Drupal vs WordPress:
An in-depth comparison for enterprise websites

Ease of use

Ease of use is one of the most important criteria when choosing a CMS. Drupal and WordPress both offer distinct backend user interfaces that cater to different levels of technical expertise.

Drupal’s interface is endlessly customizable. With a little bit of code, you can have complete administrative flexibility. However, this results in a steeper learning curve for new users. Drupal offers more granular control, but requires a deeper understanding of its structure, modules, and advanced configuration settings.

WordPress’ interface puts content management front and center. The dashboard  in the backend is intuitive and allows new users to quickly learn essential tasks, such as adding content, managing pages, and even defining user permissions. 

Editorial experience

The editorial experience in Drupal is markedly different from WordPress. This can significantly impact content workflows.

In Drupal, the CKEditor offers a limited WYSIWYG experience that’s similar to classic text editors. The rich text editing interface allows authors to compose content with relative ease. However, behind the familiar facade lies a somewhat dated architecture. The lack of modularity often leads to unwieldy code and limited flexibility. 

Customizing layouts or embedding dynamic elements in Drupal can feel akin to assembling a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded. CKEditor requires more technical knowledge to customize and optimize, often demanding developer intervention for more advanced tasks.

In comparison, Gutenberg revolutionizes content creation with its intuitive block-based system in WordPress. Each element, from text to multimedia, becomes a ‘block’ that users can easily manipulate. This modular approach enhances flexibility and streamlines the design process, making it more efficient for both beginners and seasoned users.

Gutenberg block editor offers a visual interface for building layouts, empowering users to focus on content creation.  Additionally, Gutenberg enables WordPress to embrace intrinsic design principles, empowering users to achieve sophisticated layouts without wrestling with code. And guess what, Drupal now also has Gutenberg as a third-party extension, but it is not baked-in.

Gutenberg democratizes content creation on WordPress, enabling anyone to build visually appealing pages quickly. Need a call-to-action button? Add a ‘Button’ block. Want a testimonial carousel? There’s a ‘Testimonial’ block for that. This flexibility and user-centric design position WordPress as a superior solution for crafting engaging and modern web content.

Layout design

Drupal’s Layout Editor allows users to create and modify page layouts through a visual interface, providing flexibility. It’s a robust tool for arranging blocks, regions, and components within a page. Layout Editor helps with placement of elements, ensuring a tailored user experience. However, note that Drupal’s learning curve can be steep. The interface, though improved in recent versions, may still feel less intuitive compared to WordPress.

WordPress, on the other hand, comes with Full Site Editing (FSE), enabled with the Site Editor. This eliminates the need for separate development resources for basic customizations, saving time and resources. 

Before FSE, WordPress users could customize their sites using the Theme Customizer, widgets, and individual page settings. WordPress 5.8 introduced FSE, enabling seamless customization of all site elements, including headers, footers, and templates, through a block-based approach. Plus, FSE reduces reliance on custom code, whether adjusting the typography or creating intricate layouts.

The Site Editor empowers users with a drag-and-drop interface for visual template changes. It also ensures intuitive design changes that take effect immediately. This makes WordPress more accessible and efficient for customizing websites compared to Drupal for enterprises.

Open-Source development 

Both Drupal and WordPress are open-source software, with transparent development and active communities. This translates into readily available resources, constant innovation, and a vast pool of developers. 

WordPress is  built with editorial experience in mind. As a result, it has a lower barrier to entry, which makes it accessible to a wider range of website creators.

Market share

WordPress is the most popular CMS in terms of market share and number of users, powering about 43 percent of all websites on the internet. 

But in the enterprise space where efficiency and risk mitigation are critical, WordPress’s established momentum presents a compelling advantage.

Software design

The difference in software design of WordPress and Drupal is foundational to their distinct user experiences. 

Drupal adopts a more intricate approach, offering a flexible framework, apt for organizations with a technical team or ample resources for ongoing development. Drupal follows a structured and modular approach, providing a high degree of customization and control. However, leveraging its full potential requires significant developer involvement.

