Drupal 6 slaughtered by Wordpress

I thought Drupal was supposed to be a blog engine after all

That's your mistake. hard to believe you've been with drupal this long and don't know that is simply not true. If all you need is a blog, wordpress is great-- by all means use it.

If you need to make any of the type of sites listed at http://drupal.org/cases or http://buytaert.net/tag/drupal-sites you're going to be out of luck with wordpress in a hurry. But go ahead and try-- i dare ya. ;-)

In the end it's all about using whatever gets the job done and meets your client's needs. I've never understood why people feel the need to make these kind of grandiose histrionic exit posts-- no one really cares what you use, lol.

To begin, I don't think that Drupal is being sold as a blog engine, but as a full blown content management system. In some ways I LOVE wordpress since it makes rapid development SO MUCH easier than Drupal. But when it comes down to some basic options, doing things in Wordpress beyond blogging involves hacking, plugging, rearranging to make a blog more like a CMS/magazine than it should. Their plugins section and some basic items are a mess (e.g. why is the "category" slug still in the URLs for subcategories, etc.) I don't think your comparison is completely fair. Drupal has never been about blogging and it is far more than a blog.

Other than that, I don't disagree with you and can't stand how virtually everything is yet another option potentially - WP finally got it into their head what needed to be built into their core. My reluctance to go right to drupal was my experience with a shop that does great graphic design work. They told me that a community site they worked on used drupal and it was a beast and a half to skin and theme. Programming also took several months. While Rome wasn't built in a day, it's rather daunting to get up and running when you seem to have to spend so much time dealing with esoterica in the colossal drupal terms, options, and construction galaxy.

At some point I may think of the Drupal route but with Wordpress MU and the wordpress community thing that is being built, Drupal may seem to be the best option for those with $10-20K or more to spend to hire those drupal experts that ply their warez here. It's much more difficult to put up something nice in drupal than others. It might be a good platform to use eventually but I'm not sure it's a great anything yet except CMS that requires a time investment to learn.

See also http://drupal.org/getting-started/before/overview which clarifies some things. Until the last redesign of drupal.org the logo was saying "Drupal: Community plumbing".

Your post contains so many inaccuracies and misconceptions it's hard to know where to begin.

It's hard to believe you've been using Drupal since version 4.6 and are just now coming to this realization. In any event your comparison is apples and oranges. Yeah, Drupal is overkill in many instances. Likewise, Wordpress is woefully inadequate in other instances.

I always like to say, let the content drive the technology. You don't have to decide one or the other. If you all you need is a blog and a handful of plugins, use Wordpress. If you need a robust feature rich CMS, Drupal is the way to go.

There's no competition here so your post is overall quite silly and pointless.

Let's take Daniel's suggestions as constructive criticism and work on it on version 7. He has some good points and better yet he has developed some superb Drupal websites!!

For those interested, including Daniel J Wilcox, you can contribute to the new Drupal on www.d7ux.org and hopefully we can achieve something that will attract more people from other CMS's than ever.

Wordpress is a CMS targeted for blogging. If I was creating a blog of any sort, I'd go with wordpress hands down. I have a wordpress site and I love it.

Wordpress can't do what Drupal can do though (not as easily anyway). It's not as flexible.

I think you're just frustrated and want to come on here and act like you've found the holy grail of CMS, when really, all it does is fit your needs. I hope all your clients are bloggers... The silliness of your assumptions and lack of research is punctuated by the fact that you thought Drupal was a blogging CMS.

And AUTOMATIC UPGRADE!!!

I discovered Drupal a few days ago. It was exactly what I needed to develop a full blown site for my business from a browser. Everything in one package: books, pages, stories, forums, blogs. For someone who spends 70-80 hours a week in his business it was a dream come true.

The first shocker was NO WYSIWYG. Excuuuuse me. Even blogger has it. In Drupal, well, it is well documented.

The second shocker was Upgrades. They are also "well documented".

