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Drupal vs Ghost: What are the differences?

Introduction

There are several key differences between Drupal and Ghost, two popular content management systems (CMS) used for website development. These differences distinguish them in terms of their functionalities and suitability for different types of websites.

  1. Cost of Ownership: One of the key differences between Drupal and Ghost is the cost of ownership. Drupal is open-source software, meaning it is free to use and modify. However, implementing and maintaining Drupal can require technical expertise, which can increase the overall cost. On the other hand, Ghost offers a hosted solution with various pricing plans, making it more accessible for non-technical users.

  2. User Interface and Ease of Use: Drupal has a comprehensive yet complex user interface, designed for developers and experienced users. It offers extensive customization options, making it suitable for large and complex websites. In contrast, Ghost has a simple and intuitive user interface, focusing on a minimalistic approach for content creators and bloggers. It prioritizes ease of use and provides a smoother writing experience.

  3. Flexibility and Customization: Drupal offers a high level of flexibility and customization options, allowing developers to create complex websites with advanced features. It provides a vast selection of modules and themes to enhance functionality and design. On the other hand, Ghost is more focused on simplicity and content creation. While it does offer customization options, they are somewhat limited compared to Drupal.

  4. Content Management Capabilities: Drupal is renowned for its extensive content management capabilities. It offers robust features for organizing, categorizing, and presenting content in various ways. With its built-in taxonomy system and powerful content creation tools, Drupal is suitable for websites with large amounts of content or complex content structures. Ghost, on the other hand, focuses primarily on blogging and creating content without the same level of depth in content management.

  5. Community and Support: Drupal has a large and active community of developers and users, providing support, documentation, and regular updates. The extensive community contributes to the development and improvement of Drupal, making it a reliable choice for long-term website maintenance and growth. Ghost, although having a growing community, may not have the same level of support and resources as Drupal.

  6. Scalability and Performance: Drupal is known for its scalability, making it suitable for websites with high traffic or complex requirements. It can handle large amounts of content and concurrent users efficiently. On the other hand, Ghost is designed to be lightweight and optimized for performance. While it may not have the same scalability as Drupal, it offers excellent performance for smaller to medium-sized websites.

In Summary, Drupal is a highly customizable and feature-rich CMS suitable for complex websites, while Ghost is a user-friendly and focused CMS for content creators and bloggers. The key differences lie in their cost, user interface, flexibility, content management capabilities, community support, and scalability.

Decisions about Drupal and Ghost
Kamaldeep Singh

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.

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Xander Groesbeek
Founder at Rate My Meeting · | 5 upvotes · 217.6K views

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.

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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

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Pros of Drupal
Pros of Ghost
  • 75
    Stable, highly functional cms
  • 60
    Great community
  • 44
    Easy cms to make websites
  • 43
    Highly customizable
  • 22
    Digital customer experience delivery platform
  • 17
    Really powerful
  • 16
    Customizable
  • 11
    Flexible
  • 10
    Good tool for prototyping
  • 9
    Enterprise proven over many years when others failed
  • 8
    Headless adds even more power/flexibility
  • 8
    Open source
  • 7
    Each version becomes more intuitive for clients to use
  • 7
    Well documented
  • 6
    Lego blocks methodology
  • 4
    Caching and performance
  • 3
    Powerful
  • 3
    Built on Symfony
  • 3
    Can build anything
  • 2
    Views
  • 1
    API-based CMS
  • 45
    Beautiful
  • 35
    Fast
  • 29
    Quick/simple post styling
  • 20
    Live Post Preview
  • 20
    Open source
  • 19
    Non-profit
  • 16
    Seamless writing
  • 6
    Node.js
  • 5
    Fast and Performatic
  • 5
    Javascript
  • 4
    Simplest
  • 3
    Wonderful UI
  • 3
    Handlebars
  • 3
    Full Control
  • 2
    Magic
  • 2
    Clean
  • 1
    Headless CMS
  • 1
    Self-hostable

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Cons of Drupal
Cons of Ghost
  • 1
    Steep learning curve
  • 1
    DJango
    Be the first to leave a con

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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Drupal?

    Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world.

    What is Ghost?

    Ghost is a platform dedicated to one thing: Publishing. It's beautifully designed, completely customisable and completely Open Source. Ghost allows you to write and publish your own blog, giving you the tools to make it easy and even fun to do.

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    What are some alternatives to Drupal and Ghost?
    Joomla!
    Joomla is a simple and powerful web server application and it requires a server with PHP and either MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server to run it.
    WordPress
    The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home” — we’d love you to join the family.
    Django
    Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.
    ProcessWire
    ProcessWire is an open source content management system (CMS) and web application framework aimed at the needs of designers, developers and their clients. ProcessWire gives you more control over your fields, templates and markup than other platforms, and provides a powerful template system that works the way you do
    Typo3
    It is a free and open-source Web content management system written in PHP. It can run on several web servers, such as Apache or IIS, on top of many operating systems, among them Linux, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, macOS and OS/2.
    See all alternatives