Conversely, WordPress is renowned for its straightforward setup with minimal technical overhead. It’s architecture is designed to be intuitive and emphasizes plug-and-play functionality. Drupal’s frequent changes in designs between versions presents challenges for long-term use. WordPress emerges as a potentially more suitable option for enterprises to migrate for a stable CMS platform.

Theme options

The flexibility of a CMS is often measured by its themes. Both platforms offer a plethora of themes and design options. Drupal differs from WordPress in approach to theme implementation. 

Drupal requires a technical understanding for theme customization using the code. Templates require coding expertise, and content is often managed separately. Design process involves diving into code, using PHP and YAML, to customize themes. Despite this, Drupal provides a powerful platform for those who require extensive customization capabilities.

In contrast, WordPress offers a more streamlined approach to theme implementation. The platform’s vast library of pre-built themes can be easily customized through the user-friendly interface. The Gutenberg block editor and Full Site Editing capabilities further simplify the process, allowing users to adjust themes without touching a single line of code.

Unlike Drupal, where theme compatibility can be restrictive, WordPress ensures a unified editing experience across themes. WordPress’s theme implementation wins hands down for enterprises. It’s like having a tailor-made suit waiting for you—no stitching required.

Extensions & integrations

CMS extensions or add-ons allow customizing the website and deploying the required 3rd-party integrations. Comparing the different approach to extensions, Drupal’s modules provide a more granular approach compared to WordPress plugins. 

Drupal modules extend core functionalities, providing greater control but require more technical expertise to implement effectively. 

On the other hand, WordPress boasts a more extensive ecosystem of plugins, allowing users to effortlessly add new features. These plugins allow users to effortlessly add new features, thanks to their straightforward nature and ease of integration.

WordPress offers a significantly larger plugin library compared to Drupal. This vast selection caters to a diverse range of functionalities and applications. This disparity not only highlights the user-friendly aspect of WordPress but also underscores a less technically demanding experience.

User roles

The management of user roles in Drupal or WordPress reflects their distinct approaches to user access and permissions. 

Drupal excels in access control. Its granular system empowers administrators to define new user roles with specific permissions. This level of detail provides a framework for managing user roles. It is particularly useful for websites with multiple contributors and varied access needs.

WordPress, while initially offering five basic user roles, also supports the creation of custom roles using plugins or code. This flexibility is particularly advantageous in enterprise environments, where different teams may require varying levels of access and control. 

The WordPress approach, with its simplicity, can streamline user roles management for most enterprises, except some edge cases.

Custom content types

Both Drupal and WordPress offer the functionality to create custom content types. This feature is crucial for building websites with unique content structures. However, there are key distinctions in implementation.

Drupal offers more granular control over content attributes. This allows for the creation of complex and highly customized content structures. Drupal’s flexibility is particularly beneficial for websites that require specific data relationships and custom workflows.

Conversely, WordPress typically requires custom code or plugins to develop its custom post types. While this might seem less robust at first glance, it can streamline development for simpler content structures. Such an approach is often preferred in enterprise content management.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy helps in properly organizing a website’s content. Comparing WordPress vs Drupal approach to taxonomy, their structural complexity and user controls differs.

Drupal offers a sophisticated taxonomy system, providing a flexible and detailed framework for organizing content. This system is ideal for websites that demand complex content organization. It is well-suited for those with the technical prowess to navigate its intricacies.

In contrast, WordPress simplifies taxonomy with its categories and tags, streamlining content organization into a more user-friendly structure. This simplicity proves advantageous, as it allows for quick adaptation and efficient content management sans extensive technical knowledge. 

The WordPress approach, with its intuitive categories and tags, offers a convenient method to maintain taxonomy. This system is straightforward to use. As a result, it enables a smoother workflow for enterprises.

Multilingual support

Drupal and WordPress differ in approach to multilingual support for websites. Drupal has built-in multilingual support, allowing for the creation of language-based views and content without additional plugins. This feature enhances user experience and streamlines content management. This core integration is advantageous for developers seeking a ready-to-use solution for global audiences. 

However, WordPress adopts a more modular approach, relying on plugins to provide multilingual support. This plugin-based system offers flexibility, enabling users to choose from a variety of translation options. It allows them to select the best option to suit their website’s needs.

