I want to like Drupal, but despite a fair amount of effort I haven’t been able to get over its shortcomings. Four years ago we had a need to create a web-driven resource library serving dialect training mp3s to students. I did some research and found a really great model powered by Drupal. I’d heard a bit about the system, and after researching it sounded like a good fit for our needs. But as I started digging into a test implementation I found myself feeling a little overwhelmed, so I hired a consultant to serve as a technical resource. We continued that relationship over the course of 2 months, with weekly phone conferences which were really training/technical consultation calls. I got the application up and running, and even expanded its functionality over the last year with the help of a really dedicated student worker. Now I’ve done a fair amount of PHP work, and extensive work with other open source systems like WordPress — and this student worker also had a really strong PHP background. Neither of us ever got to the point of really liking Drupal, or feeling like we wanted apply it to any other projects. Why?
First I just find it clumsy, as opposed to elegant. The underlying logic, with its nodes and CCKs, feels convoluted and overly complex. The admin interface needs a strong helping of usability applied. I am willing to admit that maybe I’m just not smart enough, but I just haven’t been able to wrap my head around Drupal and feel comfortable with it. Second, compared to something like WordPress, Drupal just pales in comparison. Sure WordPress has its flaws too, but it feels elegant and simple while at the same time flexible and powerful. WordPress may benefit from having the company Automattic committed so heavily to its ongoing development, where I don’t think Drupal has this steady hand at its tiller. I’m not ready to give up on Drupal yet, but, when presented with something built with it I do think “the same thing could have been done faster and easier with WordPress.”
- Even the software’s defenders admit that it is hostile to newcomers—or at least indifferent to their plight, as a University of Baltimore study found. The apologists will tell you that, once you scale the learning curve, it gets much easier.
- Drupal hates change. Want to modernize Drupal by upgrading to a newer version? Ask these guys how that worked out for them.
Drupal looks great in theory: It’s a powerful way to govern a Web site
that is born out of the collective efforts of the community. In
practice, it tends to be a bit of a mess.
Drupal is a lot of trouble | A C Zoom
his site uses Drupal. Drupal has turned into a nightmare. It was fine when there was a single 4.x version out there, but soon after 4.x, there was 5.x. Then 6.x. Upgrading from a older version is near impossible…Next stop – look into how much effort it would be to move to something
simpler, like Wordpress. That is not going to be easy but it may be far
less aggravating than going to Drupal 7.x or 8.x.
Comments / ONE COMMENT
RodeWorks » Blog Archive » Drupal and Acquia on Nov 03 09 at 8:43 pm[...] a post earlier this week I incorrectly suggested that Drupal did not have a major commercial company that utilizes the [...]
ADD YOUR COMMENT
Comments are moderated.
Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
New articles are normally posted on Mondays and Wednesdays. Subscribe to the RSS feed or the email update to keep current on the latest posts.
Past listings from 2004 to the present
Need a home (or better home) for your website? I highly recommend HostRocket -- they are the best!
