Due to certain circumstances, I recently had to dive into studying the CMS Drupal. As I’ve already mentioned, it’s an excellent engine that I’m genuinely impressed with. It’s definitely not simple — the entry threshold is much higher than that of WP. However, it is incredibly flexible and functional. And if you spend a day or two with it, you can understand it just as well as WordPress. Though I must say, WordPress is significantly easier to master.
Once I’m on vacation, I’ll definitely spend more time studying it in depth and testing site development like catalogs, classifieds, and online stores. It’s said that all of this can be done without any coding — just using the built-in tools and a dozen third-party modules. Well, we’ll see about that.
Now, let’s move on to a surface-level exploration of the system. I doubt I’ve fully grasped it in just two days, but still...
1. Installation is simple and not much different from WP, except for one thing — the installation type: minimal or full. The full version includes more modules enabled by default (I hope I’m not mistaken here).
2. Admin panel. At first glance, it’s a bit confusing — lots of links. But once you understand the logic, it all makes sense — categories, subcategories, tabs, links, and so on.
3. Localization. It’s not as easy as in WordPress. I couldn’t find a fully localized Russian (or Ukrainian) build, even on the official localized site. However, there are at least three ways to translate it — manually (via a special interface), by importing a language file into the engine, or by installing a module that periodically (or on request) connects to the official site and downloads the required files. For an experienced user, this is no problem.
4. Pages and blog posts. Also not straightforward. After installing the minimal build, neither of these features are available by default. To use blogging functionality, you need to install a corresponding module. To create pages, you have to use the "Content Types" section. In the full version, two content types are available — article and page.
5. File manager (media). Needs to be installed separately.
6. Editor. What’s that? Just kidding — it exists, but you have to install it as a separate module. The nice part is there are about 10 options to choose from. Not all are up to date, but the variety... wow :). Also, the editor code must be downloaded and configured separately. Unfortunately, the latest version of TinyMCE is not supported (maybe I looked at the wrong module?).
7. Runs slower than WP. What did you expect? All translations are stored in the database, plus there are advanced settings for content types and routing (more on that below).
All of the above is available in WordPress out of the box and works quite well. Now let’s talk about the "good stuff" — pleasant Drupal-specific features. I’ve been pointing out what’s missing, but there are also many pros — and some are really impressive.
Advantages of CMS Drupal
1. Content Types. In this section, you can create any type of content — from simple pages and posts to product or service descriptions.
2. Taxonomy. This feature lets you create vocabularies and terms. These are simply labels, and how you use them is entirely up to you. For example, I created categories and tags for the blog.
By the way, WordPress also supports taxonomy, but it usually requires configuration through a module or the theme’s `functions.php` file.
3. Custom Fields. Each content type can have additional fields of various types (text, dropdown, file, image, etc.). These can also be linked with terms from your taxonomies.
Example: You create a content type called "Company." Then, using custom fields, you can add fields for address, phone number, email, logo upload, and so on. You can also link it with taxonomy to classify the company as LLC, Sole Proprietorship, etc.
4. URL Aliases. A really cool feature — it lets you assign custom URLs to any page. Using a third-party module, you can even create URL templates for any content type. Super flexible!
5. Meta Tags. With this (third-party) module, you can individually assign meta data like title, description, keywords, robots settings, and more — for pages, content types, vocabularies, etc.
6. Views Module. A very powerful tool (which I haven’t fully mastered yet). It allows you to generate pages based on taxonomy, content types, and possibly more. With it, you can build custom site sections and layouts without writing any code.
7. Caching and optimization out of the box. This allows page caching and also combining CSS and JS files. The only thing I don’t like is that cache is stored in the database.
8. Reports. Contains many useful sections. I especially liked “Access denied” and “Page not found” — now you know exactly which pages users tried to reach without permission.
That’s All for Now
This article covered only what I managed to explore in two partial workdays. As you can see, the system isn’t the easiest for regular users and can feel overwhelming. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to build all kinds of websites — and you definitely won’t regret it.
