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> Political affiliations aside, I think we can all breathe a bit easier today knowing they didn’t choose Drupal. Strongly disagree. Drupal is a great CMS and t

> Political affiliations aside, I think we can all breathe a bit easier today knowing they didn’t choose Drupal. Strongly disagree. Drupal is a great CMS and there's a reason the government uses it so extensively.

corobo 6y ago
What is the reason
Angostura 6y ago
I'm pretty sure the Obama administration used Drupal 6. Current Drupal is rather a different beast
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  Drupal 6 was kind of a mess technically, but it had the best ecosystem of contributed modules. Drupal 7 lost some modules, and Drupal 8+ lost a lot more.
- ksenzee 6y ago
  The Obama-era whitehouse.gov was Drupal 7.
lemonberry 6y ago
I haven't used Drupal since Drupal 7, but I really liked the Fields API. Drupal felt like it had more built in that WP should have built in but didn't. I believe Drupal 8 went with a templating language as well. That's something else I wish WordPress would adopt.
- imwally 6y ago
  Drupal uses twig for templating now.
nulbyte 6y ago
Agreed. I love Drupal, and hate WordPress. It seems like Drupal module developers are more interested in solving trivial problems so they can focus on the bigger ones, while WordPress plugin developers are more interested in making a buck with a trivial solution.
calibas 6y ago
The problem is finding people who actually know how to use it. It's great, but it takes years to learn properly. Before that it can be frustrating as hell. It seems easy enough at first, like you can just use whatever contributed modules you need, but that only works on simple sites (like the same ones Wordpress is great for). To use Drupal well, you have to actually know the APIs and write your own custom modules, otherwise the site becomes a buggy resource hog. I like Drupal, I have multiple 8/9 sites I still run and I've used it since 6, but there's some pretty good reasons not to use it.
technion 6y ago
I think that statement should be considered in the context that it's a blog from a company that specialises in and promotes Wordpress hosting.
jaza 6y ago
I was a Drupal dev for ~10 years. Once upon a time, I built many sites with it, and I recommended it to many folks. Despite its flaws (and it always had flaws), it was a great piece of software in its heyday, and it had (and still has?) an amazing community. I'd still choose it over WordPress any day. But the days when I'd recommend either of them (or indeed anything in PHP) are long gone. Your best bet now is probably a static site generator such as Hugo. If you insist on staying in database-driven CMS land, at least go with Django or Rails.
- dannyw 6y ago
  There is nothing wrong with Wordpress and the LAMP stack. It’s fine for many great use cases. It powers, and will continue to power many of the biggest sites in the world. Static sites are a tradeoff, and you’re often dealing with other messes especially with non-technical users.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    The only problem not addressed is that the browser directly interfaces with code that has access to the database and host computer. A static site generator is leagues more secure since you can lock anything that touches the database/CMS content behind multiple layers of authentication and 2fa, significantly reducing the attack surface.
  - sneak 6y ago
    The problem isn't LAMP, the problem is wordpress. It stores state that should be in files in the database, and state that should be in the database in files, so they are tightly coupled, and you have to snapshot both at the same time. It's also a security nightmare and runs dynamic code on every page load by default, so a fresh wordpress install in its default state will fall over when on HN on Reddit or Slashdot, unless you install third party caching plugins to avoid that. It's a bad app.
    - marc_io 6y ago
      It's clearly not “bad” for a lot of people, as it powers a huge portion of websites, everywhere.

corobo 6y ago

What is the reason

Angostura 6y ago

I'm pretty sure the Obama administration used Drupal 6. Current Drupal is rather a different beast

throwawayboise 6y ago
Drupal 6 was kind of a mess technically, but it had the best ecosystem of contributed modules. Drupal 7 lost some modules, and Drupal 8+ lost a lot more.
ksenzee 6y ago
The Obama-era whitehouse.gov was Drupal 7.

lemonberry 6y ago

I haven't used Drupal since Drupal 7, but I really liked the Fields API. Drupal felt like it had more built in that WP should have built in but didn't. I believe Drupal 8 went with a templating language as well. That's something else I wish WordPress would adopt.

imwally 6y ago
Drupal uses twig for templating now.

nulbyte 6y ago

Agreed. I love Drupal, and hate WordPress. It seems like Drupal module developers are more interested in solving trivial problems so they can focus on the bigger ones, while WordPress plugin developers are more interested in making a buck with a trivial solution.

calibas 6y ago

The problem is finding people who actually know how to use it. It's great, but it takes years to learn properly. Before that it can be frustrating as hell. It seems easy enough at first, like you can just use whatever contributed modules you need, but that only works on simple sites (like the same ones Wordpress is great for). To use Drupal well, you have to actually know the APIs and write your own custom modules, otherwise the site becomes a buggy resource hog. I like Drupal, I have multiple 8/9 sites I still run and I've used it since 6, but there's some pretty good reasons not to use it.

technion 6y ago

I think that statement should be considered in the context that it's a blog from a company that specialises in and promotes Wordpress hosting.

jaza 6y ago

I was a Drupal dev for ~10 years. Once upon a time, I built many sites with it, and I recommended it to many folks. Despite its flaws (and it always had flaws), it was a great piece of software in its heyday, and it had (and still has?) an amazing community. I'd still choose it over WordPress any day. But the days when I'd recommend either of them (or indeed anything in PHP) are long gone. Your best bet now is probably a static site generator such as Hugo. If you insist on staying in database-driven CMS land, at least go with Django or Rails.

dannyw 6y ago
There is nothing wrong with Wordpress and the LAMP stack. It’s fine for many great use cases. It powers, and will continue to power many of the biggest sites in the world. Static sites are a tradeoff, and you’re often dealing with other messes especially with non-technical users.
- judge2020 6y ago
  The only problem not addressed is that the browser directly interfaces with code that has access to the database and host computer. A static site generator is leagues more secure since you can lock anything that touches the database/CMS content behind multiple layers of authentication and 2fa, significantly reducing the attack surface.
- sneak 6y ago
  The problem isn't LAMP, the problem is wordpress. It stores state that should be in files in the database, and state that should be in the database in files, so they are tightly coupled, and you have to snapshot both at the same time. It's also a security nightmare and runs dynamic code on every page load by default, so a fresh wordpress install in its default state will fall over when on HN on Reddit or Slashdot, unless you install third party caching plugins to avoid that. It's a bad app.
  - marc_io 6y ago
    It's clearly not “bad” for a lot of people, as it powers a huge portion of websites, everywhere.