As a Content Management Systems (CMS), Drupal allows the client to collaboratively create and edit various kinds of content. Gone are the days of calling your webmaster to swap out an image or update your monthly news article. The Drupal CMS gives complete control of the content to the site owner.
In addition to the site management benefits, a CMS can completely separate design, functionality, and content. This enables each layer to be edited independently of the other layers. For example, you can change the look of your site without losing content or affecting functionality. With Drupal, a plethora of roles with complex administration and content permissions can be created. You can empower site authors to write content, while only allowing a site publisher to promote the content to the site. With the ease of content creation, there are also numerous ways to organize it via unique content types or categories. Site navigation can be dynamically generated from these hierarchies.
What is Drupal?
You have to watch the video “What is Drupal? (in 57 seconds).” It won many awards because it quickly conveys that “Drupal is the power to connect.” This reminds me of another quote I have seen on several websites extolling the capability of Drupal: “Drupal is wildly popular because it provides a powerful, scalable, low cost, high value solution to manage and grow an Internet presence.” What I find interesting with both the video and quote is that neither say that Drupal helps you make websites. But rather, Drupal is the power to connect and a solution to create an Internet presence. Drupal is so much more than a tool to build a website.
Why Drupal?
If you are a website developer or an IT decision maker, there are many reasons why Drupal might be the right choice for your next project. To get the base of a site up and running is really quite simple. With over 4,000 contributed modules, most of your required functionality is available with a download and a couple configurations. Due to the robust platform with an API for everything, you can augment and customize site features with your own modules. The power of Drupal really lies in the ability to extend it.
Additionally, Drupal is open source. Beyond the lack of licensing fees, this means that the community develops and tests incremental releases to fix small bugs and add new components. You don’t have to wait a year to see the improved version.
The Community
The Drupal Community is incredibly talented and passionate. If you’ve got the travel bug, DrupalCon is held twice a year (North America and Europe). There are also yearly regional DrupalCamps and monthly local meetups. Each of these events is an opportunity to share and learn. Knowledge flows freely and everyone goes home with a sense of excitement. You can also join online groups to discuss the topics you are devoted to at groups.drupal.org.
Drupal Growth
Drupal is currently at version 6.14, and version 7 is in feature-freeze, meaning they are preparing for the release in the next few months. If you look at the chart below, the number of active Drupal sites is consistently on the rise. As the quantity of sites increases, so does the availability of qualified developers. There will never be a lack of support for your site.
Drupal rocks!
That is clearly an oversimplification, but it is difficult to convey the unlimited capabilities Drupal offers. Drupal is “the power to connect” and “grow your Internet presence.”
