Both Drupal and WordPress are content management systems that allow users the flexibility and ease of putting together a website quickly and successfully. But which one is better? And which CMS would be better for a library to use?
Even though both Drupal and WordPress are popular, open source, and have large user communities, there are some differences between the two systems.
Drupal & WordPress
Drupal is extremely flexible, allowing you to do just about anything you want to with your website. It allows for easy creation of membership sites and portals. So for example you can create a forum, a blog, a community site, or just a plain website, whereas WordPress is more limited and geared more towards blogs.
Drupal however, has a higher learning curve and is more difficult to customize and use. WordPress on the other hand is very user friendly, easy to learn and quick to put together. Things like modifying the code, customizing the theme and setting up the site are much easier in WordPress.
So what it really comes down to is this:
- Drupal is extremely flexible — but is more difficult to use.
- WordPress is easier to use — but is not as flexible and lacks in functionality.
So … which CMS is better and which one should you use?
Both Drupal and WordPress have their strengths and weaknesses, and neither is really superior over the other. The decision of whether to use Drupal or WordPress really depends on what you want it to do and how you’re going to utilize the CMS.
Drupal allows for more flexibility, functionality and complexity therefore it’s better for full featured websites, a blog community, a forum, or a social networking community.
WordPress, although easy to use is less flexible and better suited for a single author and/or group blogs.
Both Drupal and WordPress can be utilized by libraries, and it really depends on what the library plans to do with the site. Before deciding on which CMS to use, the library should take into consideration the goals of the website and the functionality that is needed to accomplish those goals. Ease of use might come into play and should not be overlooked; if a website is difficult to put together and edit and then the extra functionality might not matter as much if it is not being utilized.
I also think it’s not a bad idea to test Drupal and WordPress, since they’re both free open source systems, to see which one will be better for a particular project.
Further Reading
• WordPress vs Drupal; what’s in a reputation?
4 responses to “Drupal vs. WordPress: Which CMS fits your library?”
I’ve been thinking about using drupal for a work project. This post made it clear that I should at least give it a shot. Thanks – it was very helpful.
I do most of my work with WordPress, so to say I’m a tad bit bias would be correct.
You really do hit the nail on the head with your succinct description of the two: complexity/comprehensiveness (Drupal) vs. (user-friendliness).
In my estimation WordPress will come into its own as a full-fledged CMS here in the coming years. I do see its potential and, like you said implementation of one or the other *should* be based on investigation (and play 🙂 ).
May I whet your CMS interest a bit more by leading you to fully explore the WordPress MU (multi-user) branch of WordPress? Or interest you in one of my hashtags, #wordpressCMS?
Best of luck!
~Kyle~
i’m trying to find time to create a site for a CPL branch friends group. they want all basic functions, plus a PayPal donations function. should i use Drupal or WP?
s
Steven-
A PayPal donations function will be just as easy to implement in WP as in Drupal — it’s just a line of code you add to whichever page you want, so that shouldn’t cause any problems for you.
What you need to think about is what this site is going to have, what it’s going to be used for and how much customization you will need.
Good luck and let me know how it turns out!