subject: Why Drupal Is More Effective [print this page] Drupal is an open-source content management system or a CMS, which generally stores the content for website in a database. It's a highly scalable CMS which allows even non-technical users to easily operate upon their content and add and edit without knowing the technical sophistication related to a website. Drupal, written in PHP and registered under GNU General Public License supports at least 2.1% of websites hosted worldwide according to Wikipedia.
Some noted features of Drupal which make it a more effective tool for developing and maintaining a website are mentioned below:
Content categorization: Drupal has a powerful system to segregate content in categories which helps users to organize it effectively.
Advanced URL controls: Custom URLs is the key feature of Drupal. Each item of content can be given a separate URL. Moreover, URL structure in accordance with the content type can be defined with PathAuto Module.
Content customization: Drupal provides the feature of user defined content types and content views. Unlike the conventional CMSs which asks for the addition of special scripts in the system, Drupal wipes out such hassles and allows users to create new or customized content types without any prior knowledge of a scripting language.
Theme creation: In contrast to similar CMSs, theme creation is quite easy in Drupal. The default theme engine uses the PHP template but in order to edit or create a new theme, knowledge of PHP is not required. Any generic user can create themes in Drupal.
Plug-ins or Add-ons: Features in Drupal can be extended if some snippet or code has been posted in the Drupal community. Since Drupal is an open-source project, any newly added feature can be included as a plug-in or add-on in the existing Drupal program.
Profile management: The main feature of Drupal is that it was designed to develop community-based websites. This implies that there will be more than one user controlling or influencing the website. Drupal provides the profile or user management with a strong scheme which provides the authority according to the roles and responsibilities of the user. Customized roles can be created with customized or defined access levels.
Database abstraction: Since the release of Drupal 6, users were able to create SQL queries without writing SQL queries. An abstraction layer was introduced in this version which further enhanced the user experience in interacting with the database as well.
However in comparing it with other CMSs like Joomla, WordPress or Plone, Drupal again wins over them in some or all aspects. Compared with Joomla, Drupal is more search-engine-friendly or rather Joomla is not at all search-engine-friendly.
In comparison with Plone which is quite powerful but written in Python, the server requirements for it are way more expensive than Drupal. Extending Plone in itself is a complex task to do.
When compared to Wordpress, Drupal faces a tough competition as Wordpress also provides an equal ease of managing website content. For heavy websites or websites which will probably be extended in near future, Drupal is a good option. Many companies provide web solutions these days using open source platforms like Drupal.
