This document provides an evaluation of Drupal and WordPress content management systems (CMS). It begins with an introduction explaining that selecting an open source CMS is difficult due to the many options available. The document then reviews literature on CMS trends, develops evaluation criteria, and selects Drupal and WordPress as candidates for evaluation. The evaluation criteria incorporate industry trends and basic website goals tailored for open source applications. Key criteria include the size of the user community and frequency of releases to measure support and commitment to the product.
2. Executive Summary
Drupal vs WordPress
Organisations and individuals are using open source content management systems
(CMS) to perform web administrative functions, manage assets, create personalized
websites for different needs and much more. Selecting an open source CMS is
difficult because there are many options. This report forms an evaluation criteria that
can be used to further analyse CMS software. From this Evaluation criteria, the
company so named will then be used to evaluate two different open source products
to determine which products are suitable for different web requirements.
In this report I have researched two open source CMS (Content Management
Systems) and I have written an evaluation report for two different open source
products.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Literature Review/Background
III. Research & Evaluation Methodology
IV. Evaluation Criteria
V. Candidate Selection
VI. Evaluation and Results
VII. Conclusion
VIII. References
3. Introduction
The acquisition of an appropriate CMS needs considerable amount of work in order
to fulfil the requirements needed to perform web administrative functions, manage
assets, and create personalized websites for different needs etc. that is required for
companies and organisations. The selection of a CMS is difficult and time consuming
process in the long run, however its end result is profiting.
There was a time when businesses and organisations began to launch their internet
advertisements and guests and visitors to these websites had slow bandwidth, many
websites operated as flyers. Users went to these websites, these websites mainly
hosted HTML pages, to acquire more knowledge about products and services. The
communication between potential customers and companies required the customer
to contact sales representatives via email or by phone. As the amount of potential
customers grew due to the fact that vast changes in internet technology have
improved, visitor potentials and outlook changed respectively. Visitors at the present
anticipate training videos to be able to interact with other visitors through forums in
order to answer their questions and much more. Furthermore, as globalisation
progresses and users from around the world begin to access the internet,
businesses and organisations must find a way to globalise their web content. World-
wide companies frequently interconnect with geographically and linguistically
assorted employees via internal intranets.
In order to fulfil these needs, companies are using CMS (Content Management
Systems) in collaboration with a variety of different products. CMS are used to
preform web
The main focus of this report is to evaluate the appropriate CMS (Content
Management System)
4. Literature Review/Background
In 2014, Tim Parfitt published “The future of CMS” which outlined the strategic
matters and drifts of web developments which have affected the development of
CMS. It outlines some five key factors that will enable the current technology of CMS
to advance into a more flexible and compatible content management system. Partiff
discovered that CMS will continue to change for the better and that more advanced
CMS will henceforth be a subject of further improvements.
In comparison to Parfitt’s findings is that CMS slowly becomes a device neutral. As
customers change to adapt to the new age of technologies, they want to be able to
change their company or organisation name with a touch of a button from a mobile
device. In addition to addressing the need to deliver targeted information, the report
also highlights the need for consistent branding. Internal employees who don’t have
programming skills want to be able to perform administrative functions such as
create personalization rules or administer multiple sites. Both reports indicate that
presenting content in different languages, reusing content, and having the ability to
use metadata to tag content are vital for high-functioning web sites. The
The transition by CMS into WEM has increasingly powerful array of functionality that
facilities this under the banner of Web Experience Management (WEM). One
example of WEM in action is to customise the messaging and imagery on a website
landing page, based on the search engine phrase used by the customer. The
dynamic content displayed could be defined by multiple criteria such as location of
the user, time of the day, or even through a third-party weather forecast data feed. It
is remarkable that that WEM techniques have been incorporated fully into CMS.
The intensification of Marketing automation and CMS. Marketers want to use best-of-
breed software that allows them to conduct various digital marketing activities to a
high standard. A simple example is that in order to conduct a well-targeted online
campaign, a company must ensure its CRM, CMS, social marketing, email marketing
and web analytics systems are all integrated and sharing data.
Traditionally, CMS products are installable software with each website or cluster of
websites residing as one installed instance. Technical support and software
upgrades must be conducted on each installed instance. This approach increases
initial deployment time and infrastructure costs, while on an ongoing basis each
software update must be applied to each instance. As a result, latest software
releases are often not installed, restricting the functionality and opportunities
available to marketers. Expect to see CMS vendors follow the approach of Apple and
Salesforce, with CMS available as software-as-a-service and CMS content stored in
the cloud.
5. Research & Evaluation Methodology
A traditional software evaluation process involves approximately seven steps:
Requirements Gathering, Literature and Industry Research Review, Candidate
Selection, Request for Proposal, Vendor Demonstration, Formal Evaluation, and
Software Selection.
However, since the goal of this process is not to select software, but rather to
determine which software can be used to support which website goals, modifications
to this process have been made.
1. Literature and Industry Research Review
2. Development of Open Source Evaluation Criteria
3. CMS Search and Candidate Selection
4. Formal Evaluation
5. Software Mapping and Categorization
First, research literature was reviewed to identify trends and commercially-used
evaluation criteria. Reports from independent research organizations were reviewed
and evaluation models identified. Next, review and trend data was distilled to
generate evaluation criteria suitable for open source software.
Next, data from independent open source research organizations were evaluated to
determine which CMS products were considered to be “best-of-breed.” Additionally
industry awards, awards were reviewed to find candidates. At the conclusion of this,
three candidates were identified for inclusion in this report.
Once candidates were identified, the actual software was evaluated using the open
source evaluation criteria, CMS Matrix data, and actual working copies of the
software. Documentation, as well as comments from users, were evaluated against
the raw data. As part of the evaluation, results were compiled in a spreadsheet and
software was categorized according to website level.
6. Evaluation Criteria
The Forrester’s WCM Model, which maps different web goals to WCM features, served as a starting
point for the development of this report’s evaluation criteria.vi The evaluation criteria used in this
report incorporates industry trends and basic website goals. These criteria have been specifically
formulated for open source applications. For example, for commercial applications, the corporate
commitment to a product is partially determined by whether a vendor has been profitable and the
number of employees dedicated to the product line. For open source applications, one way to
measure this is to determine the size of the user community and the frequency of releases. So, an
open source project that is supported by two people and that has had no releases for the past two
years is the equivalent of a company that has been posting record losses and is facing bankruptcy.