Why Drupal is the Right Platform For Your Website

There are many different content management systems (CMS) on which to build websites. So, if you’re first stepping into the world of web design or looking for a developer, it all might be a little confusing. We favor Drupal here and I want to spend some time here explaining why.

For starters, Drupal is free. Yes, there are many other open-source development platforms out there. WordPress comes to mind, of course. But Drupal has the added advantage of being currently used on some of the largest sites online. That is, sites that receive a ton of traffic are powered by Drupal and can handle it just fine. A good example is WhiteHouse.gov.

Since Drupal is open-source, its development has been rapid and highly successful. It was created over ten years ago now and was released into the wild under a GNU Public License. In layman’s terms, this means you can download it, use it, and even change it as you see fit without having to register a license or pay any sort of fees. No money leaves your bank account. Just download the platform and get to work. There is a dedicated community of Drupal developers who support the platform and help it grow.

Drupal is favored over CMS platforms like WordPress because it is more robust and yet simpler. At its core, Drupal is backed by a database and can be modified, extended, and tweaked to serve just about any website function. It’s flexible and highly secure. Perhaps even more important, it’s lightweight. WordPress is prone to bloat. Drupal is not.

Built-In Social Functions 

There’s a major social component to Drupal that we love. Should you so desire, you can let visitors to your site log in with authentication. This is particularly useful if you’re looking to build a community site or anticipate having several contributors. Regardless, you can set roles for these users and even restrict access to certain parts of the site.

Multi-Purpose 

Another thing we love about Drupal is that it be utilized for such a wide range of sites. Pick an industry and you’ll find sites built on Drupal within it. What’s nice is Drupal acts as a publishing platform. All the content you produce is optimized for search as well.

Whatever the Drupal core doesn’t cover is quickly handled by free optimization tools that have been created by the community of developers. They have excellent support as well. Should a problem arise that the community can’t solve, trained administrators can help you out, no problem.

Design Flexibility 

It’s easy to customize how Drupal sites look and feel. They’re handled by themes much in the same way as WordPress is. Drupal offers many themes for free that you can customize however you want. Or, you can download a base design on which to build a custom theme. If you anticipate having truly unique needs, you can always hire a design team.

Site Security 

We think one of the biggest selling points for choosing Drupal over other content management systems is the level of security offered. The Drupal community conducts regular security tests and security firms from all over the globe have conducted tests to make sure the core system cannot be breached by hackers. In fact, the standards that Drupal holds itself to are outlined by the Open Web Application Security Project or OWASP. Basically, your content, users, and entire site are in good hands.

While there might be a lot of debate out there about what web design platform is the best, in our minds there’s a sure winner.

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