[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
In the best of circumstances, most people not committed to the cutting edge will wait at least six months post release for initial bugs to be ironed out, more obscure modules to be upgraded and tested, and to learn the ins and outs of the new development environment. So, I'd say that one should be looking at D7 for a new site today only if the site is more than a year forward (3/4 year if you feel terribly oppressed). It is going to be exciting if all goes well (and it looks like much will definitely go well, at the least), but it will also introduce lots of major paradigm changes--for the better, I think--in how Drupal works and is maintained. But that's coming. D6 is now ;-). ari On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 3:25 PM, James Keeline james at keeline.com wrote: When you visit http://drupal.org/project/Modules and search individual third-party modules that you might be using, you will see pledges by many developers to have their module(s) ready on the day that Drupal 7 is released. ?Smaller modules and internally-developed modules could be delayed, of course. Having worked with Drupal since late 2006 (4.7), I agree that some major version upgrades have seen a delay in the availability of key modules. ?However, I think the Drupal folks are working to remedy this for D7. I think the plan is to make the release after DrupalCon in SF. James Keeline San Diego, CA --- On Thu, 2/25/10, Andrew Fox afox at famsf.org wrote: Drupal 7 is in alpha right now. I think they're planning on releasing it some time in the second quarter of this year. Of course then you have to wait for all the modules to catch up, too, so my guess is that we're probably looking at the fall for a viable Drupal 7 installation. AF Andrew Fox ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
Let me just jump in without addressing any one post to say how much I appreciate everybody's feedback on the Drupal/WordPress MU question--this has all been great food for thought! The museum computer community is amazing. (And please don't let this message deter anybody else from responding--all thoughts are very welcome!) --E. Eric D. M. Johnson New Media Specialist Monticello P.O. Box 316 Charlottesville, VA 22902 Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140 http://www.monticello.org/ ejohnson at monticello.orgmailto:ejohnson at monticello.org
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
Does anyone happen to know when Wordpress 3.0 comes out, or Drupal 7? I've heard of both of them being in development for some time now, but have never been able to get a clear picture of when. Thanks! ~P Perian Sully Collections Information Manager Web Programs Strategist The Magnes Berkeley, CA -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Justin Heideman Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:27 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems I'll chime in with the rest here and say that WordPress is really great for it's user-friendly admin UI and large community. From a technical/speed standpoint, it hasn't always been the the fastest or prettiest code in the world, but recent releases have gone a long ways in terms of improvements. One thing to keep in mind is that WordPress 3.0 is merging WordPress-mu with the regular old standalone wordpress. Meaning, WordPress 3.0 will have the ability to run multiple sites or blogs, like MU does now. WordPress 3.0 also expands on the custom post types that were added in 2.9, meaning that instead of just posts, pages and attachments, you'll be able to add events or books, or whatever you want. 2.9 has this already, but 3.0 is adding a UI for it (still in development, though). This will bring it closer to Drupal's CCK, which I think is the main reason folks use Drupal. To answer your specific questions: - Traffic: As Seb mentioned, wp-super-cache is a must. With it, you can take heavy loads. - Security: WordPress isn't great in this regard. You need to lock it down pretty well, and stay on top of updates. - Plugins: I've written a few and use a lot. If the plugins use publicized hooks and filters, you're good. If they add their own tables and do funkier things, it can be dicey. - Social media: Depends on what you want to do. There's a lot of plugins that do various social media stuff, and you can roll your own feeding relatively easily with yahoo pipes and the integrated magpieRSS class. -- Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545 On Feb 22, 2010, at 2:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote: Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested in: * ability to handle heavy traffic * security * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade * social media integration Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or both) would be most appreciated! I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if needed). Many thanks! --Eric ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
