Of all the CMS solutions available -- and there are dozens of them -- WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal have always been the break out stars. But as of 2017, Drupal has distinguished itself from the pack with a variety of new features and improvements. Here are the top five reasons why Drupal 8 has become the best content management system of 2017.
1. Better and more sophisticated user experience
In prior years, Drupal often came under fire for being a little too difficult for the average user. Public perception of Drupal has always been as an advanced, sophisticated system that required expertise to manage. In fact, modules such as "Views" were considered to be required by those looking for an easy way to manage their system. Drupal 8 counters this perception by providing a far more intuitive and simplified user and authoring experience. A revamped administrative system bolstered by intense usability testing makes Drupal as easy to use as any other content management system -- even just out of the box.
2. Flexible content types for custom site content
Drupal is a pure content management system. That means it's designed to manage any type of content. Recipe sites, social networks, and even online games can all be developed from the bottom up on Drupal. This makes it a very diverse and flexible system. Other content management systems, such as WordPress, are really designed primarily for blogging. Though they can be used for other purposes, the development time would be considerable. Through a myriad of modules and add-ons, Drupal can be used to develop anything from a fully functioning eCommerce site to a learning and teaching portal.
3. Superior security and performance
Though there have been usability issues in the past, Drupal was still always considered to be one of the best systems for resource intensive sites. Drupal 8 further improves upon the performance and scaling of the system by implementing the new PHP 7. Drupal can be up to five times faster than WordPress, which is a system that has long been considered notoriously poorly optimized. Larger applications and resource intensive applications will be able to remain fast and responsive through Drupal's caching and optimization -- in addition to also being highly secure and stable.
4. Multi-language and international support
We live in a global world and many of our websites today need to be international. Drupal 8 doesn't just offer technical advantages, it also offers some incredible international support. Translation and localization are both easier in Drupal now because Drupal 8 supports multiple languages on the authoring side. If your organization does work in other sectors of the world -- or you have developers in other areas of the world -- this may be critical.
5. Built-in responsive, mobile designs
Drupal 8 has been designed to seamlessly transition to mobile viewing, providing responsive designs for sizes of screen and types of device. In an increasingly mobile world, this is an incredibly important feature for a CMS. But that's not all. Though other content management systems such as WordPress can also support responsive designs, Drupal actually provides back-end web services for web applications. Native web apps are becoming a necessity in many sectors. Drupal can be used to drive both custom websites and associated native app services, which can be used to broaden audience reach.
Drupal 8 provides some fantastic news to Drupal developers and anyone looking for a robust, easy-to-use CMS. Drupal 8 addresses most of the core issues that developers had with Drupal as a whole. The once clunky and outdated administrative panel has been revamped, the user experience has been re-developed from the ground up, and even more of an emphasis has been placed on performance and responsiveness. On a whole, Drupal 8 is now the best content management system -- and it remains to be seen whether the other content management systems will be able to keep up.
