Is Drupal the right platform for you?

Should we make the switch to Drupal? Will it meet our needs? What modules and functionality should we implement?

Having worked in the tech space for close to two decades, most of which has been in the Australian federal government space – I get asked this question a lot.

While I’m someone who’s firmly platform agnostic (picking the right platform depends on a bunch of things including your organisation’s goals and unique needs, budget constraints, in-house tech capabilities, timelines etc), I can understand why Drupal’s open-source and flexible nature makes it an appealing option.

It’s not surprising that there are now 300+ websites managed by over 100 Australian government agencies and departments built on Drupal’s GovCMS. (A handful of which we’ve built and worked on at Jude!)

So, should you move to Drupal?

Things to consider upfront

• Purpose of the site: What is the purpose and goal of this site? Is your site meant to help citizens access government services? Is it an e-commerce site where customers buy products? Or is it an internal site, designed to help thousands of employees navigate internal processes? Clearly articulating your site’s purpose will help shape your technical requirements. For instance, if you need to provide citizens access to different government services, then you might need to set up login credentials and integrate directly with those service platforms. If you need an e-commerce site, then things like product listings pages and a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) will be critical.
• Future needs: If possible, think about how the site might evolve over the next couple of years. By identifying future requirements upfront, you can bake these needs into your platform decision and effectively futureproof your platform. Nobody likes paying avoidable tech debt!
• In-house capabilities and maintaining the site: How regularly will you be making updates to your site? Updates include everything from content to design and feature improvements, to security updates. Alongside this, you need to identify what skills and capacity your team has, so that whatever platform you pick aligns with your internal resourcing.
• Budget and timeline constraints: How much budget do you have allocated to the build and ongoing maintenance of your site? How quickly do you need to stand up this site or migrate to this new platform? These are two incredibly important questions, as the answers will have a major impact on your platform decision.

Don’t skip doing this upfront thinking! It’s super important and should be the first thing you do before narrowing your focus onto a few platform options. If Drupal is one of those options, here’s when I believe it’s a good fit.

When to use Drupal

• Your team need to manage a tonne of website content – Drupal is a great option if your website will house pages and pages of content. Just note: there are quite a few components that don’t come out-of-the-box that we highly recommend you implement to streamline content management for your team. We’ve listed these below!
• You need top notch security, and regular updates without being tied down by ongoing subscription costs – That’s the beauty of open source. You have a global community of developers who are incredibly passionate about the platform (one of my lead developers is one of them!) and security updates are always prioritised.
• You need an enterprise-level platform, with open-source documentation – I think this is what makes Drupal particularly unique. It comes with the sort of support, knowledge-sharing and documentation you’d expect as an enterprise-level platform. But it’s open source so, feature development and ongoing improvements can be made by anyone, and benefit everyone. Additionally, documentation is excellent, allowing your developers to easily upskill.
• You need the flexibility to add features later on – Whether it’s personalisation, Digital Asset Management (DAM), monolithic and headless options, easy integrations with APIs and analytics tools like Google Tag Manager, Drupal supports a stack of features. Even better, because it’s open source you can build pretty much whatever you need.
• Cost is a major factor – You need all the above, but without the hefty price tag. Drupal generally has a much lower cost of entry and lower ongoing fees compared to platforms like Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) and Sitecore

When not to use Drupal

• You need a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform – While yes, CRMs can be plugged into Drupal, the point of Drupal is not a CRM platform. This is where something like Salesforce would be better suited.
• You only need a simple website – If you only need a basic website with very little functionality and you won’t be making tones of content updates, Drupal will likely be overkill. (Unless of course in the future you need features that Drupal provides). But if you only need a basic website, I’d suggest looking at Webflow or DatoCMS.
• You need an internal website for collaboration – If you’re looking for an internal website where employees can share information and files, and anyone and everyone can make edits and changes then a Confluence or Sharepoint will make more sense.
• You want a set and forget approach to security – Unlike Software as a Service (SaS) options where security updates are simply part of the package, Drupal doesn’t work this way. With Drupal, you need to monitor, plan and manage your security updates as they become available. This works great for some clients who need and want to have that control over the security. But if you don’t have the in-house capabilities to do this, or aren’t willing to pay someone else to manage it for you, Drupal isn’t for you.

Ok, so you’re thinking Drupal sounds like the right fit. But wait, what the hell is GovCMS, Drupal Core and DrupalCMS?

Different Drupal flavours you can pick from

• GovCMS: The Drupal solution set up and designed specifically for Australian government websites. Using it means aligning with the Australian Digital Service Standard, as well as the Whole of Government Hosting strategy.
• Drupal Core: Is the ‘vanilla’ approach to Drupal, allowing you to configure everything yourself from scratch. Ideal if you’ve got a team of developers or have quite bespoke needs.
• DrupalCMS: Ideal for non-tech teams out there looking to quickly stand up a site. It’s a new initiative built by the Drupal community and is a plug and play option for marketing teams who don’t have a dedicated developer in their team. Just note that while you can quickly build a site on your local environment (your computer), if you want to share it with the world you’ll still need to deploy it and host it somewhere, meaning you’ll need a developer for that part.

Drupal functionality that isn’t out of the box (but should be!)

The modules that come out of the box (OOTB) will vary depending on whether you pick GovCMS, Drupal Core or DrupalCMS.

However, there are a handful that don’t come out of the box but are absolutely worth implementing before go live.

You’ll also need to manually block deepseek if you are an Australian Government entity.

Picking the right platform

Look, picking the right platform is not a one-size-fits all decision. Drupal isn’t for everyone. But if you need a platform that’s powerful, flexible and won’t break the bank – it’s one to consider.