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Disclaimer: I'm a full-time Drupal developer. I think there are fair points/questions raised in this piece, but some of them don't really make sense or there a

Disclaimer: I'm a full-time Drupal developer. I think there are fair points/questions raised in this piece, but some of them don't really make sense or there are a few gaping contradictions: - Drupal is also moving towards no/low code (albeit in a slower way, as is always the way with Drupal). Layout Builder is in core and is getting steadily better. Acquia has its own Site Studio solution for this (wether or not that is a good thing for the project is certainly debatable). - I agree that Drupal does too much and there are probably too many slightly different (maybe even conflicting) ways of doing any given thing. Arguing this is bad makes no sense to me. Yes, you need to make the right choices when deciding what to go with, but this is true for every ecosystem and for the same reasons. How many different FE/JS frameworks does one have to be proficient with these days? Everyone in every field has chosen the losing horse at some point and that will continue to happen everywhere. - Using Drupal 7 content-type editing UI screenshots in June 2022 to illustrate how "bad" Drupal is in 2022 is simply dishonest. - Most of the 3rd party service providers (Mailchimp, Typeform, Disqus) listed as better alternatives to what Drupal offers also have integrations with Drupal. Not sure what the point here is; refer to the 2nd point I made above. - I do agree with the point about finding talent to work on/with PHP and Drupal specifically - but how is this different from any other technology? There's always talent shortage in any given field for a varying degree of reasons. This is just PHP-shaming. Also, why would he care about developer talent/proficiency with other technology if at the end of the day he recommends building sites with a SaaS? That's for site-builders, not developers. - Is a Google trends graph for Drupal an argument? At most I think it would be fair to assume Drupal is probably a known-quantity in the agency space and doesn't grab much headline-space nowadays also because of that. I agree you're probably better off using a SaaS alternative if what you're building is a simple CMS-type website for smaller clients. The adoption of Drupal by bigger (ie, enterprise-level) clients is what I've been personally witnessing for the last 4+ years.

mtopolov 4y ago
Hi rantmode ! I wrote the article shared above. Let me answer your points. 1. Drupal Layout Builder > Indeed. The problem lays deep in Drupal's modular architecture, making it almost impossible to create a simple (in terms of UX) page builder with Drupal. I do not see Drupal fighting with Webflow, WeWeb or any other page builder there. Drupal ingest too much complexity. 2. Using Drupal 7 UI screenshots > I confess, clickbait on my side. Drupal 10 UI with tons of modules is still way more complicated to use than Content Stack. 3. The point about Drupal modules is not the same as for FE/JS Frameworks. The audience is not the same. On one side we have end-users that will prefer the simplicity of Mailchimp vs Simple News module. So what you're saying is that there is no point, as Mailchimp is integrated with Drupal. I'm returning you the question, if almost each module in Drupal is worse than it's SaaS equivalent, and you simply integrate Drupal with it, why using Drupal at all? At the end if your Drupal is only a content storage with CRUD, you have hundreds of better solutions (Hygraph, Xano, Content Stack, Prepr, etc...) 4. On ressources shortage. It's very different. A good PHP developer is not a good Drupal developer. Drupal's Learning curve is steep. But when you use any SaaS headless CMS you don't have to know it's internals. You simply build your front-end in any framework you're familiar with and connect it through GraphQL. Therefore any front-end developer will be ok, while with Drupal you'll need to specifically loook for experienced Drupal developer. 5. Google trends is not an argument, I regret that slippery slope I've taken. You can spank me.
- rantmode 4y ago
  Thanks for replying! I'm getting the feeling that your opinions (such as mine) come from dealing with many of the issues you've encountered when working with Drupal. My opinion is it's far from being perfect, but is much better now than it was with Drupal 7. If page building is all you want a CMS for, you're right: Drupal isn't for you; there are better alternatives. Doesn't mean it's dying. Having the possibility of integrating with 3rd party services via installing a module is better than having to wire up your product/codebase to work with it. Many SaaS services also offer this, Drupal is not different. I agree that a PHP Dev isn't a Drupal Dev and vice-versa (even though there's a very significant overlap). The learning curve for Drupal isn't steep if you only focus on learning what any of the simpler SaaS CMSs you mentioned offer. I argue it might even be lower and better documented. It does get steeper when you have to develop for Drupal - but then again, that's not something you can or have to do for a SaaS. Those products have learning curves of their own as well. I've used Webflow before and liked it, but when the client started asking for some custom stuff, Webflow couldn't cut it either. Every tool has its limitations. I have worked with Drupal as a backend with REST APIs for exposing data in multiple frontends and the experience was fine - probably not ideal and yes, it did require Drupal knowledge - but not different of what you'd expect trying to wire a FE app to consume/use JSON/GraphQL (which, by the way, is making its way into Drupal, too) from any other source. Also, there's a significant point that neither of us has addressed, that I think is worth mentioning: what happens if/when one of those hot SaaS products goes bust because it didn't gain traction? Do you own the codebase? Can you quickly and simply migrate to another platform? Can you host it yourself? My guess is you're back to the same kind of predicaments you'd find in Drupal all the same. With the added bonus of now also having to find someone with experience and expertise to help migrate away from that even "nichier" product - might prove even harder to find talent than with Drupal. Again: fair points raised; worth discussing; Drupal isn't dying.
xhkkffbf 4y ago
These are fair responses that should be voted up. I understand the complaints about Drupal, but it's all rather relative. Drupal is a glass that's 25% full. If you concentrate on the missing 75%, well, you'll just complain. But the 25% has been great for my projects. It's been a good foundation. I can usually find a module that does much of what I need and then I just jump in and help. This kind of "X is dying" is just mean and negative.

