Which open-source CMS platform is best for a nonprofit website, Drupal or WordPress? Is Drupal better than WordPress? Is WordPress cheaper than Drupal? Which CMS is most secure? If you hate your current CMS, is it time to switch?
The answer depends on your content, what your site needs to do, and your budget. We’ll help you answer these questions, understand the trade-offs, and recommend the best CMS for your nonprofit.
A CMS Review Helps You…
- Compare Drupal vs WordPress
- Choose a CMS for a rebuild or a brand new site
- Increase confidence in your choice of CMS
- Understand pain points of your current CMS
- Learn which CMS is most secure for your needs
- Which CMS will be least expensive for your site
What is a CMS Review?
A CMS Review helps you weigh the strengths and weaknesses of WordPress vs Drupal compared to your users’ needs and business goals. We’ll determine which open source platform is best for your nonprofit website and why.
CMS Review - $200
Sometimes a nudge from an expert is all you need. Spend an hour reviewing your CMS needs with Johanna Bates, co-founder of Dev Collab with 25+ years in tech leadership.
- Understand the pros and cons of each CMS
- Clear direction about which CMS is best for you
Open Source CMS for Community Support
What’s great about the Content Management Systems (CMS) Drupal and WordPress is that their code is open source; it’s free to download, use, and modify. These are the two most widely-used CMS platforms in the world.
This means that an organization with a WordPress or Drupal site will have company on their website journey in the form of a vast community of peer organizations who are also using the same software, and a healthy ecosystem of possible vendors who can help them with it. If folks in the organization have questions, there are colleagues to ask. If they need something fixed or added to their site, there are many developers who could help them. There are tips to trade, recipes to share, and a community of others to learn with and from.
Open Source CMS for Long-Term Flexibility & Stability
Drupal and WordPress’s large, active communities are continuously extending these platforms with optional add-on functionality. This means, no matter which platform you use, your site can grow with you as your organization grows. Since the platforms are open source and widely used, you are never tied to a vendor.
As the internet evolves, these CMSs evolve to provide a stable and secure environment for your content. Drupal and WordPress update frequently as new security threats emerge, and as browser technology advances.
Is WordPress Cheaper?
“WordPress is cheaper” is something we hear all the time. But we can tell you that it’s not always cheaper in the long run.
If you need the flexible, robust functionality Drupal offers out of the box, recreating it in WordPress may save you money during the initial build. But building too much Drupal-like functionality in WordPress can lead to a brittle codebase, making it more costly to enhance and maintain over the long term.
On the other hand, if you only have a small handful of content types, and are fine with building content relationships only via categories (taxonomy), maybe you don’t need Drupal at all. In that case, WordPress may be a more cost-effective option for you.
I’m Over My Current Open Source CMS and Want to Switch!
Part of the appeal of open source software is freedom! Unhindered by proprietary licenses, anyone can write custom code to alter the way an open source tool works.
This is fantastic, but the more bespoke your website becomes, the more it requires highly specialized knowledge for maintenance. The developer who writes the custom code to solve a problem today may not be the one maintaining your website three years from now. They may pull in extra code libraries from outside of WordPress or Drupal that will incur additional technical debt. All of this can make your site more fragile and brittle. This can increase costs of maintenance and enhancements over the long term, and can greatly reduce the shelf-life of your website.
It is important that the Content Management System (CMS) you’re using is a good match for the scope and size of your organization and its communications needs. Your site’s content and its audiences evolve. Most successful organizations outgrow click-together-friendly systems like Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly, and for good reason. Once the limitations of these systems are making your work harder rather than easier, you’ll be best served by professional, custom website design and development that is far more robust.
The fact is that there are many kinds of sites that do better in one system or the other, and perhaps you’ve got a mismatch between what you need and the system itself. This is the kind of thing we routinely help our clients sort out during the initial phase of a project.
But there may also be other reasons your site is buggy or unfriendly. It’s possible that your site was built with best practices from a few years ago. Because web tech moves quickly, a site that’s 3+ years old can be an absolute relic if it hasn’t been kept up to date under the hood, or by proactively keeping pace with what its primary audiences need.
And because an open source CMS is like a box of LEGOs, there are many ways to build a site with them. Perhaps your site was poorly built.
As part of the CMS Review, we can look at whether your current CMS’s code is written to community standards, is well documented, serves a useful purpose, and is up-to-date. The problem may not be your CMS at all. We’ll save you the headache of a costly migration and help you fall in love with your CMS again!
Who Are We?
Founded in 2012, DevCollab is a consultative web development team devoted to working with progressive, social justice, health equity, educational, and arts organizations. DevCollab is woman- and LGBTQ-owned and led.
Johanna Bates
Co-owner & Principal
they/them
Co-founder of DevCollab, Johanna began their formal tech career at WGBH in Boston in 2000 as a front-end developer. In their leadership of the technical team, they prioritize web accessibility, shepherd technical decisions to keep them aligned with our core values, and aims to foster an environment where the team can learn and grow. They are a longtime member of and volunteer community leader for NTEN.org, and a co-organizer of the DrupalCon Nonprofit Summit.
I've worked with web development companies that have been good, but DevCollab has been GREAT. We never feel we're just another customer; they listen and recommend the best, most efficient solutions.
DevCollab is a joy to work with. Their attention to detail, rigorous communication, dedication to accessibility practices, and ability to help my team build and maintain complex websites is unmatched.
