Drupal is one of the world’s most popular open source content management systems. It is used in various guises, but is especially sought after in the development of highly sophisticated, flexible and robust web applications, from websites to social media networks. Below is compiled several of the reasons for Drupal’s increase in popularity over the last number of years, and some motivations for considering Drupal as the CMS for your next development project.

 

Heavy Weight User Base

Some of the world’s biggest and most popular web presences are built on the Drupal platform. From governments and large organisations to popular bands and leading production companies, Drupal is utilised in situations where the website will draw a large following and garner heavy user traffic. Some examples you may be aware of are: The White House official website, the United Nations, the New Zealand government, the Belgian government, Amnesty International, Harvard University, Warner Bros. Music, Universal Music Group, the Disney Corporation, Sun Microsystems, MTV and Nike.

 

Beyond the indicative popularity showcased above, the maturity of the product must also be noted. After its inception in 2001, Drupal has now seen its seventh full release, and with over 150 000 core downloads from Drupal.org every month, the product is very much going strong.

 

Open-Source = Way Forward

Unlike proprietary software, which is usually developed, sold, licensed and maintained by a single company, Drupal is open-source. This means, firstly, that the source code of the platform is freely available to those working with it, and secondly, that the development and maintenance of the CMS as a whole is a collaborative effort undertaken by the Drupal community. Thousands of programmers and developers around the world make up this community, and as a team they work to ensure that Drupal is the best CMS available. A system such as this has massive benefits for the end user.

 

  • All the important stuff is free. Drupal core software, contributed modules and a large number of themes are available for users to download free of charge. This allows budgets to  shifted away from product licensing and update purchases to more pertinent development costs.
  • The Drupal community is dedicated. Around the world, and thus around the clock, things such as maintenance, security and upgrades are driven by this community. This allows the platform an advantage in man-power and man-hours that a proprietary software development firm would be hard-pressed to match.
  • The Drupal community listens. Unlike large proprietary firms that release updates and upgrades often simply for the sake of justifying increased costs, the Drupal community creates these new features in response to the needs of those that utilise it most.
  • It’s not rocket-science. Because Drupal is written in PHP, the majority of web-developers can become competent in utilising the framework within a short time-frame.


Customisation is the Name of the Game

Drupal can be described as a CMS for people on the go. It’s quick, and it’s easy. That being said, it is also designed to be highly customizable. A basic Drupal site can be installed and released within an a few hours, but with the massive library of features, themes and modules available to developers, the complexity which can attained is nearly infinite.

 

This fact is true to such an extent that the term Content Management Framework has been coined in order to more accurately describe Drupal. Because of the manner in which it is constructed, developers have free reign as far the personal enhancement of the product’s core functionality is concerned.

 

Drupal can be structured in the way that the user wants or needs it to be structured. Unlike alternative CMS options that force upon the user rigid parameters for usability and scalability, the only limitations for Drupal lie with the imagination of the developers. And because of the fact that it is still an open-source product, developers can always play around with the source code if the core or specific module isn’t exactly what they require and more customization is necessary.

 

Agile Development, Rapid Deployment. The Drupal way…

Website development in the past has involved massive amounts of documentation and clients waiting for weeks or even months before there is anything for the developers to showcase. When using Drupal, the developers are able to rapidly deploy core features and functionality, with the option of later alterations and customisations always being possible after the fact.

 

The advantage that this offers is massive. Not only does this allow for projects to get off the ground with less initial capital, but it also allows for changes to be made with user input after receiving feedback on their first impressions. Creating solutions in this manner is far more effective than instigating alterations after development has been finalized.

 

Online community features? They’re already there.

The Drupal community had the foresight to build online community features like forums, commenting and blogs straight into the product core. Thus, rather than treating these features as an after-thought, Drupal has made clear its collective opinion of the power held by these features. Depending on the permission setting decided on for a website, making use of these features allow authenticated users the ability to create content. As stated in the previous point, this again ties in with the rapid deployment methodology held so dear by the Drupal community, allowing developers to not only get the site up and running within a small time-frame, but also eliminates the need for extensive customization after initial development or the use of third-party applications. With the addition of a massive repository of custom modules, the capacity for extension of functionality is also extended tenfold. Whether you want to incorporate Flickr, YouTube or Facebook, there is a module that will make it possible.

 

Drupal is not only broad-spectrum

Microsoft, and many other companies and corporations, have for years been spouting the idea that open-source denotes some form of inferiority, especially so when compared to proprietary software.  This can almost be viewed as reactionary, seeing as the biggest threat to proprietary applications is the existence of equally effective options that aren’t tied to commercial gain. Firefox, Linux, Java, MySQL and Apache are all examples proving that the large corporate business model is designed for financial gain, and that the existence of fully-functional, open-source web applications is possible.

 

The term “Enterprise-Class” denotes an application that is open, flexible and powerful. Beyond this, we believe that are six key indicators that allow for a product to be termed as “Enterprise-Class”, and Drupal hits all of them.

  • Scalability: In a Drupal environment, the system scalability is incredibly broad. Deployment can be facilitated on a single server, or across a large, load-balanced server cluster to cater for huge amounts of traffic. The Economist website, for example, is capable of comfortably functioning with a user-base of over 3 million registered users, and facilitates over 30 million page views per month.
  • Reliability: Drupal allows for server hardware to be configured in ways which will be most effective for particular applications. This permits system reliability to be maintained at optimum levels.  The ideal deployment setup for Drupal is a LAMP stack making use of a Linux operating system, Apache web server, PHP language and MySQL running the database.
  • Manageability: Drupal is all about management. The various options available to admins allow for almost infinitely specific regulation over user roles and permissions.
  • Security: Drupal Core has a dedicated security team. The sole purpose of this online collective is to constantly monitor and address security concerns in whichever guise they may take. The large developer/user base which subscribes to Drupal also has the added advantage of feet on the ground, as the thousands of developers working with the product in hundreds of thousands of different configurations every day allow for quick and easy identification of security concerns.
  • Interoperability: Easy integration with other web applications is a must for modern platforms. Drupal manages this facet seamlessly via open standards, and is interoperable with services like XML, REST and JSON.
  • Qualified resource availability: The number of experienced Drupal developers across the globe number in the tens of thousands. Because the platform can easily be mastered by anyone with a fair knowledge of PHP, or anyone with a background in other languages like Java. With an understanding of the Drupal framework, the theming and visual aspects of the development can be performed by anyone with knowledge of HTML and CSS.

Long term business security is assured with Drupal

The security of your website and your business should be high up on the list of priorities. Considering the points above, it must be noted that Drupal pertains to the highest levels of online security. Some of the points worth considering with regards to security when choosing a CMS are listed below.

 

  • Level of Control: By providing all of the features and functionality that you are likely to need within a single framework, Drupal caters for a greater level of system control as well as control over users. More importantly, it does so with less complexity than that which would be required with the integration of third party applications.
  • Flexibility: In terms of potential alterations to features, functionality and design, Drupal provides a large amount of flexibility. Changes to websites need to happen as businesses change, and having the capacity to deal with these requirements as they occur is a huge plus.
  • Longevity: One of the major factors affecting proprietary software manufactures is the potential for massive shifts in industry focus, and the potential to go out of business. Because the massive Drupal community is actively participating in constant alterations and improvements in the framework, this does not pertain to the open-source CMS.