Drupal vs Wagtail

Overview

Drupal

Stacks11.1K

Followers4.0K

Votes360

Wagtail

Stacks163

Followers288

Votes132

Drupal vs Wagtail: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Drupal and Wagtail are both content management systems (CMS) that are popular choices for building websites. While they share similarities in their functionality, there are several key differences that set them apart from each other. In this article, we will explore six of these differences in detail.

Flexibility and Scalability: Drupal provides a highly flexible and scalable platform that allows developers to create complex websites with ease. It offers a wide variety of modules that can be combined to build custom functionality. On the other hand, Wagtail is also flexible but is particularly suited for building smaller to medium-sized websites. It may not be as suitable for large-scale, enterprise-level projects due to its more limited ecosystem of modules and plugins.
Learning Curve and Ease of Use: Drupal has a steeper learning curve compared to Wagtail. It offers more advanced features and customization options, making it a powerful tool for experienced developers. However, this also means that it can be more difficult for beginners to learn and use. Wagtail, on the other hand, has a more intuitive user interface and simpler architecture, making it easier for new users to get started.
Community and Support: Drupal has a large and active community of developers, which means there is an extensive support network available. The Drupal community maintains an extensive library of contributed modules and themes, making it easier to find resources and solutions for specific needs. Wagtail, although growing, has a relatively smaller community and may have fewer resources available for support and troubleshooting.
Content Editing Experience: Drupal provides a robust and flexible content editing experience with its WYSIWYG editor and extensive features for creating and managing content. However, compared to Wagtail, it may require more customization and configuration to achieve a similar user experience. Wagtail, on the other hand, offers a more streamlined and user-friendly content editing interface out-of-the-box, allowing editors to easily create and update content without the need for extensive technical knowledge.
Security and Updates: Drupal is well-known for its strong security features and rigorous update process. It has a dedicated security team that regularly releases updates and patches to address vulnerabilities. On the other hand, Wagtail also takes security seriously but may not have the same level of emphasis on security as Drupal. When it comes to updates, Drupal has a well-established methodology and tools for managing updates, while the process may vary for Wagtail depending on the project's configuration and hosting setup.
Ecosystem and Integration: Drupal has a vast ecosystem of modules and integrations that allow seamless integration with various third-party systems and technologies. This makes it a popular choice for building complex websites that require integration with other applications or services. Wagtail, although it has a growing ecosystem, may not offer the same level of integration options as Drupal. It may require more custom development to achieve integration with specific systems or services.

In summary, Drupal offers greater flexibility, scalability, and a mature ecosystem of modules and integrations, making it an ideal choice for complex and enterprise-level projects. On the other hand, Wagtail provides a simpler and more intuitive user interface, making it easier for beginners and smaller projects, but with a more limited ecosystem and scalability.

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Advice on Drupal, Wagtail

Kamaldeep

CEO at Zhoustify Agency

Nov 13, 2020

Decided

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.

69.2k views69.2k

Comments

Sigit

Mar 7, 2022

Review

if main concern is licensing cost, it is best to take the open source route (WordPress or Drupal), because you don't need to pay any license fee for using these software. As others might have stated, Adobe Experience Manager license fee could be costly and that doesn't even include development costs.

In WordPress ecosystem, plugin and theme developers are competing with each other to provide the best free plugins or themes for public use. Further, developers can provide support or more features added to plugins or themes when you pay a small fee for license.

The downside, although rarely happens, when there are conflicting themes/plugins it can cause your site to break. Another problem, when it comes to security, most often that you are at the pity of themes/plugins developers.

In Drupal ecosystem, its developers hold the famous principle, "not to reinvent the wheel" which is the reason why you won't find as many modules or themes. Drupal developers rarely competing with each other but instead they (even non-programmers) will work together to improve existing themes or modules. Obviously one module will not meet everyone's criteria, therefore in Drupal they have 'hooks'. A Drupal 'hook' can extend Drupal core's or module's functionality to meet your requirements.