Anyway, it was quite a rude awakening.

gm

You CAN learn PHP, CSS, and...even javascript and what?.. and then build the cms that suit your needs and your client can use without them having to be professional!...
and that would take you much less than learning to get drupal to handle your (for exaple) images the way you want.
Drupal is the best if you want a site that does exactly the work drupal.org does OR if your client is more Pro than you!!
Don't refer me to sites built with Drupal to prove your point, please.

Recently I stumbled on a 3-years-old post of mine. I was arguing that the blog module included in core should become more versatile, accepting any content types instead of using its own. Of course today we have the views module and much better content type support and we can do whatever we want with node lists by author. Should the blog module become more configurable or not?

My current thinking is "not if that would make matters more complicated for the default user experience". The blog module is a very sensible "default solution" covering the basic needs nicely, and there is always the views module for more. Sometimes people say "I don't believe Drupal doesn't do this". Most of the time they are wrong, but not always. Most of the time they talk about a special need that they have. A few times they really talk about a need that most users have, about some functionality which should be more natural by default.

I believe that the blog module does what it needs to do nicely. But how about "How do I upload my f#%%&% picture", as walkah put it in the "Why I hate Drupal" presentation. I am not talking about file/image management, there are modules for that, I am talking about uploading or placing uploaded pictures in posts. It would be a sensible default which of course you could disable.

Also the drupal forum module: we know that there are advanced solutions and Michelle has been doing a lot of work. But is the core forum module a sensible streamlined default yet? There is place for argument here.

Developers have provided us with some terrific advanced tools, but they are usually users who are very comfortable adopting advanced solutions for their sites, and I am not sure what it would take to get them more interesting in streamlining the default user experience. (Personally I am also pretty comfortable with advanced solutions but I am not a developer.)

Your right Drupal is a Jack of all trades and a master of none... As it requires the implementer to be a master of his trade.

Drupal is an engineering platform... I've successfully created a system based on the Drupal core that allows me to quickly deploy websites (with blogs) that encompass and exceed all of the WordPress functionality. I've done this to allow my company a simplified method of deploying websites regardless of whether it is an e-commerce site, blog, RIA, or a combination of all three.

Not all developers and companies have the in house knowledge to leverage Drupal as this type of resource and for those companies why not steal a clients money and charge them for a Wordpress theme that could be bought for $300? Makes good business sense to me! Heck you can charge $2,000 for a WordPress site then purchase the theme from a reputable cut up shop and pocket the $1700?

Bottom line is you can't do much outside of theming wordpress blogs, not to say that WordPress doesn't do alot on it's own... But then why even hire a company to build a word press site? If you are here reading this post because you want to decide between wordpress and Drupal do the smart thing and let your developer decide. If you are going to hire a company to build your site using WordPress do the even smarter thing, Pay for a Professional desing, google "xhtml wordpress themes" and pay $300 dollars to get your design built into a theme. You'll have your site faster, cheaper, and it will be better then having some worthless company rip you off.

Cheers

I don't think Drupal is being sold as blog software. For instance, there's heavy emphasis on community book authoring and forums.

I do think Drupal should "ship" with more modules included in core. I know of no Drupal sites that do not use CCK and Views, for instance. These would seem to be needed more than e.g. a feed reader.

There are also some serious lacks in basic functionality: no core newsletter module, for instance.

But these are all easily overcome, and installing modules is actually pretty simple. (I don't know why you can't install TinyMCE - I did it without any problem.)

