We often get asked by clients about the differences between using Sharepoint and Drupal as a Content Management System (CMS) for Australian Government websites. This short post covers our most common answers.
Directly comparing SharePoint with Drupal as Content Management Systems is difficult, because they have very few similarities. SharePoint is a complex product with many features out of the box, but these are geared toward specific use-cases, such as collaboration and document sharing, and it is expensive and difficult to customise. We've seen many Government clients move away from Sharepoint to Drupal for web publishing for this reason.
Drupal should be considered as a CMS framework. Out of the box, you get a limited set of core features, and from there you can build a system that meets your specific requirements. There are thousands of contributed modules available that add extra functionality, and the robust API system enables unlimited additional customisation and integration with third party systems. Since Drupal and its contributed modules are all open-source, there are no licensing fees for the software.
The most common FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) thrown at open source software by proprietary vendors is that total cost of ownership equals or exceeds licensed software once development, training and support costs are factored in. This argument is not borne out by reality, now that Drupal is fast becoming the most popular CMS for the Australian Government, having been selected by the Australian Government CTO as the basis for a new whole of government CMS platform.
We think there are three key factors that set Sharepoint and Drupal apart:
- Cost: No licensing fees to run Drupal, and lower cost hosting as it can run on open-source, cloud-based platforms.
- Flexibility: Drupal is built for customisation, SharePoint much less so. Not only is it difficult to modify anything basic in Sharepoint, but it's difficult and costly to find experienced SharePoint developers. With Drupal there is a global ecosystem of developers and vendors who can provide a wide range of Drupal services, including support and custom development.
- Speed of innovation: Drupal's flexibility allows for rapid prototyping and frequent, iterative releases. A new major version is released every few years (Drupal 8 is coming later this year) to keep up with the latest in technology and user experience, with a clear migration path from version to version.
These links provide more insight on using SharePoint as a CMS:
- http://www.bluecoda.com/blog/comparing-sharepoint-drupal-and-other-content-management-systems-cms
- http://betanews.com/2012/09/05/3-things-not-to-do-with-sharepoint
To conclude, we often give these answers as to why you would choose Drupal as your CMS:
- Leading open-source CMS: Drupal is widely regarded as the world's leading open-source CMS for building and managing content-rich websites. Created in 2001 and now in its 7th full release, it is a mature platform and used by some of the world's most prominent websites. Drupal provides a highly flexible, scalable and extensible platform capable of comprehensively meeting most website requirements.
- Cost Effective: Being open source, Drupal has no licensing fees, and given the number of free modules available, significant amounts of current and future functionality can be provided with minimal development effort. These factors combine to reduce the total cost of ownership for the CMS, making it very cost effective in the long term. This is heightened by the ability of internal web teams to take high levels of control over their Drupal ecosystems.
- Highly active ecosystem: With more than 30,000 developers actively contributing code, more than one million members of Drupal.org and thousands of available contributed modules the Drupal community ecosystem is highly active. This ensures continued support and evolution of the platform well into the future.
- Proven track record: Drupal is currently powering hundreds of state and federal government websites in Australia, and thousands more internationally. Drupal has been proven to meet the reliability, security and performance required by government agencies.
If you'd like to know more, feel free to get in touch with PreviousNext.
