At present, each web developer has the option to choose from several open source content management systems including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento and Blogger. But the choice of content management system (CMS) differs from one website owner to another. According to the latest usage statistics posted on various websites, WordPress and Joomla have a larger market share than Drupal. But Drupal is still more popular than a number of content management systems including Magento, Blogger, TYPO3 and Bitrix.
Also, Drupal is currently used by popular and high-traffic websites like US Department of Energy, Taboola (content marketing platform), ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs, Infusionsoft (email marketing and sales platform), Box (cloud computing service and tool provider), and Le Figaro (France’s oldest national newspaper). The data depicts that many large enterprise prefer building and running websites with Drupal. Also, the smarter web developers never select a CMS based on its worldwide market share. They always assess the pros and cons of Drupal according to the precise needs of each project.
Why Drupal is one of the Most Popular Content Management Systems
2400+ Themes
Like other content management systems, Drupal also enables to customize the look and feel of their websites with themes. At present, web developers have option to choose from more than 2400 themes. Most of these themes are contributed by members of the large Drupal community. These themes make it easier for users to extend the basic community features provided by Drupal Core. At the same time, each web developer can also create custom themes, and share the themes with the community. Drupal 8 enables web developers to build custom themes with a PHP-based theming engine called TWIG.
36800+ Modules
The web developers can further take advantage of the modules contributed by various communities to add functionality to their web applications without writing additional code. At present, a user has option to choose from more than 36800 contributed modules. A developer can further create custom modules and make changed to the contributed modules according to his precise requirements. Like themes, the modules also make it easier for users to extend the basic community features provided by Drupal Core.
Supports Responsive Web Design
Most developers nowadays adopt responsive web design to make their websites look good on both computers and mobile devices with a single code base. Hence, they often explore ways to make the website responsive and mobile-friendly by writing code with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Drupal 8 facilitates responsive web application development by providing a number of built-in responsive themes. These built-in themes adapt automatically to the screen size of each device. Also, Drupal 8 make it easier for programmers to write code by supporting HTML5 natively.
Robust Multilingual Features
The most recent version of Drupal comes with built-in multilingual features. The admin interface of the CMS further supports translation natively. The web developers can take advantage of the built-in multilingual feature to create web pages with language-based views. They can further filter and block the website content according to a user’s geographic location or cultural background. They can further use the admin interface to deliver website content seamlessly in more than 100 languages.
Quick Content Creation and Modification
Despite being used widely for web application development, Drupal is basically a content management framework. Each new version of the CMS comes with new features to simplify content development, modification, and distribution. In addition to supporting multiple languages, Drupal 8 also comes with a built-in WYSIWYG content editor called CKEditor. The web developers can use CKEditor to create drafts in a fast and flexible way. At the same time, they can also take advantage of the in-place editing capability of Drupal to access and modify the content almost immediately.
Make Websites Load Faster
The loading speed of website affects its search engine visibility and user experience directly. Hence, the web developers have test and enhance the loading speed of a website throughout the development process. Drupal 8 makes it easier for developers to speedup websites caching all entities. It further loads JavaScript only when it is necessary. Hence, a Drupal application retrieves and loads previously viewed content directly and quickly from cache. A user can implement the cache automatically simply by changing the default configuration.
A Variety of APIs
The developers nowadays use a variety of application programming interfaces (APIs) to boost the website’s user experience by accessing varying applications and services. Drupal 8 makes it easier for users to work with various technologies, applications, and services by providing many APIs. Based on their specific requirements, the users can use Drupal APIs for authentication, cache, configuration, database, form, filter, logging, menu, plugins, routing system, and JavaScript.
Built-in Web Services
The users can work with web services efficiently by using Drupal as a data source. Drupal 8 is designed with native support for integrations. Drupal developers to build integrations efficiently with four built-in service modules – HTTP Basic Authentication, RESTful web services, Serialization, and Hypertext Application Language (HAL). The users can take advantage of these four service modules to make the web application interact with varying third-party applications and services smoothly. Also, they can use the service modules to drive digital marketing campaigns directly from the website.
Meets PHP 7 Standards
In addition to being written in PHP, Drupal also supports the most recent version of the popular server side programming language. Drupal 8 supports namespace, traits and other new language features provided by PHP 7. Also, it enables users to work with a number of widely used PHP libraries and tools including PHPUnit, Composer, Zend Feed Component, Guzzle and Assetic. These libraries and tools help users to develop, test and deploy web applications without putting extra time and effort. At the same time, they can boost the performance of the web applications by leveraging key features of PHP 7 like enhanced speed and reduced resource consumption.
On the whole, Drupal, like other open source content management systems, has its own strengths and shortcomings. But the developers can still use Drupal to build and run a variety of websites efficiently. That is why; it becomes essential for web developers to evaluate the pros and cons of Drupal according to the precise needs of each project regardless of its popularity and market share.
