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Craft vs Drupal vs WordPress: What are the differences?
## Introduction
Craft, Drupal, and WordPress are popular content management systems used for creating and managing websites. Each platform has its unique features and capabilities that cater to different needs and preferences of users.
1. **Flexibility and Customization**: Craft offers a high level of flexibility and customization, allowing users to build custom features and functionalities tailored to their specific requirements. Drupal also provides extensive customization options, suitable for complex and large-scale websites. WordPress, on the other hand, is more user-friendly for beginners and offers a wide range of plugins and themes for customization.
2. **Community Support**: Drupal has a robust community support system with a large number of developers and contributors actively involved in the platform's development and maintenance. WordPress also has a strong community backing with a vast number of plugins, themes, and documentation available. Craft, being a newer platform, has a smaller community but offers dedicated support resources for users.
3. **Security**: Drupal is known for its robust security features, making it a preferred choice for websites that handle sensitive data. WordPress, being the most popular CMS, is often targeted by hackers, but regular updates and security plugins can help mitigate risks. Craft puts a strong emphasis on security and follows best practices to ensure the safety of websites built on the platform.
4. **Scalability**: Drupal is highly scalable and can handle large amounts of content and high traffic without compromising performance. WordPress, while suitable for small to medium-sized websites, may require additional plugins for scalability. Craft is designed to be scalable and performant, making it a suitable choice for websites with varying levels of traffic and content.
5. **Ease of Use**: WordPress is known for its user-friendly interface, making it easy for beginners to create and manage websites without requiring technical expertise. Drupal, while powerful, has a steeper learning curve and may be more challenging for users unfamiliar with the platform. Craft strikes a balance between usability and flexibility, offering intuitive tools for content management and development.
6. **Cost**: WordPress is a cost-effective option for individuals and small businesses, with many free plugins and themes available. Drupal, while open-source, may require more resources for development and maintenance, making it slightly more costly. Craft, being a premium platform, may have higher upfront costs but offers comprehensive features and support for users.
In Summary, Craft, Drupal, and WordPress differ in terms of flexibility and customization, community support, security, scalability, ease of use, and cost factors, catering to a diverse range of website development needs.
I usually take a slightly different tack because the technical level of people I usually am dealing with is lower. I tend to be pitching to decision makers and not tech people. A bit of my standard answer is below.
Wix and Squarespace are proprietary systems meant for unsophisticated users who want to build their own websites quickly and easily. While they are good for that specific use case, they do not offer any way to move beyond that if your needs arise. Since they are proprietary closed systems if you need something more advanced at some point your only option is to start over.
WordPress is an Open Source CMS that allows much more freedom. It is not quite as simple to setup and create a new site but if you are talking to me then you are not looking to build it yourself so that is really a non-issue. The main benefit of WordPress is freedom. You can host it on virtually any decent web hosting service and since it uses PHP and MySQL you can have virtually any developer take over a project without problem.
I believe in open source because of that freedom. It is good for me as a developer and it is good for my clients. If something were to happen to me or my company you would have no problem finding another qualified WordPress developer to take over the site in a totally seamless fashion. There would be no need to start from scratch.
Additionally the extensible nature of WordPress means that no matter what your future needs, WordPress can handle it. Adding things like e-commerce and custom quoting systems are just two examples of advanced solution's that I have added to WordPress sites years after they were first built.
WordPress is used by tiny one person businesses all the way up to major websites like the NY Times and I think it is right for this project as well.
So many choices for CMSs these days. So then what do you choose if speed, security and customization are key? Headless for one. Consuming your own APIs for content is absolute key. It makes designing pages in the front-end a breeze. Leaving Ghost and Cockpit. If I then looked at the footprint and impact on server load, Cockpit definitely wins that battle.
10 Years ago I have started to check more about the online sphere and I have decided to make a website. There were a few CMS available at that time like WordPress or Joomla that you can use to have your website. At that point, I have decided to use WordPress as it was the easiest and I am glad I have made a good decision. Now WordPress is the most used CMS. Later I have created also a site about WordPress: https://www.wpdoze.com
Pros of Craft
- Quick bespoke CMS8
- Easy to use CMS7
- Clean slate approach to templating6
- Has it's own StackExcange2
- Clean templating markup (twig)2
- Great support2
- Free licence available for single user account version2
Pros of Drupal
- Stable, highly functional cms75
- Great community60
- Easy cms to make websites44
- Highly customizable43
- Digital customer experience delivery platform22
- Really powerful17
- Customizable16
- Flexible11
- Good tool for prototyping10
- Enterprise proven over many years when others failed9
- Headless adds even more power/flexibility8
- Open source8
- Each version becomes more intuitive for clients to use7
- Well documented7
- Lego blocks methodology6
- Caching and performance4
- Powerful3
- Built on Symfony3
- Can build anything3
- Views2
- API-based CMS1
Pros of WordPress
- Customizable415
- Easy to manage366
- Plugins & themes354
- Non-tech colleagues can update website content258
- Really powerful247
- Rapid website development145
- Best documentation78
- Codex51
- Product feature set44
- Custom/internal social network35
- Open source18
- Great for all types of websites8
- Huge install and user base7
- Perfect example of user collaboration5
- Open Source Community5
- Most websites make use of it5
- It's simple and easy to use by any novice5
- Best5
- I like it like I like a kick in the groin5
- Community4
- API-based CMS4
- Easy To use3
- <a href="https://secure.wphackedhel">Easy Beginner</a>2
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Cons of Craft
Cons of Drupal
- Steep learning curve1
- DJango1
Cons of WordPress
- Hard to keep up-to-date if you customize things13
- Plugins are of mixed quality13
- Not best backend UI10
- Complex Organization2
- Do not cover all the basics in the core1
- Great Security1