Drupal vs Webflow: what is the better choice?

Drupal vs Webflow: what is the better choice?

Introduction 

Every business that has an online presence depends on content management systems to manage their website and blog. There are so many different kinds of content management systems around, so which one would be the best for your business? Each content management system has their own qualities and features, so choosing one out of all of them would be tough.

The benefit of using CMS is that it doesn’t require high level coding knowledge and so anyone with minimum coding knowledge can create functional pages and modify the website themselves. In this article, we would be discussing Drupal and Webflow, two of the most popular CMS around. 

What is Drupal?

Drupal was founded way back in 2001 by Dries Buytaert in Belgium. The name for the CMS was initially intended as Druppel, meaning droplet in Ditch. But he accidentally misspelt the name to Drupal while he was searching for a domain name, and the name stuck. Ever since it was introduced into the world, Drupal became one of the most popularly used CMS around, used by millions of websites, including small websites, huge corporation websites, government agencies etc. The web developer community of Drupal grew and eventually you had documentation and support. 

The multiple features of Drupal contributed to its major success:

Benefits of using Drupal

Here are some reasons why Drupal is a favourite choice among many designers. 

It is open source

Since Drupal is open source, anyone can use the platform, modify and distribute it. 

It is scalable

Drupal is noted for its scalability feature, enabling the highest levels of performance.

Highly secure

Drupal is renowned for its strong security features.

Huge and active community

Drupal’s large and active community is a highlight because practically anyone can use the documentation, contribute to the development and support. 

Is highly flexible

The flexibility of Drupal allows developers to create custom websites, and also for creating complex websites and web applications. 

Any language 

Drupal offers multilingual support, so that means it can be translated into more than 100 languages.

Webflow

Webflow is fairly new, and it was founded in 2013 by Vlad Magdalin, Sergie Magdalin, and Bryant Chou in San Francisco, California. There was a disconnect between the designers and developers, and this platform aimed to solve that by becoming a visual web design and development platform. Thus they were able to solve a common problem that existed between the designers and the developers. Now the designers can create and launch websites without the help of web developers easily. This led to a new buzz known as the No-Code moment. Eventually the Webflow became one of the fastest growing platforms in the design and development industry. 

Advantages of Webflow

Webflow became the favourite choice for web developers because of the following benefits:

1. Comes with its own CMS system

Webflow comes with its own hosting and content management system. This makes it easier for designers to create and manage the websites wherever they are, all in one place. 

2. Impressive loading times

Webflow is super fast, so the users don’t have to waste time waiting for the page to load. 

3. No coding knowledge required

The visual design tools makes it easy for just about anyone to create and manage the websites on a single platform. They don’t even have to know coding. 

4. Can open and function on all devices

Webflow is noted for its responsive design. So that means the websites will open on all devices without any issues. 

5. SEO friendly websites

With Webflow, you can easily develop SEO friendly websites, making it easy for the designers to create websites that rank higher in the search engines. 

6. Third-party integrations

Webflow has a number of third-party tools and services to make customisation easy. 

7. Javascript makes it even easier

Webflow is built using Javascript and this makes it possible for the designers to develop dynamic and interactive webpages. It also makes the applications fast and robust. 

8. Enable easy customisation of designs

The design tools in Webflow makes it easy for the designers to create highly customisable designs.

9. Amazing support 

The support and resources for Webflow is great because there is an incredible support community, an all encompassing knowledge base and an impressive customer support team. 

So, which one to choose: Drupal or Webflow?

1. Drupal – ideal for people with a bit of programming knowledge

Developers and designers with basic programming language knowledge can use Drupal because while you don’t have to be an expert in any programming language, having a basic knowledge will certainly help. This would make it easier for you to customise features that are already there in the platform, and make it more adaptable.

2. Webflow – ideal for people with no coding knowledge 

If you are a newbie developer or have absolutely no knowledge in programming then you can use Webflow. You can easily create a website and become a master of your own. You can wear many hats – developer, designer, website editor, content manager and so on even if you don’t know programming. You can easily create complex websites even if you are not technically adept at it. 

3. Drupal – full text search and full website management with video support

As Drupal supports full website management with video support, you can easily edit the text on the websites. It also lets you manage audio files and implement the full text search. But the features are not as good as Webflow. But the tool is free to use, so you can play around with it.

4. Webflow – loaded with plenty of advanced features

Webflow allows you to do a number of things provided you are a professional. You can do complete website management, implement electronic forms, edit text, manage backup and handle the SEO professionally. The platform comes with a number of advanced features which are not there in Drupal – document classification, customisable templates and editable templates.

5. Drupal – deployment options are limited

Drupal allows only deployment to the cloud, and that too Drupal owned cloud servers. It is not possible to deploy in the local Windows, Mac or Linux. 

6. Webflow – deployment on a variety of platforms

There are no limitations to where you can deploy with Webflow. It works perfectly on all platforms, making it a much better choice than Drupal.

Conclusion

While reviewing the above points, it becomes obvious that if you want to take the more professional route, then Webflow is a better option when compared to Drupal. Webflow has plenty of tutorials and training that makes it easy for people to get into the groove of the platform’s working. 

If you don’t want to spend a penny to create websites, then Drupal would be good. But then you might also have to consider the point that Webflow comes with both paid and free versions. It is only $16 for a basic plan. And there is support as well, with a good and helpful community. So go over your options before making the choice. 

Interesting Links:

Drupal vs. Joomla: Which Is Best for Your Business?

Is Webflow better than WordPress?

Pictures: Canva

The author: Sascha Thattil works at Software-Developer-India.com which is a part of the YUHIRO Group. YUHIRO is a German-Indian enterprise which provides programmers to IT companies, agencies and IT departments.