What is Drupal? Features, Benefits, and Why It’s the Best CMS for Your Needs

What is Drupal?

Drupal is a powerful, open-source CMS designed to help organizations build, manage, and scale their digital platforms. In fact, Drupal powers 6.85% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide (data collected on January 23, 2025)—including government portals, enterprise platforms, and nonprofit initiatives—and offers flexibility, scalability, and security. Moreover, Drupal’s modular framework, supported by a global developer community, can adapt to the complex digital needs of businesses of any size.

What is Open Source?

Open source refers to software whose source code is made freely available for anyone to view, modify, and distribute. This approach promotes collaborative development and transparency, allowing users to adapt the software to their specific needs. 

Open-source software is typically distributed under licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition, which outlines criteria such as free redistribution and access to the source code.

As an open source technology, Drupal eliminates licensing fees, reducing overall costs while supporting any organization’s needs for cost efficiency and adaptability for evolving digital needs.

Core Features of Drupal

Drupal provides a wide range of capabilities, but three key features are particularly important for organizations looking for a CMS:

• Drupal is flexible: Drupal is built around a core system that provides essential functionalities, while modules allow for easy customization and expansion. For example, the State of Georgia migrated over 50 agency websites to a unified Drupal platform, enabling agencies to maintain flexibility in customizing their sites while ensuring a consistent user experience.
• Drupal is scalable: Drupal manages high-traffic websites, enabling growth for enterprises, government agencies, and global platforms. Notable examples include WhiteHouse.gov, NBC's Olympics website, and The Weather Channel, all of which have successfully handled millions of visitors using Drupal.
• Drupal is secure: Drupal offers enterprise-grade security with the support of a dedicated security team, regular updates, and features like role-based access control. It safeguards data integrity, ensures safety, and complies with standards such as FedRamp, GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA.

“Drupal is much more secure than Wordpress. It has a dedicated security team that actively monitors for vulnerabilities, issues security advisories, and releases security updates regularly” says Maggie Lin of DevPanel.

Drupal for Large-Scale Enterprises

“For large Enterprise customers, the two most popular CMS choices are Wordpress and Drupal. Although Drupal has its share of vulnerabilities, it is not targeted by hackers as much as Wordpress because it has a much smaller market share than Wordpress. The ROI for hackers is just not there with Drupal,” says Salim Lahani. “It makes a lot of sense for Enterprise customers to go with Drupal because not only is it more secure than Wordpress, it is also not as often targeted by hackers because of its much smaller install base.” continued Mr. Lakhani.

Enterprises need CMS platforms that streamline not only the Content Development Life Cycle but also the Software Development Life Cycle. Enterprise-grade platforms must handle content creation, review, approval, publication, and optimization while giving developers the ability to create dev, test, live/prod environments and letting them integrate third party CI/CD tools like Github Actions, Gitlab CI, Bitbucket Pipelines, Jenkins, Circle CI, etc.

Drupal’s modular architecture also addresses custom integrations, such as advanced analytics tools (like Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, MixPanel, etc.) and CRMs, while supporting content management in multiple languages for global audiences. 

For example, Drupal’s multilingual capabilities ensure consistent branding for global organizations, and its scalability and security features maintain performance during high traffic periods. Pfizer uses Drupal to manage its intricate digital ecosystem, ensuring performance and compliance across international markets. When run on Kubernetes, Drupal can autoscale horizontally and vertically. Drupal can be easily run on AWS’s EKS (managed Kubernetes) and MS Azure’s AKS (managed Kubernetes) natively or by using control panels like DevPanel. 

By supporting custom workflows, multilingual content, and integrations with tools, Drupal enables enterprises to build digital experience platforms (DXPs) that scale with demand. Its role-based access controls, frequent security updates, and performance optimization tools ensure reliable and secure systems capable of managing high traffic and diverse content for any business.

Drupal for Governments

According to Mr. Lakhani, the “US government began using Drupal around the mid-2000s. The decision by the Obama administration in 2009 to move Whitehouse.gov to Drupal significantly boosted its credibility and encouraged other agencies like NASA, HHS, DOD and the VA to follow suit.” Mr. Lakhani later expanded “it doesn’t hurt that Drupal is also FedRamp and WCAG friendly.”

As of 2021, Drupal powered approximately 56% of government websites globally, reflecting its role as a trusted public sector platform. Governments rely on Drupal to provide secure and accessible digital services capable of handling critical events, such as elections and emergencies.

By adhering to WCAG 2.1 standards, Drupal ensures inclusivity, making websites and features accessible to all, including people with disabilities. Moreover, Drupal’s robust security features, such as role-based access controls and regular updates, safeguard sensitive government data against cyber threats. For instance, FEMA.gov uses Drupal to deliver real-time emergency updates and resources, ensuring reliable performance even during periods of high demand.

