Introduction to Drupal

There is a wide variety of types of websites that you can make. There are even more tools out there to help with building those sites. If you are building a blog or a personal website, you may consider a Content Management System (CMS). These could include WordPress, Joomla, or even Drupal, which are among the most popular. However, each of these popular CMS options is limited in what they can or cannot do, and sometimes you need a system to help manage the site that still has the freedom to do exactly what you want with it. This is where Drupal comes to shine – a CMS designed for developers and programmers who needed more freedom than other CMS options provided.

What is Drupal?

Drupal is a CMS designed from the ground up to be open-ended and liberating when it came to the development of the website and all of its features. Drupal has many scripts and functions built-in from the start that CMS options like WordPress require installed separately as plugins after the fact. Since Drupal is coded extensively in PHP, it allows those with PHP experience to have lots of freedom when developing their sites.

Why Should I Choose Drupal?

Drupal comes with the functionality for graphics modification tools, graphs management, user management, and more. Using these tools, you can manage various content types such as videos, polls, text, blogs, podcasts, graphs, statistics, users and user groups, plugins, templates, and functions.

Drupal has a large library of thousands of plugins to install and over 2,000 themes to add functionality and design, which allows you to find (or create!) the software and programming you need for your site. Due to this, it can be designed and respond in the exact way you desire. These plugins can assist in making any aspect of your site stand out or easier to manage to your specifications. And should you ever run into issues during development or implementation, Drupal has a discussion board, chat, mailing list, and extensive documentation to assist you.

Finally, Drupal is considered one of the most secure content management systems online in the modern day. Drupal's open-source nature means that the community's security teams can secure any plugins or modules when they become compromised. This makes Drupal a very trustworthy CMS to build your website with. That's why Drupal is used by Principal, Harvard University, Stanford University, the White House, NASA, the CERN, the French Government, and the London Government, to name just a few.

Why Should I Not Choose Drupal?

Drupal is a CMS that was designed and built by developers for developers. Its extensive customization options, ability to scale, functionality, security, and flexibility come with the downside that it is not for beginners. Even so, users who have experience with other CMS options like WordPress or Joomla will have a steep learning curve before they can start taking full advantage of Drupal's abilities.

Even those who are willing to tackle Drupal headfirst will not learn the service and its functions in a few days. If you don't have the time to dedicate to learning how to develop with Drupal or have little money to pay a developer fluent in Drupal, then Drupal may not be the framework for you.

Conclusion

Drupal is considered one of the best open-source CMS options available. It's easy to see why it has such high appeal. Between its low resource footprint, its high-security ratings, and its scalability and customization features and functionality, Drupal appears to sound like one of the best options available to build your website. However, all of these amazing features are locked behind a steep learning curve. If you've never used Drupal before, be ready to study up and spend the time learning how it works so you can take full advantage of its benefits.

If Drupal seems like it's the choice for you, feel free to view our guide on Installing Drupal via Softaculous.

If you think Drupal might not be the best fit for you, look at other CMS options like Joomla, or WordPress, any of the applications available in Softaculous.