Drupal, WordPress, and Open Source…Oh My?

If you have ever owned your own website or blog, been in charge of development for a company, or programmed in dev for a company, I’m sure you have spent and currently spend a lot of time dealing with the questions of, what’s the best platform to build X website, blog, or feature on? I know I have spend many a hour in a room with my teams trying to decide the answer to that exact question over and over again. I also know that the answer to that question can depend greatly on the skills and budget you have available as a company or individual. Is it best to use Drupal vs. Joomla, or WordPress vs, TypePad, etc.?

Brandon Buttars
Brandon Buttars

In an effort to answer these questions for my readers I called on an old friend of mine, Brandon Buttars to give his take on some of the open source solutions in the market today and to get his thoughts on a few other issues. Brandon and I have been friends for nearly 10 years and I fully believe he is one of the most skilled designers/developers out there. Brandon and I have worked together on many projects and Brandon currently is the Drupal Theming Specialist and Web Designer at Odin Development, and runs his own free lance design business at SmoothDZion.

I conducted my interview with Brandon on instant messenger. You can read the entire interview below with zero edits (for your reading pleasure). Brandon shares some great insight into Drupal, WordPress, and a few other things.

Andrew (GTalk) 12:09
How long have you been doing web design?

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:10
I started in 1998 just after high school. My first site I used FrontPage (nasty).
12:11
I’ve changed as the industry has changed over the last 10+ years
12:11
I’ve got from completed coded sites to database driven CSS. I’ve also jumped around from different open source projects.
12:11
“database driven CMS’s”
12:12
sorry. i’m a designer not a writer.

Andrew (GTalk) 12:12
no problem
Tell me about the companies you work for now, your own and Odin and what you and they specialize in?

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:16
ODIN specializes in Drupal web development and customization. Often time sites change in look but the core functionality stays the same. Because of that we can save our clients thousands of dollars using Drupal as the framework we build on. It has a huge community of contributors along with an extensive theme engine that allows you to make things look just about how ever you want them to look.
12:19
SMOOTHDZION was a company I started up in about 2002 when I found myself doing a lot of simple websites. It has evolved into much more now but the primary focus that SMOOTHDZION has always had is simple. WordPress has always been my platform of choice when it comes to the simple because you have to think of the user and how easy is it going to be for them to use. WordPress has an intuitive interface that just about anyone can catch onto and figure out. It also has a huge community of contributors and a site can be deployed very rapidly if the client knows and has documented what they want it to do and say.
12:20
I’ve always migrated to the Open Source communities because I’ve never been a “Programmer”, I’ve always been the guy that makes things look good. My focus and specialty is graphic design, HTML, and CSS. I also try and focus as much as possible on the search engine in my coding and design.

Andrew (GTalk) 12:21
that is great, thanks

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:21
np

Andrew (GTalk) 12:22
so what open source programs do you find work best?

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:26
i’ve always looked for the open source programs that are built on open source frameworks like php and apache and mysql because they seem to progress much more and seem to have less limitations. I also look for the ones that tend to be more search engine friendly when creating content and code. I started with Joomla but have ended up with WordPress and Drupal. The search engine really seems to take to those projects and the community seems to always have the search engine in mind as the projects are developed. There are others but if a project doesn’t grab me by it’s ease of use, interface, or featureset I’m usually quick to abandon it. I like Drupal because of how on top of things they seem to be, the way it’s module integrate with on another, and Drupal is also backed by some pretty good money and a company called Acquia which gives you commercial support if you want it.
12:26
If you are blogging, WordPress.
12:26
If you are going to do anything else, Drupal.

Andrew (GTalk) 12:27
So Drupal is basically the best solution outside of WordPress for blogging?

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:27
There are certain situations that an open source project might not fit. You just have to realize you may have to build a custom application if none of the project will work for you.
12:28
Yeah.
12:28
Drupal is great for blogging too, but wordpress for a single blogger works best.

Andrew (GTalk) 12:28
Compare Drupal to say Joomla, what makes Drupal better? Top 3-5 things?

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:28
If you are going to have a team of bloggers and create a site that has multiple blogs I would recommend Drupal.
12:30
It’s much more stable. I haven’t used Joomla much lately but I was talking to one of my friends who has and he had Joomla crash on him 3 times last week. Drupal has never done that in my experience. Joomla did quite often as I used it and I have a friend who’s site is unaccessible right now because Joomla stopped working on him.
12:32
The api and framework of Drupal is much more easier for integrations with outside projects and other modules. It’s amazing how many modules have been built for Drupal that are dependent on other modules. This allows for the community to embark on separate projects and come together with all the projects rather than focusing on one big project at a time. That actually moves the community forward much faster from my perspective.

Andrew (GTalk) 12:33
and what do you think are the top features of WordPress that set it apart?

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:37
Ease of use. Built very search engine friendly. It has a much less complex backend. The fact that so many people use it and that they actually have a wordpress.com community testing their product every day I think helps it quite a bit. I’m somewhat partial to WordPress because it was probably the first blogging platform that made sense to me when I used it, but also gave me the ability to do what I wanted with it. The simplicity of the database is a big one also. Drupal’s database has quite a few tables in it. WordPress has around 10 tables in it.
12:39
That’s why I guess I recommend WordPress because of it’s simplicity. But if you decide you are going to try and do much more with it you’ll end up eliminating the main reason you probably ended up choosing it, it’s simplicity. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) explains an untainted WordPress install to a T. If you are keeping it simple keep it simple with wordpress.

Andrew (GTalk) 12:40
that is great input, thanks.

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:40
np

Andrew (GTalk) 12:40
if someone wanted to have you design a custom wordpress template for them, how could they reach you?

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:42

Best thing to do is to contact me at http://www.smoothdzion.com/contact and give me as much detail as possible. I’ll filter your needs and recommend what I feel fits your situation.

Andrew (GTalk) 12:44
One last question: Name your top 3 resource websites for designers like yourself…what sites are helpful for you?

Brandon Buttars (GTalk) 12:49
hmmm
12:49
kuler.adobe.com
12:50
www.cssremix.com
12:50
istockphoto.com

Andrew (GTalk) 12:51
well, thank Brandon! I appreciate it.

4 thoughts on “Drupal, WordPress, and Open Source…Oh My?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *