Drupal

[machtm]

I recently got involved in a project of fixing up some websites that were built using drupal... I've been using wordpress for a couple of years and prefer it so far...

 

Just wondering if any of you have experience with drupal and know of what the main reason a company would choose to use it?

 

thanks!

 

 

[Nathan]

I haven't, Wordpress is just to convenient what would be the upside to using Drupal, is it .net versus php?

[Victor Leigh]

I am using Drupal to develop a site for a client. Not that it's my first choice but the previous developer started with Drupal and the site owner wanted me to continue using it. So I started to learn about Drupal. It's quite an amazing piece of software.

 

There are a few immediately obvious differences. One, in Drupal, the core is sacred. All modifications are external to the core. Another difference is that there is a general attitude among Drupal developers that 'why do it alone when you can do it together'. So most of the modules are developed as community projects. This gives the modules a longer working life because when the original developers move on to other things, other developers continue maintaining the modules. The other very obvious difference is that, since Drupal is designed for developers, there are literally tons of documentation and the documentation is detailed and clear. Not really surprising since Drupal was created by developers for other developers to use.

 

It's worthwhile learning to develop with Drupal because, generally speaking, the fee for developing a site with Drupal is higher. A standard site would cost between 1,000 to 5,000 usd. This is not what the developers are asking for. This is the price the site owners are offering. I have seen offers of as high as 15,000 usd.

 

Now why do site owners offer that much money to have their sites developed with Drupal? I don't know the full answer yet since I am only half-way to finishing my first Drupal project. Perhaps we might find the answer if we look at some big sites like the White House. There must be a reason why the White House site is developed with Drupal.

[machtm]

Thanks for your response, lot of awesome info there .... Especially mentioning the core code of Drupal.

 

I've heard that american military and other government agencies use drupal for their websites because it is a lot more secure than wordpress but haven't found much documentation or articles to back that up (yet).

 

thanks again!

[Victor Leigh]

You can find a long list of sites which are powered by Drupal. Some of them you can find at these sites:

 

http://www.appnovation.com/25-best-looking-drupal-websites
http://www.flashmint.com/wp/2012/08/20-best-drupal-sites-of-2012/
http://www.avenuewebmedia.com/high-profile-sites-run-drupal
http://blog.templatemonster.com/2010/10/20/55-drupal-websites-showcase/
http://cheekymonkeymedia.ca/blog/rick-bjarnason/15-killler-drupal-sites

 

The sites listed above include some interesting places like NASA.
 

And to answer the question of how to know whether the site is powered by Drupal, try some of the techniques noted in this article:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2521588/how-to-know-if-the-site-is-running-on-drupal-what-are-the-mark-up-patterns

 

And for a very detailed, step-by-step howto see this:

http://www.lullabot.com/articles/is-site-running-drupal