With the countless numbers of Open Source CMS’s I’ve worked with and studied over the years. It can sometimes be confusing about which CMS to start with when looking through the source material, plugins, developer forum’s and to consider the amount of time to create the site. There are also alot of forum posts and articles to have a great base enwhich to start your search. This article is not about which CMS to choose but more about why I chose WordPress for my site rather than Drupal or some of the other CMS solutions.
What I looked for in a CMS
Open Source As a designer/developer it is important to me that I choose the right options for the client. With me as the client I choose WordPress because its FREE.
It is a Blogging Platform
Since I want to be able to post from home, my cellphone, work or anywhere in the world it was important that I choose something that is accessible wherever I need it and it doesn’t require software like dreamweaver to update pages. Sometimes I will use notepad but that is a rarity when creating new blogposts.
Time and Resources
With a short timeline to create my website (one day). I decided to setforth using the easiest CMS to create/update templates for. Most of the information is held in a couple of documents. With that in mind it is easy for me to take my design and implement it around WordPress’s original code.
Templates to Start From
With the hundeds of FREE templates at WordPress’s disposal it is easy to pick a template to base my designs off of. Almost all of the time I start with a template that uses the layout I am looking for and then change it to fit my design. This works the best for me because I already have a good foundation to start from with the template so I don’t have to build it from the ground up.
In the End
It all worked out. Once you get into using WordPress and use it on a couple sites it becomes second nature to setup a website using it but like everything it takes awhile to get used to.
While it is true that WordPress is an excellent blogging platform, I think Drupal suits its purpose as a full CMS platform. I myself use Drupal for my website, I like Drupal for the fact that there are so many modules I can install and add more functionality.
The only issue I have with Drupal is that its blogging platform isn’t as strong as it should be.
I guess it’s the difference of what people like to use in their CMS. I like Drupal, but I guess WordPress isn’t bad at all for blog-centric websites.
I’ve used Drupal on many sites for clients and also for personal projects. I like Drupal a lot but as soon as I started getting into WordPress I found the same amount of plugins and I think the overall code base for WordPress is easier to work with and customize. The backend is also easier to navigate and I’ve noticed clients have less trouble navigating around within WP as compared to Drupal. I also taught students and clients how to use both and most have less complaints about WordPress. The only problem I’ve run into WordPress thus far is adding plugins that may not work with the current version properly. Most of the time this can be fixed by simply deleting the plugin from the plugins folder BUT I have had to reinstall one whole site before.