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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Drupal

    Score7.1 out of 10
    N/ADrupal 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

    Microsoft SQL Server

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft SQL Server is a relational database.

    $1,418

    Per License

    Pricing
    DrupalMicrosoft SQL Server
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Subscription
    $1,418.00
    Per License
    Enterprise
    $13,748.00
    Per License
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DrupalMicrosoft SQL Server
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    DrupalMicrosoft SQL Server
    Considered Both Products
    Open Source
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    76%
    Would buy again
    13 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    53 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    45 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    76%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    53 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    39 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    45 Answers
    Features
    DrupalMicrosoft SQL Server
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Drupal and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    Drupal
    8.3
    74 Ratings
    1% above category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Role-based user permissions8.374 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Drupal and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    Drupal
    7.8
    69 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    API7.364 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language8.260 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Drupal and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    Drupal
    6.5
    78 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    WYSIWYG editor6.371 Ratings00 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness8.275 Ratings00 Ratings
    Admin section7.078 Ratings00 Ratings
    Page templates5.677 Ratings00 Ratings
    Library of website themes5.568 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design6.572 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publishing workflow6.776 Ratings00 Ratings
    Form generator6.672 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Drupal and Microsoft SQL Server
    Feature
    Drupal
    6.6
    77 Ratings
    13% below category average
    Microsoft SQL Server
    -
    Ratings
    Content taxonomy6.971 Ratings00 Ratings
    SEO support6.472 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bulk management6.467 Ratings00 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions6.670 Ratings00 Ratings
    Community / comment management6.869 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    DrupalMicrosoft SQL Server
    Small Businesses
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Amazon RDS
    Score8.1 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    SingleStore
    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    SAP IQ
    Score5.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    DrupalMicrosoft SQL Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    6.8
    (87 ratings)
    7.9
    (107 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    1.0
    (19 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Usability
    6.9
    (20 ratings)
    7.6
    (17 ratings)
    Availability
    9.7
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    8.9
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    1.0
    (5 ratings)
    7.9
    (26 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    5.1
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Data Sharing and Collaboration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (5 ratings)
    Data Sources
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (5 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DrupalMicrosoft SQL Server
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Open Source
    If you want to set up a basic Not For Profit (NFP) Membership system and content base, Word Press is easier than Drupal. However, if you have specific needs that require a fair bit of customisation then Drupal is the best CRM available. If the webmaster is confident with PHP and SQL, Drupal allows a lot of creativity.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Microsoft SQL is ubiquitous, while MySQL runs under the hood all over the place. Microsoft SQL is the platform taught in colleges and certification courses and is the one most likely to be used by businesses because it is backed by Microsoft. Its interface is friendly (well, as pleasant as SQL can be) and has been used by so many for so long that resources are freely available if you encounter any issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Open Source
    • Drag and drop functionality is easy to use
    • Easy to switch between straight text and HTML content
    • Ability to easily have multiple environments so that pages can be built in b/c-stage before they are approved and published
    • Solid user experience where it's clear how to navigate the platform
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Easy to configure and use with Visual Studio and Dot Net
    • Easy integration with MSBI to perform data analysis
    • Data Security
    • Easy to understand and use
    • Very easy to export database and tables in the form of SQL query or a script
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Open Source
    • This is not an easy CMS to work with if you don't have a good understanding of website development. It isn't "plug-and-play" like Wordpress or Shopify.
    • Over time, doing major updates to the system can be taxing, especially if you aren't well-versed enough in doing system updates in line with your "child" theme and code.
    • The CMS can become somewhat cumbersome with server resources if not carefully optimized while you build and customize it to your liking.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise edition has a high cost but is the only edition which supports SQL Always On Availability Groups. It would be nice to include this feature in the Standard version.
    • Licensing of Microsoft SQL Server is a quite complex matter, it would be good to simplify licensing in the future. For example, per core vs per user CAL licensing, as well as complex licensing scenarios in the Cloud and on Edge locations.
    • It would be good to include native tools for converting Oracle, DB2, Postgresql and MySQL/MariaDB databases (schema and data) for import into Microsoft SQL Server.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Open Source
    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
    Microsoft
    We understand that the Microsoft SQL Server will continue to advance, offering the same robust and reliable platform while adding new features that enable us, as a software center, to create a superior product. That provides excellent performance while reducing the hardware requirements and the total cost of ownership of our solution.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Open Source
    As a team, we found Drupal to be highly customizable and flexible, allowing our development team to go to great lengths to develop desired functionalities. It can be used as a solution for all types of web projects. It comes with a robust admin interface that provides greater flexibility once the user gets acquainted with the system.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Open Source
    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
    Microsoft
    Its does not have outages.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Open Source
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    SSAS data cubes may some time slow down your Excel reports.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Open Source
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Open Source
    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
    Microsoft
    It was good
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Open Source
    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
    Microsoft
    very hands on and detailed training
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Open Source
    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%
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Open Source
    Drupal can be more complex to learn, but it offers a much wider range of applications. Drupal’s front and backend can be customized from design to functionality to allow for a wide range of uses. If someone wants to create something more complex than a simple site or blog, Drupal can be an amazing asset to have at hand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    [Microsoft] SQL Server has a much better community and professional support and is overall just a more reliable system with Microsoft behind it. I've used MySQL in the past and SQL Server has just become more comfortable for me and is my go to RDBMS.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Open Source
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    SQL server does handle growing demands of a mid sized company.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Open Source
    • Given the endless possibilities that Drupal can have, we tend to have great support going on when we get a website launched
    • It has become much much faster and easier for us to launch a new project due to reusability
    • Configuration management in Drupal helps greatly with CI/CD, saves us costs
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    Microsoft
    • Increased accuracy - We went from multiple users having different versions of an Excel spreadsheet to a single source of truth for our reporting.
    • Increased Efficiency - We can now generate reports at any time from a single source rather than multiple users spending their time collating data and generating reports.
    • Improved Security - Enterprise level security on a dedicated server rather than financial files on multiple laptop hard drives.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots