WordPress is Better than Drupal
I completely agree. In many aspects, such as those Jen Lampton is pointing out in the slideshow below, WordPress simply is better than Drupal. Same goes with Joomla as well.
Jen starts by comparing numbers, showing that WordPress has more installations, more modules, more themes and a much larger community. Then she goes on with telling you why its better, what Drupals problems are and rounds off with what the Drupal community needs to focus on.
I completely agree with all her points. WordPress is easier to set-up, easier to get started with and easier to use. I also agree that Drupal 7 is going to change a lot of that, making Drupal much more attractive to non developers. But there are still a lot of work to do to really catch up.
Drupal should not aim to be the new WordPress!
We should learn from everything WordPress, Joomla and other CMS's does right and get praised for, not aim to become them.
This is also exactly what I see happening in the Drupal community. As Jen points out, the Drupal community has, and still are, very developer driven. It is a community by developers, for developers. This is something that slowly is changing, much thanks to Dries leadership and visions. He was the one that put the user experience in focus for Drupal 7 and has ever since guided the community perfectly on the path to it.
The result as we now start to see with the Drupal 7 alpha releases has paid of. Drupal is much more appealing, easier to use, quicker to get started with and so on.
What is even greater though is that this hasn't changed much when it comes to Drupal being a developer driver project. Yes there have been some developers voicing their opinion, especially when it comes to the new Overlay administrative system. Generally though, most developers have jumped onboard and many of them are already busy porting their modules to Drupal 7. Including adapting their UI's to make them integrate better and be easier to use.
On top of that there is also Drupal Gardens and Buzzr that aims to make Drupal even easier to get started with. Both shows great promise and will be big assets to bring more users into the Drupal ecosystem.
In my opinion the Drupal community is doing everything right. It looks at the competition, learns from it, adapts it to the Drupal way. All this without forgetting its roots in the developer community.
Its a great place to be in.
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Comments
Adrian (not verified)
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 22:07
Re: WordPress is Better than Drupal
So after all, someone in the heart of Drupal did see. Why do not I adopted Drupal for many years.
The presentation talks about people like me who can do some things and learn but do not have time to become engineers because we need to go forward with our project. I must add that I am no web designer or web developer, just a simple guy with a simple project in search of a good tool for doing things by myself.
But even today, Drupal, is still taking its time to release Drupal 7. It is ready when it is ready.
I follow your blog and you have explained it clear that it is not advisable to start until the beta comes, but the Beta came when.
I have many intentions to finally use Drupal, but in the last two days I began to see the possibility of using Wordpress instead of Drupal 7, because I want to go out this month from Squarespace.
For too long, long time, I tried Wordpress, let me tell you that I have been very impressed with this version 3.0
I was also surprised by the people of Joomla, they almost are releasing the first Beta, and after my test this weekend, let me add, with significant changes, and most importantly, they seem to have taken much less time to bring this 1.6 beta.
In conclusion, Jen Lampton knows, time is running out and Drupal is taking too long.
I do think, while no final Drupal 7, I see no way forward with the other points. I know that by bringing this presentation, you share with us the same concern.
thomas
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 10:08
Re: WordPress is Better than Drupal
Hi Adrian,
It's correct that Drupal 7 is far from ready for productions websites. I would not recommend using it even when the betas or release candidates are out. Not until the official version is released will it be recommended for production websites.
Even then you most likely also will need a bunch of contributed modules for your project. Those modules will also have to be officially released, that is no being developer, alpha or beta versions. Most of the modules I use here on Nutshell are still only available in developer versions. Sure, many are working just fine and will need little, if any, changes to be released at the same time as the official Drupal 7 release.
Personally I don't think there will be enough contributed modules ready, and released, until the end of this year, or beginning of next year for Drupal 7 to be a real choice as the platform for larger projects.
For smaller projects that only needs a few of the more common modules this will come earlier. This is also true for websites such as Nutshell where Drupal 7 is sort of part of the website idea.
The above is true for your own installations. If you really want to start building a website using Drupal 7 today there is another option though - Drupal Gardens.
Drupal Gardens not only let you build your website with Drupal 7. It also takes away a lot of the backend administration, especially keeping it updated. Acquia is taking care of that for you.
On top of this, when Drupal 7 and the contributed modules you need are officially released and tested you can easily export your Drupal Gardens website and import it to your own Drupal 7 installation.
Since you write that you are "no web designer or web developer" my recommendation is that Drupal Gardens is the choice for you right now. It will give you the power of Drupal 7 and at the same time let you focus on building your website. If you have a domain for your website you can still use it for your Drupal Gardens hosted website as well.
/thomas