Following on many good comments about how Drupal compares to Wordpress MU I'll throw in some comments about my team's experience, most of which has been with Drupal 6 over the past 18 months, though we have built a few small sites with WordPress. We've certainly found that Drupal holds up well when building some very ambitious user-generated content social media sites such as this extensive citizen science educational environment recently completed for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute www.vitalsignsme.org. Many details of this project's development are profiled in the Drupal Showcase at http://drupal.org/node/694998. As we specified and prototyped the architecture of the site we were concerned that the number of Drupal modules we would need to fulfill the requirements of the project would be far more than what the underlying Drupal structure would support in terms of acceptable performance. Most recommendations were to keep the total number of modules used under 30 or so with a maximum of 50. The Vital Signs environment is composed of about 80 modules, including 13 original custom modules created by our team. Performance has been very good and I would highly recommend Drupal for smaller projects as well as for large, ambitious projects or projects that will have to grow extensively in phases. A new hosted Drupal 7 solution is also in the works and should be available by fall 2010. Named Drupal Gardens, this will be 'Drupal as a service', making it very easy to setup small sites ala Wordpress or SN ala Ning, yet Drupal Gardens sites will be fully extensible and able to be moved onto your own Drupal hosting install whenever desired. This should be a very powerful addition to this already capable platform. http://buytaert.net/drupal-gardens You'll find many answers to questions about our Vital Signs project on the Drupal Showcase site and I'll try to find time to answer others that may come up. Dana Dana Hutchins Image Works/XhibitNet 541 Congress St. Portland, ME 04101 207.773.1101 ext.102 dana at imagewks.com www.ImageWks.com www.xhibit.net On 2/22/10 3:44 PM, Eric Johnson ejohnson at monticello.org wrote: Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested in: * ability to handle heavy traffic * security * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade * social media integration Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or both) would be most appreciated! I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if needed). Many thanks! --Eric Eric D. M. Johnson New Media Specialist Monticello P.O. Box 316 Charlottesville, VA 22902 Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140 http://www.monticello.org/ ejohnson at monticello.orgmailto:ejohnson at monticello.org ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
The release date for WordPress 3.0 is early May. http://wordpress.org/development I've stayed out of this conversation (for reasons that Eric is aware of!) but since the conservation seems to of value to the community. My two cents. We've built a lot of Web sites over the years with various CMS systems and we've built sites from scratch too using Ruby on Rails, such as the ExhibitFiles site (http://www.exhibitfiles.org). In the fall, we redesigned our portfolio site and built a site for our multitouch framework for Flash and found the latest version of WordPress really easy to work with. Also, we recently discovered BuddyPress (http://buddypress.org/), which has a great of promise for building social networks. Does anyone out there have any experience with this software package yet? Jim -- Jim Spadaccini Ideum ideas + media 4895 1/2 Corrales Road Corrales, NM 87048 505-792-1110 Fax 505-792- portfolio blog: http://www.ideum.com -- twitter: @ideum flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/ideum youtube: www.youtube.com/user/multitouchexhibits On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Perian Sully psully at magnes.org wrote: Does anyone happen to know when Wordpress 3.0 comes out, or Drupal 7? I've heard of both of them being in development for some time now, but have never been able to get a clear picture of when. Thanks! ~P Perian Sully Collections Information Manager Web Programs Strategist The Magnes Berkeley, CA -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Justin Heideman Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:27 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems I'll chime in with the rest here and say that WordPress is really great for it's user-friendly admin UI and large community. From a technical/speed standpoint, it hasn't always been the the fastest or prettiest code in the world, but recent releases have gone a long ways in terms of improvements. One thing to keep in mind is that WordPress 3.0 is merging WordPress-mu with the regular old standalone wordpress. Meaning, WordPress 3.0 will have the ability to run multiple sites or blogs, like MU does now. WordPress 3.0 also expands on the custom post types that were added in 2.9, meaning that instead of just posts, pages and attachments, you'll be able to add events or books, or whatever you want. 2.9 has this already, but 3.0 is adding a UI for it (still in development, though). This will bring it closer to Drupal's CCK, which I think is the main reason folks use Drupal. To answer your specific questions: - Traffic: As Seb mentioned, wp-super-cache is a must. With it, you can take heavy loads. - Security: WordPress isn't great in this regard. You need to lock it down pretty well, and stay on top of updates. - Plugins: I've written a few and use a lot. If the plugins use publicized hooks and filters, you're good. If they add their own tables and do funkier things, it can be dicey. - Social media: Depends on what you want to do. There's a lot of plugins that do various social media stuff, and you can roll your own feeding relatively easily with yahoo pipes and the integrated magpieRSS class. -- Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545 On Feb 22, 2010, at 2:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote: Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested in: * ability to handle heavy traffic * security * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade * social media integration Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or both) would be most appreciated! I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if needed). Many thanks! --Eric ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
