Drupal is a highly customizable and scalable CMS, which makes it suitable for large organizations. Yet, inexperienced admins often struggle with its steep learning curve.
Drupal's flexibility makes it a viable option for enterprises, but admins might require extensive training to properly use it.
The open source content management system (CMS), Drupal, is a popular choice for many organizations. It offers effective content management capabilities, custom lists, content authoring features and a high level of customization. Yet, like any other CMS, Drupal has pros and cons. Pros include customization and security, whereas cons include a steep learning curve and time-consuming updates.
IT teams and content managers should understand the strengths and weaknesses of Drupal to ensure they choose the right system for their needs.
Pros of using Drupal
Pros of Drupal include extensive customization and security capabilities, which typically benefit large organizations, government agencies and higher education institutions.
1. Customization
As an open source platform, Drupal's administrative portal supports many customizations, including thousands of modules, themes, taxonomy management tools and drag-and-drop page building features. This lets users create highly customized websites that align with their specific needs.
For instance, a tech company could choose from Drupal's event management modules to create an online registration page for an annual conference. On the other hand, a university might use an educational theme to stylize its site layout and design.
2. Security and access controls
Drupal offers effective user management and secure access control features to protect content. Key features include automated logout, CAPTCHA verification, content access, password policies, session limits and multifactor authentication.
However, Drupal admins still need to stay current with the latest updates and patches to address any potential risks or vulnerabilities in the platform.
3. Scalability
Drupal is highly scalable, which means it can support large volumes of visitors and massive spikes in traffic. This makes it a suitable option for large organizations, such as Weather.com, Pfizer and Harvard University, which have been known to use the platform.
Additionally, its modern web development framework can reliably service large organizations for years, without the need for significant redevelopment. However, during initial planning, admins and IT leaders must define performance requirements, such as expected user loads and traffic spikes, so they can design and implement the system to support those requirements.
4. Accessibility
Drupal meets accessibility requirements based on the World Wide Web Consortium standards, such as the Web Content Accessibilities Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, which offer best practices on how to make content accessible to people with disabilities. For example, Drupal supports screen readers to help visually impaired users navigate website menus and buttons. Drupal also plans to attain compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA, which offers more advanced accessibility features than the more basic guidelines.
Additionally, Drupal's semantic structure -- the way it organizes and labels HTML -- uses HTML5 and Accessible Rich Internet Applications standards to structure content logically. This approach can enhance screen reader functionality for disabled users and improve the overall UX.
5. Community support
Drupal has a large online community where users, admins and developers come together to share their experiences with the platform. This community consists of three core Drupal sites: the Drupal.org main site, the Drupal Groups site and the API group site.
New and experienced users can engage with these communities to learn about the platform's latest enhancements and apps.
Cons of using Drupal
As much as Drupal offers flexibility and security, it has a steep learning curve and a complex back-end UI.
As much as Drupal offers flexibility and security, it has a steep learning curve and a complex back-end UI.
1. Steep learning curve
Drupal has a steep learning curve for admins. For instance, inexperienced admins often struggle to implement necessary requirements around creating sites, managing content and customization. Other CMSes, such as WordPress and Joomla, offer simpler interfaces for admins.
2. Performance issues and infrastructure requirements
While Drupal is scalable, its extensive use of modules can present performance challenges for admins. For instance, organizations that use too many modules at once might increase the server load and experience slow load times.
Additionally, modules sometimes conflict with each other and require custom configurations, which can consume IT departments' time and resources.
3. Time-consuming updates
Drupal's update process often overwhelms admins and consumes a lot of time. In many cases, admins must consider the readiness and compatibility of their current sites, because older modules can lose functionality after updates.
Additionally, because Drupal doesn't yet fully support automatic updates across all versions, organizations must manually manage updates, which can consume considerable time and disrupt workflows.
4. Costly support
As an open source CMS, Drupal offers a low cost of entry. However, unlike other platforms, such as Microsoft SharePoint, users often struggle to find affordable expertise.
As a result, organizations must partner with third-party vendors that can help them develop and support the platform. This external support can become a costly endeavor, despite the platform's several community support groups.
5. Complex back-end interface
While highly customizable, Drupal's back-end interface lacks the intuitiveness of other CMS platforms, like SharePoint and WordPress. For instance, users without developer experience or prior knowledge of the platform often struggle to manage and customize it.
Key takeaways
Drupal is a secure and highly customizable CMS ideal for organizations with complex needs or that want to reduce licensing and upfront costs. However, it also has drawbacks, including a steep learning curve and potentially high maintenance costs.
Organizations that prioritize security, scalability, up-front costs and customization might consider Drupal. However, those seeking a simpler, more user-friendly CMS might struggle with the platform's complexity. Content management and IT teams can evaluate the pros and cons of Drupal to determine if it's the right CMS for their organizations' goals.
Reda Chouffani runs a consulting practice he co-founded, Biz Technology Solutions Inc., and is CTO at New Charter Technologies. He is a technology consultant with a focus on healthcare and manufacturing, cloud expert and business intelligence architect who helps enterprises make the best use of technology.
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