WordPress and Drupal are both powerful Content Management Systems (CMS’s) and two of the most popular ones in use today. There are several key differences between the two, and selecting the best fit has more to do with the specific goals and aims of a project than one being necessarily better than the other.
Similarities
Both WordPress and Drupal are:
- Open source content management systems built on the LAMP stack.
- Shared functionality, plugins, themes, etc.
- Regular events, support communities, trainings, and information/guides.
- A robust long-term future; neither of them will be going anywhere anytime soon.
Key Differences
| FACTOR | WORDPRESS | DRUPAL |
| Ease of use & Complexity | Easy to install, requires little to no coding knowledge to get a site up and running. | Easy to install, requires more customization and configuration to set up. |
| Learning Curve | Small learning curve. | Large learning curve, coding experience often needed. |
| Content Structures | Focus on blog and article content that displays on webpages. Pre-configured content types and functionality for quick publishing and easy static pages and articles. | Focus on interconnected content that can display in multiple places and push to other places on the web. Ability to create complex and customizable content types for advanced functionality of pages. |
| Plugins/Modules | Solution oriented plugins that provide specific out of the box functions. | Functionality oriented modules meant to be combined with others to create needed functions. |
| User Access/Workflows | Easy to start publishing content. Simple roles and workflows out of the box. Complex workflows are implemented via plugins like Edit Flow. | Focused on more-complex workflows with highly customized permissions and roles. |
| Security | Third-party plugins can be prone to security vulnerabilities. For more information, see our blog post on WordPress Security. | Also has third-party vulnerabilities. |
Summary
WordPress is a powerful and easy to use tool for creating content-oriented websites of all sizes. Drupal is similar to WordPress in many ways, however it is has a higher learning curve and requires more customization.
Questions?
If you would like to learn more about WordPress or are a publisher considering a site migration from Drupal to WordPress, get in touch!