Why are some people using WordPress rather than Drupal?
This is a follow-up question to Why are people using Posterous.com rather than WordPress.com?.
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Drupal is better at handling complex sites with complex needs beyond blogging. WordPress is quicker at setting you up with a simple blog and basic CMS. People who just need a blog are more likely to use WordPress.
35 Answers
Dries Buytaert, Founder and Project Lead of Drupal, P...
109 votes by Seb Paquet, Frank Febbraro, Peter Van Dijck, (more)Loading...
WordPress looks better on the outside (administration UI) and Drupal looks better on the inside (architecture, API design).
WordPress is better than Drupal at blogging, but Drupal excels when you have more sophisticated needs.
Non-technical people tend to like WordPress better because it is easier to use. People with a formal background in engineering seem to like Drupal better because it is better to develop on/for. There is a gray area in the middle that I would describe as follows. Designers that developed some PHP coding skills tend to like WordPress because they can quickly 'hack' WordPress and get their job done. Developers that developed some CSS/PS skills tend to like Drupal because they don't want to hack Drupal -- they want clean code that is maintainable and upgradeable. (I know it is dangerous to generalize and I recognize that there are many exceptions.)
For the past 3 years, the number one stated objective for Drupal is improving usability. The result of that collective effort is a completely new administration backend, improved information architecture, and more. It will soon be available as Drupal 7. I expect Drupal 7 to have a positive impact on Drupal's adoption, both with a non-technical and a technical audience.
If you don't want to deal with installing, upgrading or scaling your Drupal 7 site, take a look at http://drupalgardens.com -- it is free, and allows you to build a Drupal 7 site similar like you would on WordPress.com or SquareSpace. It is designed to take additional complexity out of Drupal. I think Drupal Gardens could be a game changer for Drupal as it eliminates many barriers to adoption for Drupal. If you previously discarded Drupal because it was too hard to use, I recommend looking at Drupal Gardens. It is early days (we're still in beta) but keep an eye on it (we have 25,000 sites already).
WordPress is better than Drupal at blogging, but Drupal excels when you have more sophisticated needs.
Non-technical people tend to like WordPress better because it is easier to use. People with a formal background in engineering seem to like Drupal better because it is better to develop on/for. There is a gray area in the middle that I would describe as follows. Designers that developed some PHP coding skills tend to like WordPress because they can quickly 'hack' WordPress and get their job done. Developers that developed some CSS/PS skills tend to like Drupal because they don't want to hack Drupal -- they want clean code that is maintainable and upgradeable. (I know it is dangerous to generalize and I recognize that there are many exceptions.)
For the past 3 years, the number one stated objective for Drupal is improving usability. The result of that collective effort is a completely new administration backend, improved information architecture, and more. It will soon be available as Drupal 7. I expect Drupal 7 to have a positive impact on Drupal's adoption, both with a non-technical and a technical audience.
If you don't want to deal with installing, upgrading or scaling your Drupal 7 site, take a look at http://drupalgardens.com -- it is free, and allows you to build a Drupal 7 site similar like you would on WordPress.com or SquareSpace. It is designed to take additional complexity out of Drupal. I think Drupal Gardens could be a game changer for Drupal as it eliminates many barriers to adoption for Drupal. If you previously discarded Drupal because it was too hard to use, I recommend looking at Drupal Gardens. It is early days (we're still in beta) but keep an eye on it (we have 25,000 sites already).
Stanton Champion, Product Marketing Manager at uTest
34 votes by Andrew Brown, Anibe Agamah, Karthik Ramadoss, (more)Loading...
Mike Schinkel, I Build WordPress Plugins for SaaS & ...
23 votes by Anon User, Ulrich Sossou, Peter Fleck, (more)Loading...
Martin Kelley, website developer, quaker blogger, dad
9 votes by Chris Thomson, Jessica Gottlieb, Howie Burke, (more)Chris Thomson, Jessica Gottlieb, Howie Burke, Mike Schinkel, Luke Burford, Pat Hawks, Linda Peng, Simon Kreiser, and Laura Eagin
Mindy McAdams, Online journalism trainer and educator
4 votes by Jeremy Hixon, Armando Duran, Pat Hawks, and Erica Friedman
Scot Hacker, Web developer, geocacher, Djangonaut.
4 votes by Aditya Sengupta, Robin Jennings, Sam Takunda, and Paul Masek
Luke Burford, 4 years designing and building Drupal...
8 votes by Tarique Sani, Armando Duran, Lila Hanft, (more)Tarique Sani, Armando Duran, Lila Hanft, Allan Hoffman, Jesse Beach, Chad Schultz, Paul Thomas, and Laura Eagin
Daniel Lemire, Computer scientist and Open Scholar.
3 votes by Juraj Frank, Josh Sprague, and Dan Rudman
Gerasimos Tsiamalos, Wordpress theme developer for 4 year
2 votes by Pat Hawks and Viktoras Angelopoulos
Allan Hoffman, Author of "Create Great iPhone Photos."
2 votes by Mike Schinkel and Martin Edenström
Richard Dows, I've used, designed, and developed Wo...
3 votes by Martin Kelley, Lila Hanft, and Pat Hawks
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