One thing we often see from agencies is their claim of having the best content management system on the market. Recently, a local agency published an article stated WordPress was superior to Drupal. They even included a brochure from their hosting company, which by the way is currently involved in a lawsuit with the WordPress and was banned from the recent WordCamp Sydney 2024 – WP Engine. Just because it has WP in the name doesn’t make it affiliated, it’s just a branding booster which is one reason WordPress had a problem with them.
I have a full article ready to go which should be online this week on why you shouldn’t deal with an agency who uses WP Engine as requested by the CEO of WordPress to vote with your wallet and embrace the fundamentals of Open Source.
Declaring your CMS is better than the other agencies is a cheap sales tactic flawed in essence because both are open source and both have their own benefits and drawbacks.
Drupal isn’t going anywhere anytime soon
Drupal is not going anywhere anytime soon but I’m hearing more and more that Drupal is end of life. Such a blanket statement again is completely false and a lie. Drupal 11 is a system that will continue and has a far better framework in symphony than WordPress has. That’s right it’s a more superior engineered system. Drupal 7 though is specifically what the upsell is all about, Drupal 7 will be end of life January 5. For that reason I’ve transitioned almost 20 small-medium business websites from Drupal to WordPress over the last 12 months. Today in 2024 WordPress is the best fit for small-medium business websites.
The general assertion that WordPress is superior to Drupal is completely false. With 20 years of experience in web development and design, I can confidently say that Drupal excels in coding, architecture, security, performance, and its commitment to being open source and less commercial than WordPress. Despite its age and dated interface, WordPress remains the most widely used content management system globally. Why? It’s all to do with their massive plugin and theme base.
The website system I use the most is actually WordPress
I’m not here to declare one system definitively better than the other, as some competitors might. We always aim to choose the best tool for the job, and often, that tool is WordPress. About five to six years ago, Drupal shifted its focus from small and medium businesses to larger enterprises. This move positioned Drupal as a leader in security, scalability, and open source commitment.
Despite this shift, I find myself defending Drupal, even though it seems to have abandoned me and my target audience and customers. The complexity and cost of building and maintaining a Drupal 10+ sites are prohibitive for many of my clients. They simply cannot afford it.
How much does it cost to move a site from Drupal to WordPress?
This really depends on the size of the site, if it’s a product based site with hundreds of pages then it’s not the same as a five page site. Generally most small-medium, non-product sites are between $2000-$3500.
It takes time, you still need to figure:
- Page Structure
- Images are usually upscaled to webp with alt tags which are sometimes missing
- Colour and branding capture
- font sizing will go to a variable style setup instead of the fixed px sizing used 10 years ago
- Content copy and paste, not quite, you may need to copy first to a text pad and reapply formatting
- Fonts, often these are via a separate CDN from the original designer, they should be moved to ours as part of our management fees.
- If font’s are converted from ttf to a web compatible format, is there licensing?
- Review all copy with the client to and allow them to make a few tweaks here and there.
If you have more questions about conversion of Drupal to WordPress or you have a site you’d like rebuilt visit the following rebuild page which is a similar package I use for converting DIY ma and pa SquareSpace websites. Another article I’ve written which will give you some detail on converting a SquareSpace site can be located here.
Why not go new instead of just moving it from one to another?
Often if a site has been built in the last 5-8 years you need to consider how good a job the designer has done with the strategy, has the business changed very much but most of all is there a new goal or new problem that needs to be tackled.
Drupal conversion meet WordPress site with new photos
Often getting new photos and utilising the same design will save the business some time and money while giving them the feeling they’ve got value for their money and something new. One thing I’ve really enjoyed is adding an updated menu system which is more responsive and more accessible as part of the new Bricks based builder framework. It replaces some of the clunky simple hamburger menu on desktop which I never liked. Click, click and maybe click again to get you where you need to go. Clunky.
Summing up the Drupal 7 End of Life
Yes, it’s happening, you do need to take action to ensure you’re site has the latest security patches. If you don’t the world will not stop, it’s like the 2k bug, your website probably will be ok for a little while and it should be on your list. Do you need a new site? maybe, it’a case by case basis.
I love Drupal, it made my career for 10 years, I know it back to front, inside and out and if it was 2012 I’d still chose it as the best website backend out there. Things have however moved on and while you shouldn’t believe the “no-code” marketing the new builders such as Bricks, Elementor, Oxygen and even DIVI will get you back online quicker than you’d expect.