What I really like about Drupal is that comes "naked" so you can dress it up with the clothes that you want. For me Drupal is a platform to do your kicks without bloated features in core. Then people come and say "Jesus, it doesn't even have a wysiwyg editor" ... well guess what, some people are glad that it doesn't! Then people come to Drupal to get an out of the box blog platform...wtf is wrong with these people...I had no prior experience with CMS or any web platform and took me about 1 hour to realize what Drupal tries to do... then spend few days browsing literally ALL modules to see what people try to do with it. So all these people crying a river are either lazy or ignorant. Both of which do bad to the community , especially to developers by asking questions that are already answered and easily found , pissing developers off because the module is still in development or it lacks a features that they need by asking it in rude ways etc etc. I think the moto Drupal needs to the homepage is something like 'If you need a blog engine PISS OFF!! ". I know I may sound cruel and sarcastic ,but that's only because I am :)

People, wait a minute!
Why are you taking this so personal? As far as I know, Daniel is a great Drupal developer, did you check all of his sites? they are done with Drupal 5.7, check them out again:
http://noelclarke.co.uk/
http://www.mercyships.org.uk/
http://deadlydesign.co.uk/
http://morenowinesuk.co.uk/
http://coconutstudios.co.uk/
http://deadlydesign.co.uk/video

Although he is frustrated with Drupal for unacceptable reasons, but he gave some suggestions that are constructive and we should take it as an improvement possibility and not criticism.
If you don't accept your faults, you can never improve and will let other CMS's beat you in your own game!
He has some valid points, read his post again.
I am sure Daniel will not leave Drupal and he will be a major contributor and developer with version 7 (which I hope will come with great improvements).
My suggestion to Daniel is: stick with Drupal, give your suggestions for version 7 at www.d7ux.org and hope for the best. Also instead of moving to Wordpress, try some of the better solutions that you can find on:
http://php.opensourcecms.com/general/ratings.php

and for the rest...let's admit that Drupal is not perfect and has a lot of improvement opportunities!

wordpress = mac
drupal = linux

Certainly some of the criticisms laid against drupal/linux are valid when compared to the ease of use and out of the box functionality provided by wordpress/mac but wordpress/mac lacks the flexibility of drupal/linux.

Drupal like linux will most likely expand into many niches that wordpress can't even think about going, but that's o.k people need their mac's and people will need their wordpress.

Hello all,

I'm new to Drupal and to the Drupal community. I'm don't know PHP, I'm not a programmer, I just wanted to write here why I think Drupal is the best web development framework.

After several years working as an Information Security Consultant, I decided to build a news and information platform. I wanted to build a platform for thousands of users and beside from information offer other funtionalities such as business networking, CRM, e-commerce and more...

I never had developed a web site before, neither did I have the money to pay for a team of developers to do the job. So, I decided to do it myself.

Before deciding which CMS to use I did a lot of research: visited forums and online communities, read users' reviews, read documentation, case studies and white papers, etc. I set up a test servers (Fedora, Apache, PHP, MySql...) and downloaded, installed and tested several commercial and almost every available Open Source CMS.

Afters several weeks of testing and assessment, I've reached the conclusion the Drupal is one of the best Web Development Framework/Content Management System out there.

Drupal is my CMS of choice and the reasons are:

1- Robustness
2- Flexibility and modular architecture
3- Scalability and open architecture
4- Role-based access control
5- Work flow - publishing engine
6- Templating system

I did not find any other CMS that offers the same robustness and flexibility at the same time. I'm very impressed by waht I see. I'm also aware of the fact that some aspects of Drupal are under criticism i.e. usability, and the learning curve.

As I'm building my drupal based platform (learning by doing), get deeper into the intricacies of working with Drupal, and visit more frequently drupal site and forums. Hunting for docs and tips. I've come to realise that the biggest problem I've encountered is the drupal.org site itself.

An example: when performing a basic search query on drupal.org you are faced with thousands of unsorted results. Hooks, callbacks, taxonomy,...all the Drupal lingo - all this you can learn only if proper documentation and instructions are provided, and honestly I'm still having a hard time trying to figure out how the information and docs are organized.

Reading forum posts I've also realised that the Drupal Community is a very friendly community with lots of people willing to contribute and help. But, I also sense a little hostility against critics and I see very often that when some users are asking for new features been redirected or send to the contribute area. I find this practice very agressive and counterproductive - I know everybody is sacrificing time and donating work - but, I also know that without any ideas collected through this forums in the past and present drupal couldn't become as powerful as it is now or will be in the future.