Drupal for Healthcare Organizations

According to Mr. Lakhani, “Not only is Drupal compliant with regulations like HIPAA and GDPR, it also integrates well with electronic health record (EHR) systems like Epic and CRM systems like Salesforce Health Cloud. This makes Drupal an ideal choice for healthcare organizations.”

Healthcare organizations choose Drupal to meet strict regulatory requirements and enhance patient engagement. Its role-based access control and encryption features ensure compliance with standards like HIPAA, safeguarding patient data. 

Drupal integrates with healthcare systems such as electronic health records (EHR) and telemedicine platforms. Its scalability supports the expansion of patient portals and public health campaigns, while personalization capabilities deliver tailored healthcare resources to patients.

Understanding How Drupal Works

Drupal is built on a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) or LEMP (Linux, Nginx, MySQL, PHP) stack, providing a solid foundation for dynamic and scalable websites. Designed for extensibility and modularity, Drupal leverages Symfony components—reusable, decoupled libraries for PHP applications—to enhance performance, maintainability, and flexibility. 

Building on this foundation, Drupal’s key components—core, modules, themes, and nodes—work together to empower site administrators and developers to create highly customizable and scalable content management experiences.

• Core: The essentials of what Drupal is, offering user management, content creation, and basic site design. In addition, Drupal’s core architecture is designed to handle high traffic efficiently while maintaining fast load times.
• Modules: With access to over 50,000 modules, Drupal enables organizations to extend its functionality in areas such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), e-commerce, and analytics. These modules allow businesses to easily adapt and scale their websites to meet evolving needs without extensive custom development.
• Themes: Drupal offers over 3,000 themes, allowing users to define layout, typography, colors, and overall styling, ensuring brand consistency and enhancing user experience. 
• Nodes: Nodes represent individual content items, such as articles, pages, or blog posts, providing a structured and flexible approach to content management in Drupal. Each node can have custom fields, making it adaptable for different content types and ensuring consistency across the website.

For example, a government website might combine multilingual modules, accessibility-friendly themes, and custom workflows, offering the flexibility to modify any of these elements independently without impacting the others.

How Does Drupal Handle High Traffic?

There are many ways to optimize Drupal to handle high traffic. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) like Cloudflare, Cloudfront, and Akamai are generally the first line of defense. CDNs reduce latency by caching copies of the website files around the globe. This is generally followed by adding caching, optimizing server and database settings. Caching apps like Redis, Memcached and Varnish are used most often but managed services like Elasticache are often used by companies running their Drupal sites on AWS. Load balancing and PHP tweaks like OPcache are also used to ensure high uptime. Combined, all these techniques can make Drupal sites extremely fast. This makes Drupal a great choice for high traffic applications like news sites, government portals and enterprise websites.

How Can Non-Developers Use Drupal?

Drupal, once perceived as a developer-centric platform, has steadily evolved to cater to non-technical users with tools that simplify website management. The intuitive admin dashboard allows content creators to publish pages, blogs, and news articles effortlessly, while the Layout Builder module transforms design into a visual process—drag, drop, and rearrange content blocks without coding. Pre-built themes and plugins further streamline customization, letting users swap designs or add SEO tools and contact forms in minutes. However, despite these advancements, many businesses still rely on developers for initial setup, security updates, and complex integrations—a gap that inspired Drupal’s latest innovation.

Enter “Drupal CMS,” a new purpose-built solution designed to compete directly with no-code platforms like Wix and Squarespace. Unlike traditional Drupal (now called Drupal Core), this new variant comes with pre-configured themes, modules, and performance optimizations, letting users launch polished sites in hours rather than weeks. Built-in AI integrations makes it easier to build and configure the site while the new auto-update feature makes it easy for non-technical users to maintain the site.

What Are the Benefits of Using Drupal?

Drupal stands out among CMS platforms for its flexibility, performance, and scalability. Let’s break down the benefits:

