Is Drupal suitable for small businesses?

Out of the "big three" CMSes available in the marketplace today, Drupal is without question the most powerful - there's a reason why it has gotten the adoption it has among larger businesses and clients with deep technical requirements. But is it appropriate for use by small businesses with lower budgets and simpler requirements? 

The short answer is this: if you are working with a developer, then it's a great solution. If you're trying to DIY, then I would definitely recommend Wordpress. 

In terms of the administrative experience, the day to day activity of running the site, adding content, managing users, that sort of thing, then both Drupal and Wordpress are similarly pleasant experiences. A lot of people got burned on earlier versions of Drupal where the admin experience was less than optimised, but today, it is hugely improved over what it once was. Wordpress has always had a good administrative experience, and in many ways Drupal has caught up to it. 

The reason I say "if you're working with a developer" is because Drupal today no longer really suits the DIY sort of user - technologically capable, but not a programmer. Drupal has adopted an underlying platform called Composer which really requires that you set up a complete local development environment and get comfortable with configuration files and command line tools. It's very much intended to be part of an overall Continuous Integration system, which is fantastic for professional developers, but it's a steep learning curve for amateurs, and it's a learning curve that Wordpress does not suffer from in the same way. 

This raises the next question. If you're using a developer regardless, is Drupal a better pick than Wordpress? The truth is that the best platform is the one your developer is most comfortable with, with the caveat that if you are going to be building a complex website with a number of different content types with relationships between them, then Drupal is probably better suited, and you should try and find a Drupal developer to work with. If your website is relatively straight forward, go with what your developer knows best! 

Assembler is a web design agency based in Perth, Western Australia. This blog is intended to be an informal, behind the scenes look into the web design and development industry. If you like our content, please follow us on LinkedIn or Facebook!