal page loads can be slow, as a great many database calls may be required to generate a page. It is highly recommended to use caching systems, both built-in and external to lessen such database loads and improve performance. I haven't had any problems with behind-the-scenes integrations with external systems.
Read full review
Support Rating
Hannon Hill
They have always regarded any question or problem we encountered as very important. We have never felt that they ignore or downplay any issue and not once has anything been left unresolved. They also hold an annual conference where users are invited to attend and share their experiences and wisdom with the entire Cascade community. And with the care and support the provide, we all feel a part of that community.
Read full review
Drupal.org
As noted earlier, the support of the community can be rather variable, with some modules attracting more attraction and action in their issue queues, but overall, the development community for Drupal is second to none. It probably the single greatest aspect of being involved in this open-source project.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Hannon Hill
Training was helpful.
Read full review
Drupal.org
I was part of the team that conducted the training. Our training was fine, but we could have been better informed on Drupal before we started providing it. If we did not have answers to tough questions, we had more technical staff we could consult with. We did provide hands-on practice time for the learners, which I would always recommend. That is where the best learning occurred.
Read full review
Online Training
Hannon Hill
Still needed that physical help
Read full review
Drupal.org
The on-line training was not as ideal as the face-to-face training. It was done remotely and only allowed for the trainers to present information to the learners and demonstrate the platform online. There was not a good way to allow for the learners to practice, ask questions and have them answered all in the same session.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Hannon Hill
The key to any CMS implementation is PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. Proper planning with Cascade can increase your satisfaction exponentially once the site migration/creation is complete. When all is said and done, your implementation can make your site run like a Yugo or Maserati. Be smart and deliberate in your decisions. Drive the Maserati. It is already paid for.
Read full review
Drupal.org
Plan ahead as much you can. You really need to know how to build what you want with the modules available to you, or that you might need to code yourself, in order to make the best use of Drupal. I recommend you analyze the most technically difficult workflows and other aspects of your implementation, and try building some test versions of those first. Get feedback from stakeholders early and often, because you can easily find yourself in a situation where your implementation does 90% of what you want, but, due to something you didn't plan for, foresee, or know about, there's no feasible way to get past the last 10%
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Hannon Hill
We selected Cascade server seven years ago, and the CMS environment at the time was clearly different than it is today. We decided to go with a vendor solution rather than a free solution because the long term cost in hosting a free solution is not, in fact, free; we've found Cascade to have been an excellent choice for us.
Read full review
Drupal.org
Drupal is community-backed making it more accessible and growing at a faster rate than Sitefinity which is a proprietary product built on .NET. Drupal is PHP-based using some but not all Symphony codebase. Updates for Drupal are frequent and so are feature adds.
Read full review
Scalability
Hannon Hill
I used it only a few times.
Read full review
Drupal.org
Drupal is well known to be scalable, although it requires solid knowledge of MySQL best practices, caching mechanisms, and other server-level best practices. I have never personally dealt with an especially large site, so I can speak well to the issues associated with Drupal scaling.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Hannon Hill
  • Initially, ROI was positive - because we completely redesigned the website when we implemented Cascade.
  • Over time, the inability to keep up with the latest interactive tools has reduced visitors time on site.
  • Also over time, the difficulty of use has led to less buy-in by backend users, leading to outdated pages, little timely information, and lower visitors.
Read full review
Drupal.org
  • Drupal has allowed us to build up a library of code and base sites we can reuse to save time which has increased our efficiency and thus had a positive financial impact.
  • Drupal has allowed us to take on projects we otherwise would not have been able to, having a further impact.
  • Drupal has allowed us to build great solutions for our clients which give them an excellent ROI.
Read full review
ScreenShots