WordPress 3.0 is due out 5/1/10 - the alpha is out and very impressive, public beta will be 3/15/10. As mentioned the main changes are the merge with WP MU and a flexible taxonomy structure allowing it to function much more like Drupal. To add to the discussion some thoughts: whether you use MU or the network mode in 3.0 the wordpress.com model where each site is restricted to the same group of themes and a handful of core plugins may not be the best approach to managing multiple content streams - I do not want to use the word blog intentionally as WP is capable of being a full blown CMS with a couple of small tweaks to the default roles: you can create multiple time-based sections authored by distinct people within the same instance of WP by simply creating a category page for each section and assigning that category to new posts; you can define category specific contributors - users who can create content but not publish it - authors - users who can author and publish their own or edit the work of contributors, and editors who can author edit and approve the work of contributors and editors; you can customize the WP install folder to include certain plugins and themes so spawning complete standalone sites can be done in very little time; once enabled you can actually configure them all to run off the same user table OR enable AD authentication and full SSO. I am not saying that Drupal or any other CMS out there cannot do all these things too - I just want to ensure that Wordpress is not excluded from the viable CMS debate unfairly; it is a great blogging platform no doubt but it is also a very flexible, powerful and secure CMS as well. Titus Bicknell | @titusbicknell | +1.240.271.9735 titus at bicknell.com | http://www.titusbicknell.com 703 Dale Drive | Silver Spring | MD 20910 | USA On Feb 25, 2010, at 11:23 AM, Perian Sully wrote: Does anyone happen to know when Wordpress 3.0 comes out, or Drupal 7? I've heard of both of them being in development for some time now, but have never been able to get a clear picture of when. Thanks! ~P Perian Sully Collections Information Manager Web Programs Strategist The Magnes Berkeley, CA -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Justin Heideman Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:27 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems I'll chime in with the rest here and say that WordPress is really great for it's user-friendly admin UI and large community. From a technical/speed standpoint, it hasn't always been the the fastest or prettiest code in the world, but recent releases have gone a long ways in terms of improvements. One thing to keep in mind is that WordPress 3.0 is merging WordPress-mu with the regular old standalone wordpress. Meaning, WordPress 3.0 will have the ability to run multiple sites or blogs, like MU does now. WordPress 3.0 also expands on the custom post types that were added in 2.9, meaning that instead of just posts, pages and attachments, you'll be able to add events or books, or whatever you want. 2.9 has this already, but 3.0 is adding a UI for it (still in development, though). This will bring it closer to Drupal's CCK, which I think is the main reason folks use Drupal. To answer your specific questions: - Traffic: As Seb mentioned, wp-super-cache is a must. With it, you can take heavy loads. - Security: WordPress isn't great in this regard. You need to lock it down pretty well, and stay on top of updates. - Plugins: I've written a few and use a lot. If the plugins use publicized hooks and filters, you're good. If they add their own tables and do funkier things, it can be dicey. - Social media: Depends on what you want to do. There's a lot of plugins that do various social media stuff, and you can roll your own feeding relatively easily with yahoo pipes and the integrated magpieRSS class. -- Justin Heideman / New Media Designer / Walker Art Center justin.heideman at walkerart.org / 612.375.7545 On Feb 22, 2010, at 2:44 PM, Eric Johnson wrote: Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
