Drupal reviews

An easy and affordable CMS that can help build websites and ease of maintenance and upgradation

There is not much support on certain modules beyond Drupal 8 which has made us keep our website running on Drupal 8. The higher versions do not help customized or migrate to those versions and lesser support for them.

This product has been around for a long time so we've used it for awhile and it's worked for us.

As time passed, much better products came out that were easier to use. Drupal became an out-dated product that didn't work very well. It cost us more money to make changes to our website versus changing to something more streamlined.

Drupal offers a wealth of themes and modules that make it possible to create almost any type of website, all backed by its robust and secure security system. Moreover, its scalability makes it ideal for growing businesses. Utilizing a content management system, Drupal easily keeps content up to date and displays it to any variety of devices; and as an open-source platform, Drupal enjoys immense support through an enthusiastic community of users.

I least liked the complexity of the administrative interface. It can take some time to get used to the sheer amount of options and settings within Drupal, which can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate. Additionally, Drupal's reliance on PHP can be challenging for those who are not accustomed to working with server-side technologies.

Drupal is easy to navigate and I appreciate that greatly. Easily integrates with other tools and has plenty of options to use preexisting code, which has certainly saved us time here and there.

Occasionally we do come across issues for things we want to code that Drupal doesn't always like, but I know part of this is because we use a separate database to edit much of our content.

The best part about Drupal is that you can do anything and the best functionality is either in Drupal core or a free module at Drupal.org. There is a misconception that the learning curve is difficult. In comparison, achieving the basic needs of a brochure website are the same in all of the top CMS solutions. Aside from comparisons, the best tool within Drupal is Views. You can create lists and grids of data that can then be sorted, filtered, and altered in so many ways without adding any additional modules. Of course you can extend views and provide even better data lists or different view types but the ability to display and work with items that reside in the system is unlike any other system.

With so many options available to you, the learning curve comes with learning how to best use the best module for the job. There may be 5-10 modules that achieve a result, but in the end, there may only be one module that does it exactly how you want it. So the complexity is in the trial and error of having multiple options. So you may waste time working through the complexities of a module and realize that was not the main intent of the module or it doesn't quite do everything you wanted. This is worth it to me though as I will then be able to understand how different modules can be used in different ways to perform different functions.

With Drupal, you can make almost anything you can imagine even (and mostly) complex sites/apps without the need for starting from scratch. This is possible because of its great (in terms of quality and size) community and contributed modules.

Some features I like the most of Drupal:

- Myriad of contributed modules
- Security
- Possibility to work with several environments and replicate a site/config/contents from code
- Great documentation, repositories, issues... everything you need in one place
- Backend allows managing most of the tasks using a great user interface
- Multilingual
- Community
- Encourages and enforces best practices
- Possibility to perform most actions from command line
- ...

It has a steep learning curve
Last 8.x version requirements are quite elevated

With a world-wide collective of active developers, Drupal is the developer's dream. There are a variety of installation profiles to give you a head start. Unlike Wordpress 99% of amazing modules are FREE. Companies like Sony and the White House use Drupal. If you can dream it you can do it in Drupal. The open-source community is helpful and always contributing new models. Because it is database driven you can create complex data sets that can connect with your current tools. When we build sites that need to scale we use Drupal. Great CDN module that works with Amazon AWS for super fast load time.
Drupal allows you to build Enterprise level sites without custom code.

The only con to Drupal is the steep learning curve. It takes some time to become an expert. It is also helpful to find a host that understands Drupal or get some help. A server tweaked for Drupal is the best way to go and not always easy to find. If you know what you are doing you will have no issues.

Can format/present/lay-out a website in almost any imaginable way. Perms and auths allow for easily varied professional/enterprise workflow (versus something like Wordpress that seems intended for SoHo sites). Lots of good features for optimizing complex pages. Scales up well for high-volume. Large community, lots of support options. A whole ton of contrib code offers multiple ways to do most things you might want to do within the context of Drupal.

Very steep learning curve. relatively heavy system requirements. Abtruse jargon/mechanisms. Out of the box, it's not even vaguely ready to use. Newer releases have emphasized gee-whiz features and change-for-change's sake, making internal APIs increasingly complex without adding a lot of value. Drupal8 is a lot more top heavy than Drupal7, and abandoned much of the contrib code base for little practical gain. The common PHP name space combined with many contrib authors can make for code instability, though the community is better at that than it used to be.

Drupal is not the solution you go to if you want to quickly put out a simple website. It IS the solution you want if you need a website that will scale, if you need robust features, if you care about security, and if you don't really mind getting your hands a little dirty. A lot of things are really more complicated than they need to be compared to Wordpress, but unlike Wordpress, you can accomplish so much more with Drupal with the right modules and a little customization know-how.

Complexity. If you're just starting out with Drupal, you can easily find yourself using 5 modules to do something one module can do, which leads to a more bloated install as you add more features to your site. Knowing how to keep the site lean has performance and security advantages because you don't have to have so many modules to keep in line and updated.

The ability to build in house native software applications with a CMS is incredibly attractive and drupal makes it possible.

Nodes, taxonomy, I could go on. The language used is intriniscally made for coders, which makes it an incredibly difficult website platform to train people on especially clients.

It's both easy to use, secure and customizable.
I find it very intuitive for basic users, which is great when you need to grant editing access to several people (a bit less so for more advanced needs).
It gives you the potential to do pretty much everything you need without affecting the security, and there's a big, helpful network of forums that can help you every time to get stuck.

Some of the most advanced features are not very intuitive, hence you struggle every time you need them -because you forgot where they were on the menus!
Also, sometimes you need to find workarounds to get Drupal to do what you need to.

I like that there is a strong community support system of developers and programmers for this content management system. When looking for a module to use for whatever function you need, it's best to use that developer community and check out the reviews. The other thing to watch for is when it was last updated or modified. If it's a frequently updated or modified module, that should mean that people are using it and it is well maintained.

It is not blatantly apparent before you begin using this content management system that it is so super complex, that it's not a good product for simple brochure websites...

We decided not to save on a platform for creating a site, so we chose CMS Drupal. Thanks to this decision, we were able to make a great site that best meets the objectives of our company. We wrote code without problems, connected the control system and plug-ins, and also set the parameters for SEO promotion. On WordPress, we would never do that.

The update manager does not work almost always. We are constantly tormented when developers release the next update. We just can't deliver it the first time. This is no good, and I hope the developers fix everything.