Drupal vs Wordpress

The Choice is Yours
Drupal vs. Wordpress
Webinar via Webinar Jam
April 12, 2016
@constr_ctive
Designing a New Way Forward

Ian Mariano Beth Jacobson Quinton Mosley
Constructive are a boutique branding and interactive design firm in NYC
focusing on nonprofit and higher education institutions. We do extensive
work with both Drupal and Wordpress.
Learn more about Constructive and the work we do at https://constructive.co
Drupal vs. WordPress / April 11, 2016 - Webinar / constructive.co
We are Constructive

OR
You’ve probably heard buzz surrounding both Content Management Systems,
Drupal and WordPress. You might have even heard of other options.
It’s a confusing topic of discussion for those unfamiliar.
You have questions, but you need answers

An Overview
• Initial release January 2001
• Started life as a community news portal and
message board
• Powers ~6% of the top 10,000 websites and
~3% of the top 1,000,000

Developed by a community of
developers
• Modules can have commercial sponsors, but
no commercial entity controls Drupal core
development or direction
• Contributed modules are shared, not sold
• Module developers encourage collaboration
over competition

An Overview
• Initial release May 2003
• Started life as a blogging platform and fork of
b2/cafelog
• As of April 2016, WordPress powers ~26% of
the top 10,000 websites and ~24% of the top
1,000,000

Developed by Automattic and
the dev community
• Automattic owns WordPress.com and related
properties
• Ecosystem allows commercial WordPress
products to be sold
• You can purchase nearly all the parts needed
to build a WordPress site from various
marketplaces

Community climate makes a big difference
• Dedicated to quality of core software
• Focus on security and longevity
• Initiatives to mentor and on-board
new contributors
• “Proudly found elsewhere”
philosophy encourages building on
tools
• Mix of core software and commercial
product contributors
• Community somewhat fragmented
by core vs. plugin authors and
contributors

Secure by nature
• Not as widely used as WordPress – less likely
to be targeted
• Secured by the Drupal community and a
dedicated team of security experts
• Government and education institutions trust
Drupal due to its track record and valuable
security reports

Only as secure as WordPress
plugins installed
• Library of plugins a source of security
weakness historically
• WordPress security team deals only with
WordPress core
• Vetting a site before deployment is almost
always a requirement due to its track record
and valuable security reports

Contributed Modules versus Plugins
• Over 20,000 Drupal 7 modules
• More emphasis development tools
than plug ‘n play
• Produced and maintained
by dedicated individuals and
institutional sponsors
• Over 40,000 plugins officially listed
on their plugin directory
• More available in commercial
marketplaces
• Many are built as complete products
that are ready for deployment

Strengths of either platform
• Great tools for filtering and searching
complex data
• http://www.economist.com/
• http://www.catalyst.org/
• http://www.nhsa.org/
• https://www.whitehouse.gov/
• Developed more quickly and at a
lower cost when building brochure
style sites and blogs
• http://izod.com/
• http://time.com/
• http://fortune.com/
• https://constructive.co/

Drupal isn’t a one-trick pony
• Drupal can do brochure style, blog and even
Ecommerce
• https://www.drupal.com/case-study/timex
• http://www.jnj.com/
• http://prattcenter.net/

WordPress can also do
content heavy sites
• Misses some of the techniques that Drupal is
capable of
• https://vip.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/
kaiser-family-foundation-bringing-20-years-
of-data-into-wordpress/
• http://www.climatecommunication.yale.edu/

Cost of ownership between the two platforms
• Development relies more on custom
developed code
• More time and expertise needed to
keep it running well
• Maintenance can be much more
straightforward
• A great place to start for a entry level
web presence and has room to grow

Keeping your web presence up to date
• Updating and upgrading Drupal is
not as straightforward as staying up
to date with WordPress
• Major version updates require
rewriting of custom code and some
content migration
• Keeping a WordPress site up to date
can be as easy as clicking a button
• Same pitfalls as any sort of software
update are still present
• Testing is a requirement before
deploying updates

How do they scale as traffic increases?
• Built-in caching system
• Optimized for efficient loading and
rendering
• Drupal 8 can employ BigPipe for
efficient caching even with dynamic
elements
• A fairly static WordPress site can be
made to scale quite well
• Adding dynamic content to the mix,
things can slow down quickly
• Leveraging caching proxies and
object caching can even the playing
field

Backed by industry support
• There is significant industry support for the
Drupal platform
• Acquia enhances the Drupal community and
deployment
• https://pantheon.io/ (by the way, we’re a
Pantheon partner)
• https://www.acquia.com/

WordPress also has industry
support
• A host of industry standard tools for
deployment and maintenance
• Popular cloud hosting platforms and hosting
control panels include one-click installations
• https://pantheon.io/ (we really like Pantheon)
• https://wpengine.com/

A glimpse into the future
• Drupal 8’s built-in REST api can power
decoupled websites and apps
• Improved admin user experience with
“outside-in” UX
• Growing pool of front-end developers with
Twig theming

Making steps towards the
future of the web
• The WordPress REST API is now part of core
• Used to power a Fortune 500 company’s web
presence
• Part of app architectures as well
• https://wordpress.tv/2014/11/03/k-adam-
white-wordpress-in-weird-places-content-
management-for-node-using-rest/
• https://simmerwp.com/

Resources
WordPress - Open Source Project
https://wordpress.org/
Drupal - Open Source Project
https://www.drupal.org/
Pantheon
https://pantheon.io/
Acquia
https://www.acquia.com/
Wikipedia: Automattic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automattic
Wikipedia: Acquia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquia

If you’re unsure what the best choice is for you and
your project, you may need to take a closer look
with qualified professionals. Hint: That’s us!
We’d like to help!
inquiries@constructive.co
212-925-6460
Sometimes the choice isn’t obvious

Drupal vs Wordpress

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