Drupal is not a CMS

Before you try to burn me at the stake for uttering such blasphemy, I suggest you keep reading this post.

To begin, what do you think comes to mind for a web developer when they hear the acronym CMS? Typically, based on what they’ve heard, they imagine a backend where they can easily modify their website’s content using a WYSIWYG editor, and with the ability to insert and manage multimedia content very easily.

Here’s the problem: what do they actually get when they install and play with Drupal for the first time? Total frustration, because based on comments and news from the industry, they think Drupal is WordPress on steroids, but in the end, they apparently find something between a framework and WordPress.

And where’s the super CMS? There’s no WYSIWYG editor? How do I upload images? These are some of the recurring questions when starting development with Drupal. In reality, all of this is possible through modules developed by third parties.

Now, if it’s possible to address these “shortcomings” through modules, why does the title of this post say it’s not a CMS? My intention is actually to capture the attention of people who haven’t yet used Drupal, so they know what they’re getting into.

The problem with Drupal isn’t the software itself; the problem is that the community hasn’t taken the time to clearly explain that Drupal is a framework for building your own CMS, not WordPress on steroids.

One question that might linger is: why use Drupal if I can do the same thing with a PHP framework? But I’ll leave that for another post.