mtopolov 4y ago

Hi rantmode ! I wrote the article shared above. Let me answer your points. 1. Drupal Layout Builder > Indeed. The problem lays deep in Drupal's modular architecture, making it almost impossible to create a simple (in terms of UX) page builder with Drupal. I do not see Drupal fighting with Webflow, WeWeb or any other page builder there. Drupal ingest too much complexity. 2. Using Drupal 7 UI screenshots > I confess, clickbait on my side. Drupal 10 UI with tons of modules is still way more complicated to use than Content Stack. 3. The point about Drupal modules is not the same as for FE/JS Frameworks. The audience is not the same. On one side we have end-users that will prefer the simplicity of Mailchimp vs Simple News module. So what you're saying is that there is no point, as Mailchimp is integrated with Drupal. I'm returning you the question, if almost each module in Drupal is worse than it's SaaS equivalent, and you simply integrate Drupal with it, why using Drupal at all? At the end if your Drupal is only a content storage with CRUD, you have hundreds of better solutions (Hygraph, Xano, Content Stack, Prepr, etc...) 4. On ressources shortage. It's very different. A good PHP developer is not a good Drupal developer. Drupal's Learning curve is steep. But when you use any SaaS headless CMS you don't have to know it's internals. You simply build your front-end in any framework you're familiar with and connect it through GraphQL. Therefore any front-end developer will be ok, while with Drupal you'll need to specifically loook for experienced Drupal developer. 5. Google trends is not an argument, I regret that slippery slope I've taken. You can spank me.

rantmode 4y ago
Thanks for replying! I'm getting the feeling that your opinions (such as mine) come from dealing with many of the issues you've encountered when working with Drupal. My opinion is it's far from being perfect, but is much better now than it was with Drupal 7. If page building is all you want a CMS for, you're right: Drupal isn't for you; there are better alternatives. Doesn't mean it's dying. Having the possibility of integrating with 3rd party services via installing a module is better than having to wire up your product/codebase to work with it. Many SaaS services also offer this, Drupal is not different. I agree that a PHP Dev isn't a Drupal Dev and vice-versa (even though there's a very significant overlap). The learning curve for Drupal isn't steep if you only focus on learning what any of the simpler SaaS CMSs you mentioned offer. I argue it might even be lower and better documented. It does get steeper when you have to develop for Drupal - but then again, that's not something you can or have to do for a SaaS. Those products have learning curves of their own as well. I've used Webflow before and liked it, but when the client started asking for some custom stuff, Webflow couldn't cut it either. Every tool has its limitations. I have worked with Drupal as a backend with REST APIs for exposing data in multiple frontends and the experience was fine - probably not ideal and yes, it did require Drupal knowledge - but not different of what you'd expect trying to wire a FE app to consume/use JSON/GraphQL (which, by the way, is making its way into Drupal, too) from any other source. Also, there's a significant point that neither of us has addressed, that I think is worth mentioning: what happens if/when one of those hot SaaS products goes bust because it didn't gain traction? Do you own the codebase? Can you quickly and simply migrate to another platform? Can you host it yourself? My guess is you're back to the same kind of predicaments you'd find in Drupal all the same. With the added bonus of now also having to find someone with experience and expertise to help migrate away from that even "nichier" product - might prove even harder to find talent than with Drupal. Again: fair points raised; worth discussing; Drupal isn't dying.

xhkkffbf 4y ago

These are fair responses that should be voted up. I understand the complaints about Drupal, but it's all rather relative. Drupal is a glass that's 25% full. If you concentrate on the missing 75%, well, you'll just complain. But the 25% has been great for my projects. It's been a good foundation. I can usually find a module that does much of what I need and then I just jump in and help. This kind of "X is dying" is just mean and negative.