I have given Drupal a few looks over the years. Every time though effectiveness and usability has made me just use Wordpress instead.
Recently I have gone as far to actually install Drupal on my VPS, and suffered through the setup for it using MariaDB and Nginx. At every step I just had to remind myself that I have to do it or no coffee.
So I got it done and well , I guess it is ok-ish.
Most Drupal developers with the operative word being developers, will discount the comparison with Wordpress in any which way. However with Drupal now working on a core module to provide an integrated page builder their protests are for naught.
It is fair to say that Drupal is at minimum 10 years behind Wordpress. Since they are really the only 2 CMS Platforms worth building anything remotely general purpose it is the only comparison worth making.
It is rather baffling that there aren't any other contenders though. Sure you can try say ModX or Joomla still exist but honestly those are so niche as to be in death throws just waiting for it to finally end.
Then people like to say but Wix, Squarespace, [Some Site Builder], Shopify? ? Really...
All those are grand I am sure, and something like Squarespace and Webflow them will let you make pretty little flashy sparkly , did I say pretty? Sites. However they cost to for any reasonable functionality, but are good options for eternal monthly instalments.
I am not interested in those for my purposes. I want something I can turn to that will be up in an hour, themed, and by the end of the weekend have all the foundational functionality I require. Not to mention I want it on my server. I do not want to pay anyone a cent after installing it.
So back to Drupal, since Wordpress has always begrudgingly been my go-to I have been a bit hype about their little page builder.
Spoiler alert, the stupid thing has still not launched so I guess Drupal is well interested in being 11 Years behind at this point.
I did install Drupal though. So I am learning more about it regardless. From the outside it really does seem that any hope of having a good layman's experience, everything relies on Drupal releasing their "Experience Builder" as they call it. Side note: They are horrible at naming things.
One thing that I discovered is that Drupal has support for Gutenberg which is the hated builder from Wordpress. I can admit it is not the nicest for managing sections but it is worlds apart from what you would get in any other CMS really.
So Drupal technically has a few page builders as we might know in Wordpress. The problem then is, that they hide it behind overly complex systems of custom content creation workflows and just general bullshit.
Page Builders do though walk hand in hand with the Theme, in Wordpress this is evident through almost all proper themes having integration with Gutenberg or other free layout builders like Origin.
This is another place where Drupal is so far behind they feel archaic.
The theme options from the few I have tested is only one step removed from only allowing someone to change the background colour of a page. This is also why the majority of Drupal sites look just like a Drupal site. I think the main reason is because Drupal peeps are a bit lofty, and they go and custom build themselves into a wall.
To be fair that is a lot more honourable than the majority of Wordpress agencies who force customers to use ACF and Divi then call themselves designers for removing a clients ability to access the most basic features in Wordpress. All in the name of "Custom".
So the lack of available themes for Drupal seems to just be inherent if you consider who uses it. They are obviously trying to change this now but before even that they need to have a hard look at the friction caused when installing.
Aside from it requiring quite a bit of experience to set up a Drupal site for local or prod, it only gets worse once you think you are done and can continue to click buttons.
Drupal does not allow themes or modules to be installed from the interface , this has to be done server side, given you follow their official instructions and install via composer.
It is abhorrent requirement which again shows just how disconnected Drupal is from their goal of appealing to the layman.
I am bored writing now so it is not all bad though, Drupal is still plenty powerful and just from basic functionality you do save the need to hunt down about 10 plugins that are staple in Wordpress.
I think I will keep banging at Drupal and it should be worthwhile if only to have a better choice than Wordpress for more niche applications.