Following on many good comments about how Drupal compares to Wordpress MU I'll throw in some comments about my team's experience, most of which has been with Drupal 6 over the past 18 months, though we have built a few small sites with WordPress. We've certainly found that Drupal holds up well when building some very ambitious user-generated content social media sites such as this extensive citizen science educational environment recently completed for the Gulf of Maine Research Institute www.vitalsignsme.org. Many details of this project's development are profiled in the Drupal Showcase at http://drupal.org/node/694998. As we specified and prototyped the architecture of the site we were concerned that the number of Drupal modules we would need to fulfill the requirements of the project would be far more than what the underlying Drupal structure would support in terms of acceptable performance. Most recommendations were to keep the total number of modules used under 30 or so with a maximum of 50. The Vital Signs environment is composed of about 80 modules, including 13 original custom modules created by our team. Performance has been very good and I would highly recommend Drupal for smaller projects as well as for large, ambitious projects or projects that will have to grow extensively in phases. A new hosted Drupal 7 solution is also in the works and should be available by fall 2010. Named Drupal Gardens, this will be 'Drupal as a service', making it very easy to setup small sites ala Wordpress or SN ala Ning, yet Drupal Gardens sites will be fully extensible and able to be moved onto your own Drupal hosting install whenever desired. This should be a very powerful addition to this already capable platform. http://buytaert.net/drupal-gardens You'll find many answers to questions about our Vital Signs project on the Drupal Showcase site and I'll try to find time to answer others that may come up. Dana Dana Hutchins Image Works/XhibitNet 541 Congress St. Portland, ME 04101 207.773.1101 ext.102 dana at imagewks.com www.ImageWks.com www.xhibit.net On 2/22/10 3:44 PM, Eric Johnson ejohnson at monticello.org wrote: Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested in: * ability to handle heavy traffic * security * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade * social media integration Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or both) would be most appreciated! I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if needed). Many thanks! --Eric Eric D. M. Johnson New Media Specialist Monticello P.O. Box 316 Charlottesville, VA 22902 Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140 http://www.monticello.org/ ejohnson at monticello.orgmailto:ejohnson at monticello.org ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested in: * ability to handle heavy traffic * security * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade * social media integration Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or both) would be most appreciated! I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if needed). Many thanks! --Eric Eric D. M. Johnson New Media Specialist Monticello P.O. Box 316 Charlottesville, VA 22902 Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140 http://www.monticello.org/ ejohnson at monticello.orgmailto:ejohnson at monticello.org
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
Please reply to the list. We're interested in this topic and I bet we're not alone. Thanks! Laura -- Laura Mann Business Development Director Mediatrope Interactive Studio 207 Powell Street, 3rd Floor San Francisco, CA 94102 415.896.2000 x19 voice 415.896.2212 fax www.mediatrope.com On 2/22/10 12:44 PM, Eric Johnson ejohnson at monticello.org wrote: Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested in: * ability to handle heavy traffic * security * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade * social media integration Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or both) would be most appreciated! I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if needed). Many thanks! --Eric Eric D. M. Johnson New Media Specialist Monticello P.O. Box 316 Charlottesville, VA 22902 Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140 http://www.monticello.org/ ejohnson at monticello.orgmailto:ejohnson at monticello.org ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
Here is a site where you can get a comparison of just about any cms with any other. http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ I think Drupal is a little more robust than Wordpress in terms of features, plug-ins, etc. Wordpress is more often than not just used as a blog and is also capable of managing a site, whereas Drupal is used to manage sites but can also contain a blog, if you can draw that distinction. We just implemented a Drupal site as a work-in-progess, and so far so good. Gerald Gerald Reese Webmaster Oakland Museum of California 1000 Oak Street Oakland, CA 94607 510/238-4746 www.museumca.org On 2/22/10 12:44 PM, Eric Johnson ejohnson at monticello.org wrote: Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested in: * ability to handle heavy traffic * security * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade * social media integration Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or both) would be most appreciated! I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if needed). Many thanks! --Eric Eric D. M. Johnson New Media Specialist Monticello P.O. Box 316 Charlottesville, VA 22902 Phone: (434) 984-7570 | Fax: (434) 977-6140 http://www.monticello.org/ ejohnson at monticello.orgmailto:ejohnson at monticello.org ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