The plethora of plugins available for WordPress provide a range of functionalities from automatic machine translations to professional translation services. This flexibility makes WordPress an attractive option for enterprises that require a scalable solution for their multilingual websites.

Multisite functionality

Comparing Drupal with WordPress, both the platforms take different approaches to multisite functionality. Drupal Multisite creates separate, independent sites sharing only the codebase. This grants more control over individual sites but requires manual setup and limits content or configuration sharing. 

$sites = [    'site1.example.com' => 'site1',    'site2.example.com' => 'site2',    // Add more sites as needed];

The code snippet above shows Drupal Multisite configuration to be put on sites.php file created.

In contrast, WordPress Multisite offers a built-in system for managing a setup of networked sites. It is ideal for centralized control with easy user registration. Further, WordPress Multisite ensures a cohesive brand experience and simplifies the maintenance of themes and plugins, thereby enhancing efficiency. 

WordPress Multisite stands out as the better choice for enterprises. It provides a powerful and cost-effective way to manage a network of sites under a single installation.

Performance & speed

In the evaluation of performance and speed, it is crucial to consider various factors. These factors include optimization techniques and caching capabilities. Both Drupal and WordPress use techniques such as image optimization and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to improve site speed. They also minimize HTTP requests for enhanced performance. 

Drupal features an in-built caching mechanism, designed to enhance performance by storing frequently accessed data. 

WordPress, on the other hand, relies on external caching plugins to achieve similar optimization. However, it necessitates a more hands-on approach. 

It is crucial to acknowledge that the performance and speed of a website depend on individual configurations and optimizations. These factors determine the overall efficiency of a site. The choice of CMS is secondary to the specific needs and technical implementations. 

WordPress’s approach, with its extensive plugin ecosystem, offers enterprises the option to optimize performance as required.

Site scalability

Site scalability is a pivotal factor for enterprises expecting growth. Drupal and WordPress, both stand as robust platforms. They are capable of scaling to meet the demands of high-traffic websites.

Drupal is engineered with a strong emphasis on scalability with its modular architecture, offering a sophisticated framework. WordPress’s architecture also facilitates unlimited scalability, allowing provision for increasing traffic and optimization. 

Both platforms benefit from managed hosting that caters to growing enterprise needs. It provides the necessary infrastructure to ensure seamless scalability. WordPress boasts a more extensive array of managed hosting providers, offering more options for enterprises.

Headless configuration

A headless (& decoupled/hybrid) configuration allows use of CMS as a back-end content library. It separates the front-end presentation, while enabling the use of modern front-end frameworks.

Both Drupal and WordPress can be setup as API-first architecture, providing a foundation for headless applications. This enables the creation of digital experiences across various platforms, including native mobile apps.

Drupal’s headless mode leverages API to serve content, catering to complex applications. With WP Rest API and WPGraphQL support, WordPress facilitates a headless configuration with front-end freedom. 

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" --data '{ "query": "{ posts { edges { node { id title } } } }" }' https://example.com/graphql

The code snippet above shows a POST request to the WordPress GraphQL endpoint through CLI.

Amidst the hype over so called composable CMS, adopting a headless approach depends on specific use cases. Not every project benefits from a headless setup. Nonetheless, WordPress presents a more extensive suite of headless options with its easy to use editor at the backend.

Security

Security is paramount for any enterprise website. Comparing Drupal with WordPress, both platforms prioritize core security features and receive regular updates from dedicated development teams. 

Drupal is often lauded for its enterprise-level security. It implements stricter security protocols due to a larger codebase and wider range of functionalities. 

WordPress, on the other hand, while sometimes perceived as less secure, actually offers a very secure core. It also has a dedicated security team to ensure ongoing protection against vulnerabilities.

The misconception that WordPress is inherently insecure stems from its use of plugins. If these plugins are not carefully selected and maintained, they can introduce vulnerabilities. 

With WordPress, managed hosting services offer a security advantage by vetting plugins for vulnerabilities. They ensure the deployment of only secure, reliable extensions through a code repository, protecting against threats.

wpscan --url example.com -e vp --api-token YOUR_TOKEN

The code snippet above shows a WPScan scan for vulnerable plugins

Both Drupal WordPress can be PCI compliant with solutions that meet the security standards required for online payments. WordPress became the first enterprise platform with a fully hosted FedRAMP certified solution, ensuring government-grade security and compliance. 