I would tend to use Drupal but I think it is only a matter of preference. I admit that building on WordPress is easier while building on Drupal will require a lot of research and experience.

357 views357

Comments

Dragos

Jan 6, 2020

Decided

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

244k views244k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Drupal	Wagtail
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.	Wagtail is a Django content management system built originally for the Royal College of Art and focused on flexibility and user experience.
Categorize with taxonomy, automatically create friendly path urls, create custom lists, associate content with other content on your site, and create smart defaults for content creators;Manage content with an easy-to-use web interface. Drupal's flexibility handles countless content types including video, text, blog, podcasts, and polls with robust user management, menu handling, real-time statistics and optional revision control.;Users can be assigned one or more roles, and each role can be set up with fine-grained permissions allowing users view and create only what the administrator permits.;You can have tight control over who can create, view, administer, publish and otherwise interact with content on your site.;Build internal and external-facing websites in a matter of hours, with no custom programming.;Drupal's presentation layer allows designers to create highly usable, interactive experiences that engage users and increase traffic.;With more than 16,000 available modules, the vast majority of your site's requirements can be addressed with Drupal core and available add-on modules.	A fast, attractive editor interface;Complete control over design with standard Django templates;Configure content types through standard Django models;Tightly integrated search (with an Elasticsearch backend for production);Strong document and image management;Wide support for embedded content;Simple, configurable permissions;Support for tree-based content organisation;Optional preview->submit->approve workflow;Fast out of the box. Varnish-friendly if you need it;A simple form builder;Optional static site generation;Excellent test coverage
Statistics
Stacks 11.1K	Stacks 163
Followers 4.0K	Followers 288
Votes 360	Votes 132
Pros & Cons
Pros 75 Stable, highly functional cms 60 Great community 44 Easy cms to make websites 43 Highly customizable 22 Digital customer experience delivery platform Cons 1 DJango 1 Steep learning curve	Pros 23 Highly customizable 18 StreamFields are amazing 18 Very Flexible 15 Web content management 13 Non-tech colleagues can update website content Cons 3 Not a full CMS: basic components require heavy coding 2 Small developer community 1 Expensive to develop

What are some alternatives to Drupal, Wagtail?

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.

Strapi

Strapi is100% JavaScript, extensible, and fully customizable. It enables developers to build projects faster by providing a customizable API out of the box and giving them the freedom to use the their favorite tools.

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.

OctoberCMS

It is a Laravel-based CMS engineered for simplicity. It has a simple and intuitive interface. It provides a consistent structure with an emphasis on reusability so you can focus on building something unique while we handle the boring bits.

Twill

Twill is an open source CMS toolkit for Laravel that helps developers rapidly create a custom admin console that is intuitive, powerful and flexible.

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.

Directus

Let's say you're planning on managing content for a website, native app, and widget. Instead of using a CMS that's baked into the website client, it makes more sense to decouple your content entirely and access it through an API or SDK. That's a headless CMS. That's Directus.

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.

Craft

Craft is a content management system (CMS) that’s laser-focused on doing one thing really, really well: managing content.