Drupal is a kit of parts that fills many needs. Perhaps it would be useful to have a list of recommendations for various types of use.

It's all very well to say Drupal can be a blogging platform if various modules are added, but specific advice is needed, install these modules. Same for a site with a forum, for a family photo gallery, for a shopping cart, etc.

Even within blogging, I don't feel one size fits all. I don't want to see core bloated with a wysiwyg editor, but certainly it would be nice to see one that could be recommended without various reservations (I've not looked thoroughly into this, filtered html is good enough for me, but my impression is that there's no editor that gets 100% thumbs up). I also think that giving some clients a wysiwyg editor may just be opening the window to Hell -- people who love to use 7 different fonts in 7 different shades and sizes really don't need to be handed a loaded gun.

And there's a difference between a single user blog and a multi-user one.

Whereas I feel uncomfortable with the idea of seeing a wysiwyg editor added to core, I do believe that almost everyone needs images. I'm really puzzled that nothing's in core and there appear to be so many rival solutions -- no doubt a matter of history, and wonderful to have choice, but how many man-years are spent by new users trying to figure out which image handling modules to use?

Maybe these recommendations already exist on d.o., it wouldn't surprise me. But finding them is sure to be a different matter. Wonderful though d.o. is, it's grown so vast that I often find myself regretfully thinking "less is more".

I get a kick out of how some say blogging software is not the same as a CMS. I think more often than not, advanced Drupalers uses this as an excuse to separate themselves and so they won't have to taylor to the blogging crowd.

I use to think that way but not anymore, blogging is content management, Wordpress is a CMS, so is Drupal. Anything to do with adding content to a site is all about content management. As far as simplicity, Wordpress wins hands down, but as we all know Drupal is more powerful.

Drupal's main target users are programmers and developers not regular end users. No matter how hard they try to convince us otherwise, by design, Drupal is not for most users.

The fact of the matter is 99.999% of sites today are blogs, that's right, blogs and to top it off, Wordpress blogs, that says quite a bit. I think what the OP was trying to say is Drupal is not easy and it can take hours to manage your site after all the scrolling and clicking, unlike Wordpress where your done in a few minutes or even seconds.

In order for Drupal to sell to the masses, they have to make all the complexed features sound simple.
"here's why you should go with drupal, yadi yadi. I think the main difference between Drupal and Wordpress is that Drupal has to be sold, you have to be convinced to use it, whereas with Wordpress you only need to experience it to know if its right for you.

I was playing around with the latest Wordpress recently, side by side with my Drupal Admin. I encourage all Drupal users to try this, you really get an appreciation for just how much of a chore it is to work the Drupal, with Wordpress, everything seems to be a snap.

Content Management should be easy and simple, if Drupal's thought was on this always, it would top Wordpress easy in both CMS and blogging. Administering a site needs to be simplified, too many menus, too many clicks, too many modules needed and too much bloat, it's just not fun, I guess it's true programmers would rather code then have fun.

I don't think anyone can deny that Drupal is a powerful CMS tool, but we can all agree that it is also very complexed for the majority of site users to manage their site effectively. I know for myself, when comparing the two side by side, Wordpress was a breath of fresh air, yet at the same time, I felt drawn to Drupal for it's power, it's really a dichotomy. The resources and requirements alone needed by Drupal is enough to want to make you cry.

The bottom line is nobody wants to spend hours managing their site when they can do it all in 10-15 mins. Programmers on the other hand enjoy spending hours and hours twiddling away at complexed formulas and taxonomy, that's good for them but bad for the rest us. It's a shallow myth that blogs are not real websites, wrong, blogs are just as real as any website.

I think it's safe to say that Drupal doesn't care what you go with for CMS, that says it all. They are not interested in keeping users or becoming the best CMS on the market. There's no love lost if a Drupal user retreats to the other side or if Wordpress continues to attract more users. I'm ok with that, it's a buyers market. We can choose the tool that gets the job done with no regrets.

