Once you are more accustomed to WordPress, which has been around a lot longer than Drupal, it could take you a while to wrap your head around the capabilities that the latter presents. However, Drupal distinguishes itself as the choice enterprise level content management system (ECMS) for web applications and websites.
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Drupal has a more robust functionality than WordPress when it comes to web projects which require any user permissions. It also offers greater flexibility with API development, with hardier and more creative default caching features. In the following paragraphs, we examine key differences between the two CMSs to help you make the right decision for your needs:
1. Security
Drupal comes with enterprise-level site scale and security, making it an ideal choice for main governmental websites, including whitehouse.gov. In WordPress, a small vulnerable zone with a plugin can be exploited by a hacker, causing damage to very many sites that use the WP CMS.
The past few years have seen an increase of platform-specific hosting apps which can help keep security risks at bay. Using these services can help to mitigate the risks of waking up to a ‘tornado’, so to speak, since a majority of security vulnerabilities occur at the server level.
2. Responsive web design and development
Understanding how images will be managed is an important element of interactive website design and development. Images here are not usually capable of scaling in order to perfectly fit each break point. Each CMS handles this challenge differently:
- WP provides for declaration of image sizes per break-point within the functions.php file. However, there’s the risk of a few templates using CSS to scale images, which could result in a performance issue.
- Drupal allows you to set image size through the admin platform using the Image Style module. You don’t have to visit or change .php files.
Both CMSs have modules or plugins which give legacy support, which permits regeneration of previously generated images e.g. when building a new theme. In addition, both are ‘design-agnostic’ which means that templates can be designed in whichever way and there are starter-responsive themes to speed up design and development times.
3. Mobile interface
Where a dedicated mobile theme is necessary, both CMSs provide functional start themes to shorten the time to market for your site. WPTouch is more commonly used in WP, while Drupal provides many mobile starter themes.
There is a difference in how each manages its mobile content. In Drupal, you may add more content fields per page to display on mobile devices. Its themes are better run using the mobile sub-domain version (m.mydomain.com). This, however, could create a challenge with search engine mobile indexation.
With WP, themes can be hosted on the same www subdomain without resulting in any SEO issues. It also has a native mobile app that makes content edition on mobile much easier.
Last word
There’s much to be said about WordPress and Drupal both, much more than can be exhausted in a single article. There are many attributes and capabilities to be considered, and which is better for use can only be determined by the user themselves.
All you need to know is that it’s important to carry out exhaustive research that covers the goals and needs of your site, rather than just choosing the one you are more familiar with or the one with the best reviews. Choosing the right CMS now will save you a lot in time as well as money.