Drupal – Robust but Complex
January 14th, 2008 in CMS
Building a small business website has never been so easy. Today, the options for low cost (or free) content management systems are practically endless. Leading the pack, I decided to check out Drupal – a popular open source content management system known for it’s robustness and endless amounts of add-on’s. In doing some research, I noticed the overall consensus around Drupal to be “you either love it or you hate it”. Some think it’s the Wave of the Future, while others say “Don’t Bother“. With that out of the way, it was time for me to roll up my sleeves and dig in.
To begin, the installation couldn’t have been easier. I was able to get the basic out-of-box template up and running within about 20 minutes. While everything seemed to start off well, one thing that surprised me was that Drupal didn’t come configured with meta description and meta keyword tags. I needed to download an additional add-on called Nodewords. For a cutting edge CMS, this seemed a little sloppy to not include this as a default.
Moving on, I started to go through all the features and options of Drupal via the administrative section. They weren’t kidding when they said Drupal was feature rich. Sadly, it felt more cluttered and packed with features than what was needed. I was finding myself getting lost in the administrative section with the non-intuitive navigation. Setting up SEO friendly URLs was slightly painful, but doable. The documentation helped, but was limited. After a couple of hours of putzing around, I was able to configure a basic website along with some hassles along the way.
Overall, Drupal was fun to play with and implement. It’s strength resides in its robustness and feature rich modules but with that came a downside – complexity. Drupal certainly isn’t for the faint of heart. If you’re considering Drupal then prepare to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Implementing this CMS into a design was no easy feat. The complexity of Drupal gives way to relatively steep learning curve. With that said, make sure it is a good fit for the site you are installing it on. Prepare for future development and support. Drupal is definitely a powerful CMS, but bad judgment can be devastating if implemented improperly. My vote – keep it simple unless you plan on sticking it out for the long run.
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