Hi Eric, I can't really say I've done a comparison between Drupal and Wordpress MU as a CMS but I do have some thoughts to share. Fundamentally I've found Wordpress to be quite different from drupal. First off Wordpress is a blogging platform, and MU is for running more than one blog on a single install. Lot's of people use Wordpress as a CMS but it's generally referred to as a hack, to which I tend to agree trying it in the past. Drupal on the other hand is a CMS through and through. It is much better suited for running an institution's website. We use it here, so I am quite biased. In my honest opinion, I would not consider Wordpress for anything besides a dedicated blog. For something like a website (and one with social interaction) Drupal word be my choice. With that in mind, I will focus on Drupal as I touch on your bullet points. As an PHP developer, I find Drupal extremely powerful and flexible. If you don't like something, you can override it yourself, install a module, or do it some other way. There is a huge community for Drupal, each module has an issue queue where you may report bugs and questions. There are active mailing lists, IRC channels, forums etc and best of all Google where you can find all kinds of info and developer blogs. There is a learning curve but if you know html / css and basic PHP eg print, foreach, and working with arrays as well as some linux experience you should be fine. In a few weeks you will know your way around the admin area, have a basic understanding of views, panels, and CCK. Once you are proficient, you can build a moderately complex site within a week easily. Content editing by multiple staffers: We have setup roles for each dept that provides content, and then assigned one person in that dept to manage posting (someone comfortable with posting blogs and pages to the web, and can understand BASIC html.) Once a user has a role you can pair down hundreds of permissions to limit them, and again, if it not there you can code a permission yourself. Social media integration: Hundreds of modules are available for this. Search projects on drupal.org and see what you can find, more than likely something exists. Speed: Drupal's performance is directly related to how many modules you have within your installation. We have our PHP memory limit set to 128mb which is recommended. If your site is slowing down, you just throw more hardware at it. Drupal's performance is much faster than Wordpress which is notorious for succumbing to events like the Digg Effect. Upgrades: Core upgrades, especially point releases are usually quite simple and do not require anything more than patching. We patch our installs following this site: http://fuerstnet.de/en/drupal-upgrade-easier which makes patching a 10 minute affair. Major releases obviously require reworking of templates and modules, as code is depreciated for better functionality, but the hassle rewards itself with everything else you are now able to do. The core upgrades are fairly easy to do and is directly related to how complex your site actually is. I hope this helps anyone considering Drupal as a platform for their next website or redesign. I would also like to add that Drupal is open enough that we are currently developing direct integration with our collection management system to allow the public to browse it right from Drupal itself. If anyone has any questions, please let me know. I will be following this discussion. -- Ryan Hartman Web Developer Amon Carter Museum 3501 Camp Bowie Blvd., Ft. Worth, TX 76107 t: 817.989.5047 http://www.cartermuseum.org From: Eric Johnson ejohnson at monticello.org Reply-To: Museum Computer Network Listserv mcn-l at mcn.edu Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:44:50 -0500 To: 'mcn-l at mcn.edu' mcn-l at mcn.edu Subject: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems Hi, all-- Last summer was the most recent discussion I've found on MCN-L about Drupal as a content management system, and I was wondering whether anybody has done any recent comparison between Drupal and WordPress (especially WordPress MU) as a website CMS. We're planning on using one or the other as part of a complete site redesign: using the content we currently have as a base, but updating the overall site design and navigation; permitting content editing by multiple staffers; and providing a more sophisticated integration of social media (multiple blogs among other things). So we're trying to get a read on the current state of these two platforms. Along with general opinions about ease of use and the their development communities, we're interested in: * ability to handle heavy traffic * security * how well customizations roll from upgrade to upgrade * social media integration Any and all opinions, pro and con, about either Drupal or WordPress MU (or both) would be most appreciated! I'm happy to write up a summary post of anything I hear (and to clarify if needed
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
