This document compares Drupal and Episerver, two prominent content management systems (CMS) in Finland, highlighting their typical use cases, product characteristics, and developer perspectives. Drupal is suited for large-scale online services with extensive customization options, while Episerver excels in structured content management for corporate websites. The comparison also covers partnering and support networks, as well as project cost expectations for each platform.

1. Drupal vs.
EPiServer
– CMS battle between two strong
players in Finland (2014)
2014-05-19 / Helsinki, Finland
Perttu Tolvanen, Web & CMS Expert, @perttutolvanen

2. CMS market in Finland
North Patrol Oy2
Local
CMS
players
Liferay
WordPress
SharePoint
Drupal
eZ
Publish
EPiServer
Sitecore
Heavy-weight
CMSs (eg.
Oracle, SDL
Tridion)

3. Decision criteria
1. Typical scenarios (web / extra / online store / etc.)
2. Product "character" (platform / product / service / ecosystem)
3. Expectations for customer's team
4. Partners in Finland
5. Other support and service network
6. Hosting solutions and pricing
7. Developers' view (coder requirements)
8. Ecosystem (add-ons, global network)
9. The future
10. Project price range and licenses

4. 1. Typical scenarios
• Drupal
– Extensive online service entities comprising
several sites, such as large media companies
– Centralized content management typical, for
example media company videos and similar
common content
– Extranet-type services requiring log-on that
include large amounts of structured content
(for example, data banks)
– Custom-made community sites
– Custom-made online stores
• EPiServer
– Extensive, multi-language online service
entities, such as the main sites of large
corporations
– Content producers often dominate site
content management as structural
management and multi-language
management well supported by system
– Some intranets (especially in Sweden) and
simple online stores (especially in Sweden)

5. 2. Product "character"
• Drupal
– Includes almost nothing out-of-the-box, not
even a WYSIWYG editor
– Package assembled for each individual
customer case from the viewpoint of the
service, things can be solved in many ways
– Ecosystem includes thousands of versatile
plugins with wide expandibility (if
competencies available)
– Between a framework and CMS
– "Everything can be made to work with some
plugin or add-on"
– Aptly described as "a set of building blocks"
– There is no one single "Drupal way"
• EPiServer
– A strongly performing product for content
editing and site structure management
– Has clear "construction principles"
– A few dozen commercial and free add-ons,
some very versatile and valuable (for
example ActiveStandards, SiteAttention)
– Consistent, steady product development,
product management works reasonably well
– The product has clear-cut models to achieve
a multitude of goals, which are worth
making use of—unfortunately, though, even
integrators don't always know which is a
good model to use and which isn't

6. 3. Expectations for customer's team
• Drupal
– Content producers focus on content, not
appearance or optimization
– Content producers usually have limited
possibilities to manage things like front
pages or how the site works in general
– The service is a system running like a
machine, preferably developed through a
"product owner" like a software product
– The best efficiency is achieved if in-house
Drupal coding competency available, but an
active partnership gets you far and gets
done whatever you wish!
• EPiServer
– Content producers are also editors who
optimize, preview and experiment
– Content producers are able to, for example,
manage front pages and creating "highlight
systems" of their own
– The service is a website that content
producers and web producers can manage
and develop very independently, for
example build a variety of targeted content
highlights, content blocks visible only in
certain situations etc. (if they know how to)
– Partners needed mainly for creating
additional apps and customization

7. 4. Partners in Finland
• Drupal
– The strongest: Exove, Wunderkraut
– Others: Activeark JWT, Druid, Tieto plus
dozens of smaller organizations
– To be noted: A relatively strong Finland-
centered community that gets together,
organizes, discusses; including clients
• EPiServer
– The strongest: Solita, Tieto, Sininen
Meteoriitti, Creuna Finland, KnowIt
– Others: CGI, HiQ, Tietotalo and about a
dozen smaller companies
– To be noted: EPiServer country office with
three employees is exceptionally active

8. 5. Other support and service network
• Drupal
– A worldwide community that discusses,
distributes code, develops the platform and
organizes gigantic seminars
• EPiServer
– Has its own support organization that
provides education and support when
needed; however, rather sporadically in
practice

9. 6. Hosting solutions and pricing
• Drupal
– Hosting requires specialist know-how, and
good hosting costs money
– Few off-the-shelf solutions despite platform
popularity
– Requires in-depth familiarization and often
building your own environment
• EPiServer
– EPiServer's own Everweb is the choice of the
overwhelming majority, the specialized
hosting includes CDN support and
application-level support
– Absolutely not cheap but a good deal
considering the price-quality ratio—which is
why Everweb is usually chosen by even large
corporations

10. 7. Developer view
• Drupal
– Learning curve several months even for
experienced PHP developers due to
extensive system
– Somewhat similar to SharePoint in its
layered construction, because many times
"things just have to be done like this,
because it's Drupal"
– Add-on experience is developers' most
valuable intangible capital, which is why
developers like big companies (Drupal is not
a lone rider's tool)
– Best Drupal developers are front-end/back-
end hybrids, because Drupal's theme layer is
inseparably married to its functionality
• EPiServer
– An experienced .Net developer will get the
hang of the system in a couple of weeks
– .Net development competencies are totally
applicable in the EPiServer environment (if
totally customized results are sought after)
– The best EPi coders are also well versed in
front-end development; in general, template
creation and system setup is a front-end
coder's job anyway  a potential problem is
that there are few such people available

11. 8. Ecosystem
• Drupal
– Thousands of add-ons, new ones being
created all the time
– Genuinely open-source code
– If the community includes others trying to
solve the same problem, your add-on may
be taken further by others
• EPiServer
– Not a working market for extensions and
add-ons  focuses on commercial
extensions
– Some code snippets and instructions
available online, but not much

12. 9. The future
• Drupal
– Will challenge big players, with a mission to
reach world dominance for big sites
– Strong community, but with a very
developer-driven culture  all-embracing
generalism instead of precision solutions
• EPiServer
– Strong in the Nordic countries, no success to
speak of in the US or Central Europe
– Business relies on hosting, some analysts
even say license business is going down
– In Finland, very strong

13. 10. Project price range and licenses
• Drupal
– The market in earnest begins at €70k
projects
– Typical projects around €100–200k
– Necessary to pour more money into
development and maintenance than the
average CMS; generally we're talking about
minimum budgets of a few thousand per
month
• EPiServer
– The market starts at the €100k level because
the licenses alone require usually tens of
thousands of euros
– Typical projects usually around €100-200k
– Price for large projects head-to-head with
Drupal
– EPiServer typically less expensive in the long
run as clients can use product features more
independently

14. To summarize:
• If online service is your core business, Drupal is a strong platform for accelerating
your own type of development—even a very unique and magnificent one. It is no
coincidence that media companies are big players in the Drupal camp. Drupal's
model is also well applicable to extremely multi-channel publishing and
performance.
• If your online service is primarily sales and marketing oriented, EPiServer's product
features should get you excited. Web teams producing multi-language marketing
sites, in particular, should consider EPiServer as a power tool.

15. North Patrol Oy15
BUYER´S GUIDE TO WEB
PROJECTS
www.northpatrol.com/blog