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Overview

Drupal

Stacks11.1K

Followers4.0K

Votes360

Wagtail

Stacks163

Followers288

Votes132

Drupal vs Wagtail: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Flexibility and Scalability: Drupal provides a highly flexible and scalable platform that allows developers to create complex websites with ease. It offers a wide variety of modules that can be combined to build custom functionality. On the other hand, Wagtail is also flexible but is particularly suited for building smaller to medium-sized websites. It may not be as suitable for large-scale, enterprise-level projects due to its more limited ecosystem of modules and plugins.
Learning Curve and Ease of Use: Drupal has a steeper learning curve compared to Wagtail. It offers more advanced features and customization options, making it a powerful tool for experienced developers. However, this also means that it can be more difficult for beginners to learn and use. Wagtail, on the other hand, has a more intuitive user interface and simpler architecture, making it easier for new users to get started.
Community and Support: Drupal has a large and active community of developers, which means there is an extensive support network available. The Drupal community maintains an extensive library of contributed modules and themes, making it easier to find resources and solutions for specific needs. Wagtail, although growing, has a relatively smaller community and may have fewer resources available for support and troubleshooting.
Content Editing Experience: Drupal provides a robust and flexible content editing experience with its WYSIWYG editor and extensive features for creating and managing content. However, compared to Wagtail, it may require more customization and configuration to achieve a similar user experience. Wagtail, on the other hand, offers a more streamlined and user-friendly content editing interface out-of-the-box, allowing editors to easily create and update content without the need for extensive technical knowledge.
Security and Updates: Drupal is well-known for its strong security features and rigorous update process. It has a dedicated security team that regularly releases updates and patches to address vulnerabilities. On the other hand, Wagtail also takes security seriously but may not have the same level of emphasis on security as Drupal. When it comes to updates, Drupal has a well-established methodology and tools for managing updates, while the process may vary for Wagtail depending on the project's configuration and hosting setup.
Ecosystem and Integration: Drupal has a vast ecosystem of modules and integrations that allow seamless integration with various third-party systems and technologies. This makes it a popular choice for building complex websites that require integration with other applications or services. Wagtail, although it has a growing ecosystem, may not offer the same level of integration options as Drupal. It may require more custom development to achieve integration with specific systems or services.

Advice on Drupal, Wagtail

Kamaldeep

CEO at Zhoustify Agency

Nov 13, 2020

Decided

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.

69.2k views69.2k

Comments

Sigit

Mar 7, 2022

Review

I would tend to use Drupal but I think it is only a matter of preference. I admit that building on WordPress is easier while building on Drupal will require a lot of research and experience.

357 views357

Comments

Dragos

Jan 6, 2020

Decided

244k views244k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Drupal	Wagtail
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.	Wagtail is a Django content management system built originally for the Royal College of Art and focused on flexibility and user experience.
Categorize with taxonomy, automatically create friendly path urls, create custom lists, associate content with other content on your site, and create smart defaults for content creators;Manage content with an easy-to-use web interface. Drupal's flexibility handles countless content types including video, text, blog, podcasts, and polls with robust user management, menu handling, real-time statistics and optional revision control.;Users can be assigned one or more roles, and each role can be set up with fine-grained permissions allowing users view and create only what the administrator permits.;You can have tight control over who can create, view, administer, publish and otherwise interact with content on your site.;Build internal and external-facing websites in a matter of hours, with no custom programming.;Drupal's presentation layer allows designers to create highly usable, interactive experiences that engage users and increase traffic.;With more than 16,000 available modules, the vast majority of your site's requirements can be addressed with Drupal core and available add-on modules.	A fast, attractive editor interface;Complete control over design with standard Django templates;Configure content types through standard Django models;Tightly integrated search (with an Elasticsearch backend for production);Strong document and image management;Wide support for embedded content;Simple, configurable permissions;Support for tree-based content organisation;Optional preview->submit->approve workflow;Fast out of the box. Varnish-friendly if you need it;A simple form builder;Optional static site generation;Excellent test coverage
Statistics
Stacks 11.1K	Stacks 163
Followers 4.0K	Followers 288
Votes 360	Votes 132
Pros & Cons
Pros 75 Stable, highly functional cms 60 Great community 44 Easy cms to make websites 43 Highly customizable 22 Digital customer experience delivery platform Cons 1 DJango 1 Steep learning curve	Pros 23 Highly customizable 18 StreamFields are amazing 18 Very Flexible 15 Web content management 13 Non-tech colleagues can update website content Cons 3 Not a full CMS: basic components require heavy coding 2 Small developer community 1 Expensive to develop