By David Latapie on

Good day to all,

Cross-posted to WordPress forum.

Our company (well, technically, a charity) is going to upgrade his website. So far we identify two candidates:

  • WordPress 3.x+Prestashop. WordPress for the corporate side, Prestashop for the e-Commerce side. We have people mildly proficient (i.e.: no coding) for the two parts.
  • Drupal Commerce (Drupal 7-based). The natural evolution of Ubercart (one of the two leading e-commerce module for Drupal), it is still in beta. We are planning deployment by the end of the year.

One may say betting on beta software (Drupal Commerce) is not a good idea.

One may also say that WordPress is not a powerful enough CMS for e-commerce site (and that is why we are planning Prestashop) but technological history taught me that a widely-implemented less-than-perfect solution wins over a reputable but less-implemented solution (think Flash RAM vs other initially more powerful solid state memories). WordPress may be weaker, but its rate of adoption means it is getting better faster than Drupal (IMHO), even though the latter is supposed to be better. Alright, one may say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but still...

I am trying to identify pros and cons for both solution. Although I expect more pro-WordPress answers in the WordPress forum and more pro-Drupal ones in the Drupal forum, I would ask you to try to be as neutral as positive. Please talk from experience, not preference.

So far, these are the advantages I found for the both platform, related to our needs:

  • Drupal is more flexible - but anyway, an external contractor will build up the site, so, hardly a issue for us.
  • Since we are getting bigger and bigger, scaling will matter, especially on the e-commerce site. We don't have much traffic right now, though.
  • Maintaining a streamlined appearance between the WordPress website and the Prestashop website should be easy (common CSS), but we would like to avoid having to resort to an external contractor after the initial setup, which may be necessary if the streamlined appearance is a hack (i.e. for WordPress+Prestashop).
  • For later on, may consider integrating data from a CRM. This is far future plan, nothing decided yet. Still, knowing from the start if WordPress can support this (I have no worries for Drupal) would matter.
  • Translation is notorious ly easier in Drupal. There is always something not translated with WordPress modules and this may require delving into the code (especially if the module is not translation-ready) and thus, paying. No such issue with Drupal since translating and uploading translations can be made in a breeze

Alright, here it is. Now, could you help me deciding? I will read answers in both forum. Also, don't hesitate to point me toward recent comparisons (anything older than 2009 has no interest for me).

⋅ Categories: Drupal 7.x

Comments

seanray’s picture

seanray commented

Personally, I would recommend Drupal. Since we get to know Drupal, we actually stop developing any site using WordPress. And for your case, if you could get it done by learning one framework or system, why choose to learn 2 and invest time on integration.

David Latapie’s picture

David Latapie commented

Fact is we are two persons, one fairly knowledgeable about WordPress and another one fairly knowledgeable about Prestashop, whilst we are both somewhat beginners with Drupal.
So, on one hand, you have one person comfortable with WordPress and bad at Prestashop and another one bad with WordPress and comfortable with Prestashop. On the other hand, I am barely OK with Drupal and my colleague is a beginner at Drupal.

A picture^W equation is worth a thousand words:

WordPress+Prestashop: (3+0)/2 + (0+3)/2 = 3
Drupal: 2+1 = 3

Does it make the dilemna more clear?

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

Drupal is a very powerful content management system. A module that you might find useful is to look at Ubercart. This is a very powerful e-commerce module with a lot of functionality. It can be found at this web address http://drupal.org/project/ubercart . If you have any questions feel free to leave me a message.

David Latapie’s picture

David Latapie commented

DrupalCommerce is the evolution of Ubercart.

pixelsweatshop’s picture

pixelsweatshop commented

Agreed. Forget Ubercart. Go with Commerce. Ubercart is going the way of the dodo. :)

espirates’s picture

espirates commented

Ubercart isn't going anywhere from I can tell, it's a far better solution than Drupal Commerce.

pixelsweatshop’s picture

pixelsweatshop commented

Commerce, once it's solid by DrupalCon London, will receive a lot of contrib support. Then, in just a few short months after that, it will surpass Ubercart. By Drupal 8, Ubercart will be as dead as eCommerce http://drupal.org/project/ecommerce.

If your project needs something turn-key now, then go for Ubercart. If you want something that is more flexible and has a longer shelf life, choose Commerce.

peter2’s picture

peter2 commented

You came in a drupal forum and u expect to hear what ? If you would go to a wordpress or a presta forum you would here the opposite.

My opinion after tried all of them , is to test both variants without all the prodcts... Then choose which one fits your needs better... No one can advice you coz needs are always unique..

See a wordpress + prestashop site i've fixed to get an idea of the other sides opinion..
Συναγερμος σπιτιων