By akshay134 on

Is using Drupal on developing the e-commerce functionality for a shopping site, a good idea.
Should drupal be used in this situation or is there some other preferred famework / web technology.

Does Drupal take good care of the security. What should be done to secure a Drupal site.

for CMS website, how often is it required to update the latest release version of Drupal.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

dnewkerk’s picture

dnewkerk commented

Yes Drupal is quite good for e-commerce.
There is:
http://drupal.org/project/ecommerce
http://drupal.org/project/ubercart

My impression from what I read on drupal.org is that ubercart module is generally preferred by most, though ecommerce module can be the appropriate choice in certain situations. There's a lot of past discussions you can look up comparing the two. Here's a directory of real e-commerce sites that use the Ubercart module: http://www.ubercart.org/site

I would assume that a high-end dedicated e-commerce/shopping cart system might have additional features that aren't in a Drupal module e-commerce/shopping cart... though those may cost a lot, and are unlikely to have the level of CMS functionality Drupal has. So it depends on your needs.

Drupal has among the best reputations for security of any CMS. Core is very secure, and is patched quickly if a flaw is discovered. Your Drupal site will keep track and notify you immediately if security updates are released. 3rd party modules however should be treated with more care (there is a security team that checks 3rd party modules, but there are so many that there's no guarantee). The most common/popular modules are the most safe, while more esoteric/unusual modules that only a limited number of users have a need for are less likely to be checked consistently for security issues.

For Drupal, and any other CMS as well, you should always upgrade to the latest version of the core whenever there is an update, as almost every update is always to patch a critical security flaw that has been discovered (in rare cases it is just bug fixes... there are never new features added though, until the next major release, such as from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6). For modules, you can wait to upgrade until the Update Status page shows that a module has a critical update... you don't need to update otherwise if you prefer not to, since in that case it is just bug fixes or new features (which you may prefer to wait and test before installing on your live e-commerce site). Keeping your site updated and secure if doing e-commerce is even more important than usual.

-- David
davidnewkerk.com | absolutecross.com
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