WordPress vs Drupal

When it comes to content management systems, there are two names that stand out: WordPress and Drupal. Each has its own loyal community, a long list of popular websites that it powers, as well as a wide range of features and functionality. In this comparison breakdown, we’re going to pit them against each other. Are you ready for WordPress vs Drupal?

Before we get started, it’s worth pointing out that most people already know that WordPress is easier to use. It’s also more popular. In contrast, Drupal has a much smaller community of users and a steeper learning curve. But apart from that, what really separates the two?

That’s what we’re about to find out.

WordPress vs Drupal: 4-round comparison

Drupal vs WordPress

In this article, we will attempt to compare Drupal and the open source version of WordPress across the following set of fields:

  1. Search engine optimization ⚙️
  2. Security 🔒️
  3. Ability to extend and customize 🖱️
  4. Content management and performance 📈

Let’s get started!

1. Search engine optimization ⚙️

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is of utmost importance for the health of your website. If your site does not do well in terms of page ranks and search results, your online presence will suffer, badly.

As a matter of fact, both WordPress and Drupal are good with SEO. To be honest, Google (or any other search engine for that matter) does not truly care which platform you are using, as long as your content is in order and you follow the SEO norms. However, Matt Cutts of Google has stated that WordPress is a good choice in terms of SEO, as shown in this video:

And of course, WordPress users have the luxury of amazing plugins such as All in One SEO Pack and Yoast SEO that can help in terms of SEO.

However, it is also worth pointing out that Drupal is not a minnow when it comes to search engines. Yoast SEO, for example, is available for Drupal as well. Furthermore, it is often unknown to non-users of Drupal, but the software comes with SEO-friendly features that WordPress lacks in the absence of external plugins. For instance, native caching is supported by Drupal out of the box, whereas WordPress needs additional plugins for caching. Page caching leads to faster load times and that, obviously, is a very useful metric to boost your pagerank.

🏆 All things considered, WordPress wins the SEO round due to the number of available plugins that can help your site’s SEO in many different ways.

2. Security 🔒️

For anything on the internet, security is a concept that is really vital, but can never be absolutely achieved. Nothing on the internet is 100% safe or secure, nor can it ever be. We can only try to achieve a great level of security, and the same applies to both WordPress and Drupal, as well as any other similar piece of software.

Drupal security

Drupal has, over the years, earned a reputation for its secure and robust performance. While it has had its own share of issues, such as numerous SQL injection vulnerabilities, the community has been quick to respond and for the most part, Drupal has fared well in terms of combating security threats. The fact that the likes of The White House and The Economist prefer to rely on Drupal is a testimony to this effect.

WordPress security

WordPress, however, is not weak in terms of security either. While this is a known fact that WordPress gets way more security threats and malware attacks than any other software, this has more to do with WP’s popularity and less to do with any potential lack of security practices.

Final assessment

Yet, when all is said and done, there is less margin for error in terms of security when using Drupal as compared to WordPress.

This is simply due to the fact that there is a ridiculously large number of plugins and themes that are readily available for WordPress. Unfortunately, many of these themes and plugins are also poorly coded and can pose a security issue for your website. While the WordPress community is very quick to respond to such issues, there are still windows of potential error that can compromise a website. Since the number of such plugins and themes is smaller for Drupal, the potential room for error is also smaller.

🏆 This round goes to Drupal.

3. Ability to extend and customize 🖱️

WordPress and Drupal offer different approaches to extending and customizing websites. They’re also aimed at different audiences.

WordPress customization

WordPress is backed by a large number of themes and plugins (both free and premium) that you can use to extend its functionality and features. You can create ecommerce stores, news sites, portfolio sites, and a lot more with WordPress by using the right combination of plugins and themes. It provides a user-friendly interface, making it suitable for non-technical users.

Drupal customization

Drupal too is backed by extensions and modules that can help you extend its functionality, but this number is comparatively smaller. This does not mean you cannot customize Drupal. You still can do a lot with it, but the learning curve is steeper. It also requires a lot more effort when trying to create something unique with Drupal versus doing something similar in WordPress.

Final assessment

As a developer, you can tweak Drupal to your heart’s extent, and this is probably why we see many Drupal sites with a very unique nature. But for non-developers, WordPress is still the way to go when comparing WordPress vs Drupal.

🏆 This round goes to WordPress.

4. Content management and performance 📈

Both Drupal and WordPress can do a lot in terms of content management and performance. While user interface and ease of use are a matter of perspective, as what is usable and familiar for one user might be unusable for the other, there are certain areas where each of these two CMSs prove their worth.

WordPress content management and performance

WordPress is built primarily with PHP and enjoys broad support and compatibility with various hosting environments, including shared servers. However, the performance of a WordPress site can be affected by the installation of numerous plugins. For instance, an excessively plugin-heavy WordPress site, such as one with 45 plugins, is likely to experience slowdowns.

On the positive side, WordPress benefits from a vast community and extensive resources, making it accessible for users with diverse technical backgrounds. Updates and maintenance tasks are relatively straightforward in WordPress, ensuring a streamlined user experience.

Drupal content management and performance

Like WordPress, Drupal is predominantly coded in PHP and performs well on shared servers. However, there is a notable difference in the approach to modules and plugins between the two platforms. The Drupal community tends to rely less on modules compared to WordPress users. This could be attributed to the larger number of developers in the Drupal community. Consequently, Drupal sites may have a leaner reliance on external modules, contributing to potential performance gains.

Final assessment

While both WordPress and Drupal offer robust content management and performance features, WordPress has certain advantages over Drupal.

WordPress boasts a more accessible learning curve and benefits from a wider range of publications and resources. Basic tasks, such as updating the CMS, are more time-consuming in Drupal but relatively easier in WordPress. Considering these factors…

🏆 The final round goes to WordPress.

Conclusion: Drupal vs WordPress 🏁

Drupal offers a lot of a features out of the box, such as page caching, and a lot more. However, unless you’re a developer, WordPress is still more user-friendly and overall more approachable than Drupal.

Drupal does offer a flexible system, and once you master the ropes you can virtually create any genre or nature of website, but WordPress is more popular, and therefore better supported. By using the right combination of plugins and themes, WordPress can serve your web design and development projects very well.

After carefully considering the points above,  WordPress takes it today  in our WordPress vs Drupal comparison. But, in all honesty, we’re probably a bit biased.

What do you think? Are WordPress and Drupal capable of running equal websites and serving their users with the same level of quality? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Hanna Nicholson
June 25, 2018 11:24 am

Good comparison article. Would be great if you can cover the ease of use part as well. As a marketer, I always like to go with the CMS which is easy to understand. I was reading similar article on ReviewsDir that explains Drupal and WordPress comparison in detail, it is amazing to see how they are different and unique.

Mark
May 4, 2017 2:57 am

I agree. Especially with Drupal 8. I feel it looks less cluttered than before. I use WordPress for clients that request it, but for all others it is Drupal

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