I like Wordpress as a blogging platform and for basic 5 page sites that have little opportunity to expand. It's really great at that level and certainly not hard to use.
That said, the past couple months we've done a lot more with Drupal than we could ever do with Wordpress. It is allowing us to provide much more valuable functionality and business-driven applications with very little costs compared to a completely custom solution. It's so easy to taken dozens of different modules and get creative with what kind of roadmap you can develop in the long term, while providing many pre-built open source solutions in the short term.
Our clients are very happy with how much more they can manage and control, and we're goig to be taking some smaller WP sites to Drupal in the next month. From a business perspective, we can come in lower than custom dev shops in many instances and provide more bang for the buck, while still increasing our margins over WP sites. It's allowed us to focus on fewer clients but start to build long term relationships. I wish you guys would look into it a little more because with knowledgable designers, you can really make extremely functional sites stand out in ways WP simply can't. The community is also very helpful and sharing, and while not as large as WP- is geared toward delivering more business driven value adds to the client.
Just my 2 cents. I like WP a lot and see where it really delivers, but it's a little frustrating with its limitations at times.
Todd Wickersty
· 1 month ago
Not surprisingly, I have to disagree with your comments about WordPress. We have built 70+ page sites on WordPress without issue and extended it with ease to do a lot more than what many people perceive about WordPress. In addition, our clients find it very easy to pick up and use.
I'm not saying Drupal is a poor alternative because I have limited experience with it. The experiece I do have with it is somewhat negative from a user perspective, but maybe I was working with an older version. It just did not seem as intuitive to me.
Regardless, I am fairly platform agnostic, and if there is an opportunity to try another platform, I will. However, we have been very successful with WordPress by meeting and exceeding the needs of many organizations for sites that are much larger than 5 pages.
Matt
· 1 month ago
I think a lot of it comes down to developer preference really. I think both the WordPress and Drupal communities are generally better then WP vs. Drupal debates that plague coding languages and other CMS-type systems. I certainly respect Drupal and have met plenty of Drupal developers that have a healthy respect for WordPress.
Personally I prefer to develop in WordPress over Drupal. I prefer its administration area for the client, and every day I'm finding new ways to make things even easier for the client to manage a site. As for its capabilities, they are far reaching and growing. A lot of it is getting to the answer for this question, "how will I manage my content with this as a framework?"
The developer can make use of the media library for lots of things. I've used it for rotating images on specific pages, MP3 players on music related sites, and more. Multiple sidebars that are selectively included on different pages allow you fine tuned control over page call outs and extra content. Those and other devices allow the developer to provide very custom solutions that in the end, are easy for the user to both understand and manage while not costing the development shop significant time/budget investment.
Like any framework, you need to drink the kool-aid for your chosen tool. No matter which framework you choose, at some point you're going to end up having to bend yourself to some of its rules at some point in time. So to me, it's really a question of what flavor of kool-aid do you like the most?
Todd Wickersty
· 1 month ago
Good points, Matt.
Just because I have a lot of time invested in WordPress doesn't mean I won't try other platforms. I really have nothing against Drupal either.
Given that I have accumulated some knowledge on WordPress, I hope to use this forum to help other WordPress users with a tip once a week (with several of those tips coming from you!)
All Comments
That said, the past couple months we've done a lot more with Drupal than we could ever do with Wordpress. It is allowing us to provide much more valuable functionality and business-driven applications with very little costs compared to a completely custom solution. It's so easy to taken dozens of different modules and get creative with what kind of roadmap you can develop in the long term, while providing many pre-built open source solutions in the short term.
Our clients are very happy with how much more they can manage and control, and we're goig to be taking some smaller WP sites to Drupal in the next month. From a business perspective, we can come in lower than custom dev shops in many instances and provide more bang for the buck, while still increasing our margins over WP sites. It's allowed us to focus on fewer clients but start to build long term relationships. I wish you guys would look into it a little more because with knowledgable designers, you can really make extremely functional sites stand out in ways WP simply can't. The community is also very helpful and sharing, and while not as large as WP- is geared toward delivering more business driven value adds to the client.
Just my 2 cents. I like WP a lot and see where it really delivers, but it's a little frustrating with its limitations at times.
I'm not saying Drupal is a poor alternative because I have limited experience with it. The experiece I do have with it is somewhat negative from a user perspective, but maybe I was working with an older version. It just did not seem as intuitive to me.
Regardless, I am fairly platform agnostic, and if there is an opportunity to try another platform, I will. However, we have been very successful with WordPress by meeting and exceeding the needs of many organizations for sites that are much larger than 5 pages.
Personally I prefer to develop in WordPress over Drupal. I prefer its administration area for the client, and every day I'm finding new ways to make things even easier for the client to manage a site. As for its capabilities, they are far reaching and growing. A lot of it is getting to the answer for this question, "how will I manage my content with this as a framework?"
The developer can make use of the media library for lots of things. I've used it for rotating images on specific pages, MP3 players on music related sites, and more. Multiple sidebars that are selectively included on different pages allow you fine tuned control over page call outs and extra content. Those and other devices allow the developer to provide very custom solutions that in the end, are easy for the user to both understand and manage while not costing the development shop significant time/budget investment.
Like any framework, you need to drink the kool-aid for your chosen tool. No matter which framework you choose, at some point you're going to end up having to bend yourself to some of its rules at some point in time. So to me, it's really a question of what flavor of kool-aid do you like the most?
Just because I have a lot of time invested in WordPress doesn't mean I won't try other platforms. I really have nothing against Drupal either.
Given that I have accumulated some knowledge on WordPress, I hope to use this forum to help other WordPress users with a tip once a week (with several of those tips coming from you!)