Drupal - still the king of enterprise grade opensource content management systems
Updated November 11, 2016
Drupal - still the king of enterprise grade opensource content management systems
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Drupal
Drupal is an integral tool in every aspect of our business. Commercial Progression has been developing Drupal powered websites for a variety of industries since 2007. We love being a contributing member of the supportive and vast opensource community that has come together to build this amazing content management system. Of course we leverage Drupal to manage our front facing business websites, but it is also powerful enough to integrate with our CRM and build back office business management tools for ERP systems. Drupal excels at delivering enterprise grade integrations with large organizations that have a long range technology roadmap. Being able to scale with the complexity of any web development project makes Drupal the ideal tool for handling the most challenging web application projects.
- The Drupal core ships with a granular, field level content construction toolset. The very popular views module is now part of the core Drupal CMS and enables the creation of complex content types, it's way more than a blogging tool.
- Drupal is especially adept at integration with enterprise grade CRM and ERP systems. Because all of the data in Drupal is naturally available for mapping at the field level, there is a ready environment for connecting to restful API systems.
- Drupal scales exceptionally well with multisite and multiuser environments. Large universities can standardize on a common codebase of Drupal and then roll it out to the entire campus. Individual colleges can customize their themes and content but do not need to worry about figuring out their own module stack.
- Drupal is complex, it will take time and expertise to shape it into the tool you need it to be for your use case. WordPress can be installed and is ready to go for blogging out-of-the-box, but Drupal will need more setup up front to build out the functionality needed.
- Finding strong Drupal expertise can be challenging for companies. Although the developer community is over a million strong, there are still few companies that truly have an expert Drupal developer on staff.
- Drupal can be overkill for small websites with just a few pages or limited functionality. Many new flat file responsive tools can do well to build a basic brochure site without the overhead of a CMS like Drupal.
- Security is an ongoing struggle for all users of opensource CMS solutions. If you choose Drupal for your website, you will need a plan for security updates to ensure you are one step ahead of the hackers.
- Drupal takes more investment up front to properly set up the development environment, but once done a Drupal instance can be confidently deployed with continuous development in mind. Cost of long term updates decreases over time.
- Many efficiencies are gained with the right integration. We have developed integrations with CRM and ERP systems that automatically replicate data and reduce the need for duplicate data entry scenarios.
- Modern responsive design and SEO aware taxonomies make Drupal the ideal platform for building out an inbound marketing strategy with content at the core. Attracting business and building a website that converts visitors into customers is where Drupal shines.
Drupal is the king of enterprise opensource content management systems. It is the most robust and comes from the most forward thinking community. Drupal 8 is designed for the next evolution in web design and development. WordPress and Joomla! are stuck in the web 2.0 revolution and do not scale to the level of complexity that Drupal is built for. Commercial offerings like Sitecore and Adobe Experience Manager come saddled with expensive annual license fees and still do not offer a best of breed toolset. Opensource tools stay ahead of the curve thanks to the contribution of a million world wide developers. Opensoure software remains free, the cost savings in license fees is always worth considering.