WRT the digg effect and Wordpress - wordpress installs MUST have a cache-ing plugin installed. We use WP Super Cache which has saved us from a lot of pain. I'd not suggest a high traffic site uses WP as a CMS for the whole site but for small orgs Wordpress can do the job quite well and has a flatter learning curve than Drupal. Seb Sebastian Chan A/g Head of Digital, Social Emerging Technologies Powerhouse Museum street - 500 Harris St Ultimo, NSW Australia postal - PO Box K346, Haymarket, NSW 1238 tel - 61 2 9217 0109 mob - 61 (0) 413 457 126 fax - 61 2 9217 0689 e - sebc at phm.gov.au w - www.powerhousemuseum.com b - www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog -- This email and attachments are for the use of the intended recipient(s) only and may contain confidential or legally privileged information or material that is copyright of Powerhouse Museum or a third party. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and then delete it. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose or distribute this e-mail without the author's prior permission. Any views expressed in this message and attachments are those of the individual sender and the Powerhouse Museum accepts no liability for the content of this message. -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Ryan Hartman Sent: Tuesday, 23 February 2010 9:02 AM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems Hi Eric, I can't really say I've done a comparison between Drupal and Wordpress MU as a CMS but I do have some thoughts to share. Fundamentally I've found Wordpress to be quite different from drupal. First off Wordpress is a blogging platform, and MU is for running more than one blog on a single install. Lot's of people use Wordpress as a CMS but it's generally referred to as a hack, to which I tend to agree trying it in the past. Drupal on the other hand is a CMS through and through. It is much better suited for running an institution's website. We use it here, so I am quite biased. In my honest opinion, I would not consider Wordpress for anything besides a dedicated blog. For something like a website (and one with social interaction) Drupal word be my choice. With that in mind, I will focus on Drupal as I touch on your bullet points. As an PHP developer, I find Drupal extremely powerful and flexible. If you don't like something, you can override it yourself, install a module, or do it some other way. There is a huge community for Drupal, each module has an issue queue where you may report bugs and questions. There are active mailing lists, IRC channels, forums etc and best of all Google where you can find all kinds of info and developer blogs. There is a learning curve but if you know html / css and basic PHP eg print, foreach, and working with arrays as well as some linux experience you should be fine. In a few weeks you will know your way around the admin area, have a basic understanding of views, panels, and CCK. Once you are proficient, you can build a moderately complex site within a week easily. Content editing by multiple staffers: We have setup roles for each dept that provides content, and then assigned one person in that dept to manage posting (someone comfortable with posting blogs and pages to the web, and can understand BASIC html.) Once a user has a role you can pair down hundreds of permissions to limit them, and again, if it not there you can code a permission yourself. Social media integration: Hundreds of modules are available for this. Search projects on drupal.org and see what you can find, more than likely something exists. Speed: Drupal's performance is directly related to how many modules you have within your installation. We have our PHP memory limit set to 128mb which is recommended. If your site is slowing down, you just throw more hardware at it. Drupal's performance is much faster than Wordpress which is notorious for succumbing to events like the Digg Effect. Upgrades: Core upgrades, especially point releases are usually quite simple and do not require anything more than patching. We patch our installs following this site: http://fuerstnet.de/en/drupal-upgrade-easier which makes patching a 10 minute affair. Major releases obviously require reworking of templates and modules, as code is depreciated for better functionality, but the hassle rewards itself with everything else you are now able to do. The core upgrades are fairly easy to do and is directly related to how complex your site actually is. I hope this helps anyone considering Drupal as a platform for their next website or redesign. I would also like to add that Drupal is open enough that we are currently developing direct integration with our collection management system to allow
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
I'm with Seb here. Our own Titus Bicknell is a whiz at making gorgeous Wordpress sites that have no blog components at all. Like http://www.marcus-wareing.com/ and http://www.gatewaycanyons.com/ Granted, though, that's a LOT of custom work. But it's nice to see what CAN be done. At Magnes, we're building our new site in Drupal, but leaving our blog and some other components in Wordpress for the simple reason that less tech-savvy folks need the lower learning-curve of WP. I'm no dummy when it comes to finding my way around a piece of software, but I have to admit that I'm finding Drupal a bit of a nightmare to work in and with. If I had my druthers, I'd do everything in Wordpress, but I know that it would take an awful lot more work to get it to look the way I'd want it to as a website. ~Perian Perian Sully Collections Information Manager Web Programs Strategist The Magnes Berkeley, CA -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Chan, Sebastian Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 2:43 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems WRT the digg effect and Wordpress - wordpress installs MUST have a cache-ing plugin installed. We use WP Super Cache which has saved us from a lot of pain. I'd not suggest a high traffic site uses WP as a CMS for the whole site but for small orgs Wordpress can do the job quite well and has a flatter learning curve than Drupal. Seb Sebastian Chan A/g Head of Digital, Social Emerging Technologies Powerhouse Museum street - 500 Harris St Ultimo, NSW Australia postal - PO Box K346, Haymarket, NSW 1238 tel - 61 2 9217 0109 mob - 61 (0) 413 457 126 fax - 61 2 9217 0689 e - sebc at phm.gov.au w - www.powerhousemuseum.com b - www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog -- This email and attachments are for the use of the intended recipient(s) only and may contain confidential or legally privileged information or material that is copyright of Powerhouse Museum or a third party. