Should you use Wordpress or Drupal for your company Website?

When you set out to build a website for your company there are a lot of aspects that you should be considering while deciding on the technology decisions. Based on these different aspects and based on how you prioritize between them the technology decisions that you take would vary. Going for a Content Management System is a no brainer if you wish to manage the content on your site. Both Drupal and Wordpress are good choices for building your new company website. However there are differences between them and this is an attempt to help you make a decision on this.

Some of the relevant questions that a business owner would be (should be) considering when deciding on the technology solutions for building their company website are

a) How much would it cost to build the site?

b) How much would it cost to maintain the site?

c) Would the company be able to find good contractors for the technology easily?

d) Would company users have control over the site and the content?

e) Would company users be able to manage the site on their own?

f) Would it be possible to extend the site later without having to rebuild everything?

g) Is the site going to have a lot of functionalities or is it going to be pretty much a set of static pages and a blog and a contact us page?

h) Is the site going to have a lot of functionalities added in the near future?

i) Is the company looking for more features on the site sometime in the future?

j) Is the company looking for a unique look or would an out of the box look suffice?

k) Would it be possible to have a change of looks without incurring too much of a cost?

l) Would the technology hold up when the site grows in traffic?

m) Is the technology / platform secure?

n) Would the technology remain relevant in N years or would it become obsolete?

Based on the answers to these questions the business owner should be able to zero in either on Wordpress or on Drupal as a choice for the website.

On items a, b Wordpress and Drupal would fare identical for simple small sites. For larger and complex sites Wordpress would start facing technical challenges while Drupal would not. However Drupal will become more costlier than Wordpress for larger sites.

On item c it would be easier to find good Wordpress developers than good Drupal developers when the complexities involved are smaller. As the complexity of the site increases finding good Wordpress developers would be as involved as finding good Drupal developers.

On items d, e both would fare identical. Wordpress would have a slightly better edge over Drupal in terms of the usability of the admin interfaces but Drupal would have an edge over Wordpress in terms of the flexibility to extend the admin interfaces.

On items f, g, h, i - If the site is to have a lot of features or complex features either to start with or in the immediate future then Drupal would have an edge over Wordpress. Drupal API offers a level of extensibility and flexibility for customization that is not available in Wordpress or for that matter a lot of the competition.

On items j, k - Wordpress has more out of the box designs but if you are looking for a new custom design both would fare similar. In terms of changing designs once the site goes live both the CMSes support that.

On items l, m both Drupal and Wordpress fare equally well. The difference would really be in how these CMSes are set up and less on the CMS itself.

On item n both Drupal and Wordpress seem to be there for the longer term having outlived their early day competitors and steadily growing and eating into the CMS space.

So the general verdict is that Wordpress would have an edge over Drupal for simple sites that are not really looking for scaling / extensions in the near future while Drupal would have an edge over Wordpress for larger sites with more functionalities or for sites which are to be extended in the near future. If you are investing into a platform that can be the base for your enterprise platform then Drupal is your choice but if you are looking only for a short term solution on a small budget then Wordpress is your choice.

If you have decided to go with Drupal we will be happy to help build your Drupal site for you. We have been focusing on deliverying quality Drupal solutions since 2006. Get in touch with us to know more on how how we can help you build your company website in Drupal.