Nobody has to tell me about the benefits of using either, they both have pros and cons, but in the end it comes down to "getting things done" in a timely manner. I still haven't decided myself which one to really dedicate to but whatever CMS wins, I can say there will be no love lost.

I'm a designer. I've used wordpress to build blogs for people. I've even used wordpress to build "websites" that aren't necessarily blogs but needed the basic CMS.

For low end projects, wordpress was fine. When I started getting inquiries about more intuitive projects, I had to start doing some heavy Wordpress plug-in searching, hacking, paying for premium plug-ins etc. All that work, and I still had to face the big "WP" logo sitting up in the top left corner (had to find a plug-in for that) and the blog back end for a non blog site.

In my opinion Wordpress is for blogs, but can be manipulated to do a lot more, but it's going to have a blog admin.

Drupal is to build community based applications, and when you're done, the application is stand alone. It does exactly what you created it to do AND carries the brand of what you created. You have the option to do VASTLY more than create a "blog".

There are things I've tried to do in Wordpress that have caused me to lose sleep. Searching for plug-ins that manipulate and hack what wordpress is meant to do, figuring out conflicts between plug-ins, or "themes" that do what I want (but not exactly).

I discovered Drupal, and some of those things I tried to hack Wordpress to do, Drupal was meant to do EASILY.

I think it's completely absurd for somebody who is looking to do something simple, bash an intuitive tool, for having too many variables. It's like bashing a PC for not being like an XBOX 360 because you need to play video games.

Since we're on the topic of what "clients" want. When you're using Wordpress, and a client asks you "why does my website make so many references to Wordpress in the admin" what do you do or tell them?

Replying to original post, the one way up at the top.. although this thread is a great read.

I recently did a site for a Boat store/Marina that took me 3 days to setup, including all the content and the current inventory, other than the 'Captains Log' which is the blog part.
And it took me 1 hour to show the business owner how to list boats, motors, trailers and make entries into the blog or 'Captains Log'.
I had to answer 1 phone call when he wanted to change things on the front page. But one short conversation about how to do it and he was fine. I have had no calls since and he has been adding and changing things on a regular basis.. He is a happy camper.

Drupal Rocks!

Edit: I did get one other phone call when the business owner forgot his password.. lol

Firstly, thanks to everyone for the great read. This is by far the most informative discussion I've found comparing Drupal and WP.

I consider myself a developer - although it's not my current profession. I've recently installed WPMU and so far it's a piece of cake although I haven't done much with it yet. I'm having a difficult time deciding which tool, Drupal or WPMU, is right for the job below.

I'd like to build a multi-site blogging platform with the following features/functionality.

* ad-network integration
* ad revenue-sharing
* pay-for premium services
* paypal integration
* social ntwrking features to enable greater user/subscriber interaction
* facebook, twitter activity feed integration
* iphone and facebook app integration

It seems like, in theory, I should be able to do all of the above w/ WPMU and tons of plugins / core modifications / etc. Is Drupal a better tool for the job? If so, can you provide examples why WPMU is not?

Appreciate all the replies in advance. I'd love to choose Drupal for this project - just need to understand why WPMU won't cut it. Thanks again.

Boy, Daniel sure isn't very jolly or polite for an Englishman. ;-)

Seriously, he's quick to insult and belittle those who oppose his opinion yet by his own admission has never actually built/published a Wordpress site of his own. This makes the premise of his original post completely bogus. Even the title "Drupal 6 slaughtered by Wordpress" is juvenile and is liken to "my dad can beat up your dad!"

The truth is he lacks creditability and is nothing but an imposter and bully. He's been a drupal.org member for over 3 years and hasn't contributed anything (i.e. documentation, code, forum help, etc.) except for a handful threads where he's typically bitching or moaning about this or that.

I say "get a life" and grow a pair.