WordPress’s consistent focus on security, coupled with compliance certifications, makes it an exemplary choice for enterprises. It offers robust protection to fortify their online presence effectively.

SEO & martech

In terms of SEO and martech, comparing Drupal with WordPress shows significant differences. 

Drupal requires more technical expertise to leverage its SEO capabilities. While it offers some basic SEO functionality, extensive customization is often needed to achieve optimal results. Similarly, martech integrations within Drupal necessitate custom development or third-party modules, potentially adding complexity and cost. 

In comparison, WordPress boasts a robust selection of built-in tools. These tools are for managing meta descriptions, title tags, and structured data. Additionally, the vast WordPress plugin ecosystem provides access to an array of SEO plugins, empowering users with features. 

When it comes to martech integrations, WordPress seamlessly connects with popular marketing automation platforms and analytics tools.

While Drupal offers SEO capabilities, WordPress holds a definitive advantage in user-friendliness for enterprises focused on efficient SEO and marketing experience.

Community ecosystem

While evaluating Drupal and WordPress, both the platforms boast vibrant communities instrumental to their respective success. 

Drupal, with its inception predating WordPress, boasts a global community. This collective engages in a multitude of events. The Drupal community, while smaller than WordPress’s, is noted for it’s comprehensive resources such as the Drupal.org documentation and user guides. 

Conversely, WordPress commands a vast and vibrant community, renowned for its size and engagement. The global WordPress community is a testament to its user-friendliness. The platform thrives with community events like WordCamps held globally. 

WordPress’s official documentation, forums, and tutorials are abundant, providing users with a wealth of knowledge and resources. For enterprises, WordPress shines with its large and friendly community. It offers a wealth of resources that empower users to build and grow their digital presence with confidence.

Professional support

In evaluating professional support, one must assess the ecosystem of agencies. Additionally, the availability of skilled developers is a critical factor when comparing Drupal vs WordPress. 

Drupal is renowned for its robustness and scalability. It is supported by a network of specialized agencies, which provide customized solutions for complex enterprise requirements. However, the pool of developers is relatively smaller, which can sometimes lead to challenges in finding the right expertise. 

On the other hand, WordPress boasts a vast talent pool, with a multitude of agencies that cater to a wide range of business requirements. This abundance of resources translates into competitive pricing and a variety of options for enterprises seeking professional support. Additionally, the extensive community of WordPress developers ensures that businesses benefit from innovative solutions and a rapid development cycle. 

In essence, WordPress offers unparalleled advantages over Drupal in agency and developer diversity. Consequently, it stands as a highly attractive option for enterprises.

Cost of ownership

When evaluating Drupal vs WordPress from a total cost of ownership (TCO) standpoint, both platforms present distinct financial considerations.

Drupal’s robust and complex architecture requires a higher degree of technical expertise. This need often results in increased development and maintenance costs. The TCO for Drupal can accumulate significantly. TCO for Drupal can be substantial with custom modules and upgrading the CMS.

Conversely, WordPress presents a more cost-effective solution. Its user-friendly interface and extensive repository of plugins minimize the necessity for specialized development. As a result, initial setup costs are reduced. 

Furthermore, the TCO over time tends to be lower with WordPress. This is due to the platform’s facilitation of easier content management and routine maintenance. Choosing WordPress leads to a favorable economic outcome for enterprises that prioritize efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Conclusion: Choosing the right platform

The optimal platform hinges on a thorough analysis of your enterprise’s specific needs in choosing Drupal or WordPress. Consider website complexity, content management requirements, and marketing goals. Weigh these factors against the technical expertise within your team before deciding. 

Enterprises seeking a user-friendly platform with a strong marketing focus will find WordPress to be compelling. It offers readily available resources, making it an attractive solution.  If you are looking for Drupal to WordPress migration services, get in touch.

Related Links: Drupal to WordPress pre-migration checklist | Drupal to WordPress during migration checklist