Drupal vs. Wordpress for Large Organizations

I’m currently working on a web-project for a department at my school using Wordpress. The University Communications department would much rather I use Drupal, since the rest of the school uses Drupal and they want to keep a sense of consistency online. Drupal obviously has its limitations (especially the low-budget packages).
Would you recommend large organizations, such as universities, manage their online presence and content with Drupal or Wordpress? Are there significant advantages of using one over the other? What about disadvantages?

 

For me, they are both good. It's just depent on your taste. And especially, on the storage of your web server and database.

 

I like Wordpress better over all, but for big stuff Drupal is a lot more powerful.

I am currently trying to put some larger sites into WP the problem I am dealing with is many different menus in different spots on different pages is a lot harder to do with WP. With Drupal it is much easier to organize and display lots of pages.

But I am getting tired of the updates in Drupal and the updates on base themes. WP has the updates going much smoother and easier.

 

I don't understand - what limitations? Drupal is incredibly flexible. WordPress is a lot more limited for anything other than a simple blog. Even then, a custom script for generating static HTML pages can be a better choice.

When I don't use Drupal, I develop a custom script. However, Drupal can often speed up development time significantly.

For a university - Drupal, maybe even Moodle if it's for students to access course content. (They can even be "intergrated" with each other.)

Modules and themes are updated through the Drupal UI and the core can be updated through Drush. Or all updates can be done through Drush. Quite simple really. However, is it really a good idea to automate the updating of a CMS' core? It's convenient, but can also end in disaster. The same goes for modules and themes.

 

I didn't have any problems through out 6 but from 6to7 people are having tables not match up and a small host of other problems.

I have been using zen base themes 6to7 is a mess.. totally different folders and the folders are already a mess in 6. Between updating zen and trying to migrate from 6to7 I can theme a new WP site in a lot less time.

WP has got updates down nice these days simple easy smooth.

 

Drupal is better than WP for the sites with multi-users, more than 1,000 users for example.
Drupal login is more secure, user management is more functional.
Drupal is faster, more secure and more stable, consumes less server resources under high usage of dynamic content.
WP is better for me. Because WP has really too many plugins, more than Drupal. I don't need to hire a coder to add something to a WP. There is always a WP plugin that resolve an issue or add something new. That's a quite big advantage of WP.

 

I will recommend WP. You can use for a media site as well as corporate one. No matter you want to do it and enhance it in the future, with WP, you will have no problems to do it.

Obama's site is based on Drupal. So, the CMS is OK. But is less popular than WP and enhancing it like WP is kind of hard, having in mind that for some functionalities and coding, you have to write to the Drupal community.

 

Its mainly an informational website for a department, rather than something for students to be able to log into and submit work.

 

There is more than Obama's site running Drupal. WordPress is OK for a simple site (but then so is HTML, which uses a lot less resources and is more secure), but it can't touch Drupal in terms of the administration of it and the ability to create custom content types, create custom views, etc (modules such as Fields, Views and Panels help speed up development). I'm not anti-WordPress; I've made (and still make) sites in WordPress, create some plugins (for my own use), do a lot of theme customisation, etc, so I've come to understand its uses and limitations.

I have a feeling you mean people had problems with migration due CCK moving to Fields in the core. Or they didn't run the database upgrade scripts. Yes, 6 and 7 were a big change, but similar problems happen with any CMS (including WordPress) when there are big changes. Deprecated functions resulting in themes/plugins no longer working in WordPress is not an unusual situation either. For any CMS, testing and preparation (and even building a new theme) is important before upgrading (just search Google for WordPress white screen of death and you'll find no shortage of problems after updates). Sadly, many people don't bother doing that.

If you need custom content types with their own special fields (such as course/module descriptions and similar stuff) then Drupal would be the better option. The core Fields module helps to speed up development in this area.

 

I believe there are.

WP is much more for building a simple site, whatever that means. Don't really know what do you mean, but static HTML could be well integrated on any well-done CMS, no matter which one you want. I've seen the "magic" on Joomla, WP, Opencart, ZenCart...

Every CMS has limitations, except the custom one. And as a developer, you probably will agree with me. So, if you want less of these limitations, you should start from A,B,C...

 

I meant just a simple HTML site, no CMS, just purely HTML and CSS files. A lot of sites people make (even some I've made and look back at) could have been made purely with HTML instead of WordPress (or whatever other CMS) when it's just a few HTML pages requiring little-to-no server-side scripting.

 

I am a big fan of plain HTML sites. They are great, work with no issues all the time, no need to update, no login, nothing to worry. Setup and forget!!

 

Yes Dear, It is agreed that simple HTML site would be easier to Develop and more flexible from user point of view, But here the guy is confused between WP or Drupal, as he has started Development work with WP, he can continue with the same but from Integration point of view he should go for Drupal as more convenient from Multi-user point of view and in centralized form.

 

Hi I believe wordpress is much user friendly than durpal, less complicated and easy to learn by novice users.