WordPress gets a lot of the top billing when it comes to website platforms, but there’s another name you should know. It’s Drupal, and chances are this platform is behind many of the websites that you visit regularly.
Drupal is used by many major brands and government agencies and offers a host of features that help websites handle large amounts of traffic, publish a wide variety of content, and manage complex user permissions and security needs.
Here at Webspec, our expert team works with many Drupal clients who want to get the most out of their platform and its features. What should you know about Drupal, and when could it work best for your website project? Let’s look at the ins and outs of the platform.
What Exactly Is Drupal?
Drupal is a website content management system (CMS), meaning it’s a platform designed to help users build websites and create content. Aside from WordPress, it’s one of the main content management systems we work with here at Webspec.
Drupal is written with the PHP scripting language and is an open-source CMS, which means that it’s free to use and is available to be modified by its users. Like WordPress, it allows users to create and publish content without knowing how to code, but it also allows developers to dig into the code to expand its capabilities.
Drupal’s platform is known for being easily customizable: There are more than 50,000 user-generated “modules” (add-ons similar to WordPress “plugins”) that can add new functionalities to the platform or integrate with other programs like Salesforce, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, and more.
Across the industry, Drupal is typically used for the websites of larger corporations, government agencies, and universities. Why do many of them choose it? And when would you use Drupal as opposed to another CMS, like WordPress?
Let’s explore what Drupal does well and when it might be the right choice for a website project.
When Is Drupal the Right CMS for Your Project?
You Have a Large Website With Complex User Permissions
Drupal is extremely popular among government agencies, large educational institutions, and major brands. For example, the White House website ran on Drupal from 2009 to 2017.
Part of this popularity is due to the platform’s ability to handle large-scale sites with a large number of different content types and manage complex user roles and permissions. Drupal is very capable of handling multiple users, roles, and permissions. This functionality allows the site administrator to assign different levels of permissions and information visibility for each user, making it a breeze to ensure that lower level users are limited to appropriate information and site functionality.
The customization available on Drupal has many advantages, including being able to handle a large amount of web traffic and include many customized content types — such as posts, pages, events, author bios, and more — meaning that it’s easy to scale up a website on the platform.
You’re Prioritizing Security
While other platforms also have security features, Drupal has a reputation of being a stronger open-source platform than the alternatives. Part of this comes from advanced user permission controls, as well as regular security updates and the large, active community seeking out and correcting vulnerabilities. There are also modules available that allow you to customize and harden your website’s security.
You’re Looking for Enhanced Accessibility Tools
All websites should be accessible to their users, but accessibility comes under more scrutiny on government websites that serve a large and diverse audience. Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and accessibility best practices is essential. Drupal’s features are designed to align with best practices, and the platform has baked-in accessibility features like keyboard navigation and easy image alt text addition. Modules are also available to enhance your ability to customize your website for greater accessibility
Work With Iowa’s Top Drupal Experts
At Webspec, our Enterprise Team works with Drupal every day. We’re experts in building sites and troubleshooting issues and have accomplished work for many clients, including the State of Iowa.
Whether you’re looking into Drupal or WordPress — or aren’t sure which is best for you — give us a call today to learn more about what we can do.
