Drupal vs WordPress

Updated October 2026 · AppBreakup editorial

Drupal

Open-source PHP CMS built for complex, structured sites in government, universities and enterprises.

Open sourceSelf-hostable

Visit Drupal Drupal profile

WordPress

The open-source PHP CMS behind a large share of the web, from blogs to big publisher sites.

Open sourceSelf-hostable

Visit WordPress WordPress profile

The short answer

Pick WordPress for blogs, company sites and small stores where cheap hosting, easy editing and a vast plugin library matter most. Pick Drupal for large, structured sites with many editors, detailed permissions and multilingual content, such as universities or public bodies. Both are free, GPL-licensed PHP software; the biggest difference is that WordPress is built for ease and reach, Drupal for structure and scale.

Drupal or WordPress: our take

WordPress and Drupal are both open-source PHP content management systems that you host yourself. WordPress centres on pages and posts edited with a block editor, and its huge directory of themes and plugins gives almost any kind of site a well-worn path, including online stores through WooCommerce. Drupal centres on structure: content types, fields, taxonomies, granular roles and permissions, multilingual content and revision workflows are part of its core, with thousands of contributed modules on top. It can also serve as a headless backend through JSON:API and GraphQL modules.

The software is free for both, so costs come from hosting and people. WordPress hosting is cheap and widely available, and developers are easy to hire almost anywhere; non-developers can build and edit pages themselves. Drupal expects developers: building and upgrading a site well takes real PHP and Drupal knowledge, and many organisations work with a specialist agency. The packaged Drupal CMS starting point makes setup friendlier, but Drupal is still heavy for a small brochure site.

Maintenance looks different in practice. WordPress sites that pile up plugins get slow and fragile, third-party plugin quality varies widely, and its popularity makes it a constant target for attacks, so updates cannot be ignored. Drupal's risks are concentrated in major upgrades and custom modules, which need experienced developers. Both have large communities; WordPress's is broader, Drupal's more professional and enterprise-focused.

For a blog, a marketing site, a small business or a small shop, WordPress is usually the faster and cheaper route. For an organisation with lots of interlinked content, many editors with different rights, several languages, or a need to feed content to other channels, Drupal's structure is worth its learning curve.

Choose Drupal if…

Organisations with complex content, many editors and in-house or agency developers
Strong content modelling, permissions and multilingual support in core
Thousands of contributed modules and a large professional community

Choose WordPress if…

Anyone who wants the largest ecosystem of themes, plugins, hosts and developers
You need iOS and Android, which Drupal doesn't list
Huge plugin and theme ecosystem for almost any feature
Cheap hosting and easy-to-find developers everywhere

What is Drupal?

Drupal is a long-running open-source CMS written in PHP and released under the GPL. Its strength is structure: content types, fields, taxonomies, granular roles and permissions, multilingual content and revision workflows are all part of the core, and thousands of contributed modules add the rest. That makes it a common choice for universities, governments, NGOs and large organisations with many editors and lots of interlinked content. It can also act as a headless backend through its JSON:API and GraphQL modules. Recent versions add Drupal CMS, a packaged starting point with a friendlier setup and recipes for common site types. The trade-off is that Drupal expects developers: building and upgrading a site well takes real PHP and Drupal knowledge, and small sites can find it heavy compared with WordPress. The software is free; you pay for hosting, agencies or in-house developers. It is self-hosted on standard PHP stacks or on specialist Drupal hosts, and edited through the browser.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is the self-hosted, open-source content management system distributed from WordPress.org. You install it on any PHP and MySQL or MariaDB host, then build pages and posts with the block editor and extend it with a huge directory of free and paid themes and plugins. Almost any kind of site has a well-worn path: blogs, company sites, membership sites, and online stores through WooCommerce. Because it is so widespread, hosting is cheap, developers are easy to hire and most marketing tools have a WordPress plugin. The downsides come with that flexibility. Sites that pile up plugins get slow and fragile, updates need attention, and popular installs are a constant target for attacks, so someone has to own maintenance. The software itself is free under the GPL; costs come from hosting, premium themes and plugins, and developer time. It runs on your own server or on managed WordPress hosts, with an admin that works in any browser and official mobile apps for editing.

Side by side

Attribute	Drupal	WordPress
Pricing	Open source	Open source
Open source	Yes	Yes
Self-hostable	Yes	Yes
Platforms	Self-hosted, Web	Self-hosted, Web, iOS, Android
Best for	Organisations with complex content, many editors and in-house or agency developers	Anyone who wants the largest ecosystem of themes, plugins, hosts and developers
Status	Active	Active

Verified facts, compared

Facts both apps publish, checked on each vendor's own site.

Fact	Drupal	WordPress
License	GPL	GPL
Open source	Yes	Yes