1. Cost-Effectiveness:
   As an open-source CMS, Drupal eliminates licensing fees, significantly reducing the total cost of ownership. Moreover, organizations can leverage Drupal’s extensive library of free modules and themes, enabling budget-conscious groups to build feature-rich websites without sacrificing flexibility or customization.
2. SEO-Friendly Features:
   Drupal is equipped with tools to optimize search engine visibility, including meta tags, clean URLs, and XML sitemaps, ensuring improved ranking and discoverability.
3. Scalability:
   Whether managing a high-traffic enterprise site or a growing public service portal, Drupal’s caching mechanisms and CDN integrations ensure consistent performance under heavy loads.
4. Security:
   Drupal’s enterprise-grade security features, including encryption and role-based access control, make it a trusted solution for industries that handle sensitive data, such as healthcare, finance, and government.
5. Active Community Support:
   Drupal’s vibrant global community contributes new modules, provides extensive documentation, and offers support through forums and events, ensuring that users and developers have access to the resources they need.
6. Adaptive Architecture:
   Drupal's architecture is built for long-term adaptability, enabling seamless updates and integration with emerging technologies. This ensures that websites stay modern, aligned with evolving digital trends, and require minimal redevelopment.
7. API-First & Headless Capabilities:
   Drupal is built with an API-first approach, enabling seamless integration with third-party applications, mobile apps, AI, IoT, and other emerging technologies. It also supports headless architecture, allowing developers to use modern front-end frameworks like React, Vue.js, or Angular to create fast, dynamic, and scalable digital experiences across multiple platforms. 
8. Composable Architecture:
   Drupal’s composable architecture allows developers to reuse existing modules, templates, and configuration settings, minimizing redundancy and accelerating development. Instead of building features from scratch, teams can assemble pre-existing components to create custom, scalable, and efficient digital experiences.

Drupal vs. Other CMS Platforms

Here’s what the market looks like today, beginning of 2025.

Trends and Context

• WordPress’s dominance: Its market share has grown 12% year-over-year since 2011, now powering 47.5% of the top 1,000 most-trafficked sites..  
• Joomla’s decline: Once holding 10.9% market share in 2011, it now struggles with a steep learning curve and fragmented development community.  
• Drupal’s niche: Though used by 7.5% of top 1,000 sites (e.g., governments, universities), its complexity limits broader adoption. 
• Rise of Shopify/Wix: Fueled by small businesses, they’ve grown 800% since 2016, because of ease-of-use and because of how easy they are to customize.

Best Fit For

• Drupal: A robust choice for large-scale enterprises, governments, and healthcare organizations, Drupal offers customization, scalability, and security. Its modular architecture supports complex workflows, multilingual websites, and integrations with enterprise tools.
• WordPress: Best suited for smaller websites, blogs, and small to medium-sized businesses, WordPress is user-friendly and affordable. However, it relies heavily on third-party plugins for advanced features, which can impact security and scalability.
• Joomla: A middle-ground CMS offering more flexibility than WordPress but less complexity than Drupal. Joomla is ideal for mid-sized projects that require moderate customization and scalability but lack the depth needed for enterprise-level applications.

Can I demo Drupal for free?

Yes! Drupal provides several ways to explore its features without committing:

• Demo Drupal: Test Drupal’s capabilities directly on DrupalForge.
• Local Installation: Download and install Drupal to experiment with its features on your machine.
• Cloud-Based Drupal Sandboxes: Use pre-configured development sandboxes to try out different Drupal modules without a local setup. Use the “For Developers” build on DrupalForge.org (bottom of each application page) or use the Simplytest.me site.

These options allow you to experience Drupal firsthand and see if it will fit your needs.

Conclusion

Drupal combines flexibility, scalability, and security, making it a trusted CMS for enterprises, governments, and industries like healthcare. Whether you’re managing a complex website, handling high traffic, or delivering personalized user experiences, Drupal’s modular design ensures your platform is ready to meet evolving demands. 

Ready to see what Drupal can do? Demo Drupal today and unlock its full potential.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Drupal used for?
   Drupal is an open source CMS used to build websites, applications, and digital experiences. It is built on PHP and runs on a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), providing a scalable and flexible solution for managing complex content structures, multi-user workflows, and high-traffic websites.
2. What types of organizations use Drupal?
   Drupal is ideal for organizations needing robust customization, security, and scalability for their projects. It’s particularly well-suited for industries like government, healthcare, and large enterprises. While Drupal excels in handling large-scale projects, it can be tailored for smaller businesses if they require advanced customization or anticipate scaling in the future. 
3. How does Drupal handle content management?
   Drupal offers a structured approach to content management using nodes, content types, and taxonomy systems. It allows users to design the hierarchy by which they create, manage, and organize content.
4. Can I use Drupal if I don’t know how to code?
   Yes, you can use Drupal without coding, as it provides user-friendly interfaces for managing content, customizing layouts, and using predefined site management workflows. Now, with Drupal CMS, it's even easier for non-developers to use Drupal.
5. Can I customize Drupal for my specific needs?
   Yes. Drupal is highly customizable. You can tailor its themes, modules, and workflows to fit your industry and project requirements.
6. Is Drupal open-source?
   Yes. Drupal is open-source, distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later, and is free to use. However, it should be noted that Drupal projects can include GPL-incompatible non-code assets (e.g. fonts, icons, etc.)
7. Can I try or demo Drupal before using it?
   Yes. You can explore Drupal using online demos, local installations, or cloud-based sandboxes. You can demo any version of Drupal, including Drupal CMS, at DrupalForge.org - without registration. You can also try out Drupal CMS at Drupal.org, and through other hosting companies.