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and then delete it. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use, disclose or distribute this e-mail without the author's prior permission. Any views expressed in this message and attachments are those of the individual sender and the Powerhouse Museum accepts no liability for the content of this message. -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Ryan Hartman Sent: Tuesday, 23 February 2010 9:02 AM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems Hi Eric, I can't really say I've done a comparison between Drupal and Wordpress MU as a CMS but I do have some thoughts to share. Fundamentally I've found Wordpress to be quite different from drupal. First off Wordpress is a blogging platform, and MU is for running more than one blog on a single install. Lot's of people use Wordpress as a CMS but it's generally referred to as a hack, to which I tend to agree trying it in the past. Drupal on the other hand is a CMS through and through. It is much better suited for running an institution's website. We use it here, so I am quite biased. In my honest opinion, I would not consider Wordpress for anything besides a dedicated blog. For something like a website (and one with social interaction) Drupal word be my choice. With that in mind, I will focus on Drupal as I touch on your bullet points. As an PHP developer, I find Drupal extremely powerful and flexible. If you don't like something, you can override it yourself, install a module, or do it some other way. There is a huge community for Drupal, each module has an issue queue where you may report bugs and questions. There are active mailing lists, IRC channels, forums etc and best of all Google where you can find all kinds of info and developer blogs. There is a learning curve but if you know html / css and basic PHP eg print, foreach, and working with arrays as well as some linux experience you should be fine. In a few weeks you will know your way around the admin area, have a basic understanding of views, panels, and CCK. Once you are proficient, you can build a moderately complex site within a week easily. Content editing by multiple staffers: We have setup roles for each dept that provides content, and then assigned one person in that dept to manage posting (someone comfortable with posting blogs and pages to the web, and can understand BASIC html.) Once a user has a role you can pair down hundreds of permissions to limit them, and again, if it not there you can code a permission yourself. Social media integration: Hundreds of modules are available for this. Search projects on drupal.org and see what you can find, more than likely
[MCN-L] Drupal vs. WordPress MU as content management systems
We've done a half-dozen smaller sites in wordpress and I've flirted with the idea using wordpress for our primary site (www) but we've never gotten to actual implementation. Gerald's observation in this thread is a good one -- drupal started with the goal of being a comprehensive CMS and has worked it's way down the food chain, wordpress the reverse. However, I think the developer community around wordpress have decreased the pain point in wp playing as a grownup substantially. We started using wp because the back-end is surprisingly friendly for the average user. I always found an extra layer of abstraction in drupal that made simple things not straightforward and I always found my mental model expecting something slightly different than what drupal delivered. Admittedly, that was usually because I was trying to do something simple and dirty and drupal was the over-powered tool for the simple task (oh, but what an awesome tool at the end of the day). Drupal also generally struck me as something made by developers for developers, wordpress seemed to err on the side of users designers. I know that the next major rev of Drupal will be going through a major overhaul of the back-end, I'm looking forward to the improvements. I think both systems have incredibly rich user communities surrounding them and more often than not, we can find a plugin that's close to some sort of functionality that we need / want and we can modify from there. Even luckier, there's a rich developer community for wordpress around Denver and we know the original developer (Matt) so we have something of a fallback position if we got really serious and got stuck along the way. I think drupal's being used for the larger sites that I know of (IMA redesign, Balboa Park Collaborative, to name a few) and I think your choice depends on familiarity, scope of project, and programming skills. -bw. -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Bruce Wyman, Director of Technology Denver Art Museum / 100 W 14th Ave. Pkwy, Denver, CO 80204 office: 720.913.0159 / fax: 720.913.0002 bwyman at denverartmuseum.org
