CMS Weekly

Work At Play: How To Convince Your Boss Why Drupal is Better Than Proprietary CMS
Transcript From Episode CMSW2009-09-28

In large organizations, convincing your boss or department or project to use Drupal can sometimes be met with resistance. But in fact, a lot of the arguments work for Joomla as well. This following table has been instrumental in convincing decision makers regarding why Drupal (and by extension open source) is leaps and bounds better than proprietary content management systems.

From think.workatplay.com, a table to help convince decision makers that Drupal and Open Source are leaps and bounds better than proprietary content management systems. The table compares Drupal to a commercial CMS on factors such as cost/licensing, development community, business continuity, add-on functionality, cost to make changes to the core, and awards. Of course the table is designed to show Drupal as the clear choice, so each category highlights limitations of the proprietary CMS in contrast with the strength of Drupal.

Proprietary CMSs have a department that can work on the website, assuming they are all proficient with it. There are many thousands of Drupal developers (and companies) around the world. If the CMS company ever goes out of business, bought, or the vendor relationship changes, there is a risk of being stuck with a website no one knows how to operate.

If a Drupal company or vendor ever goes out of business or the relationship changes, there are a well-qualified group of others who can take over instantly.

There are typically a handful of extensions to any proprietary CMS system such as Shopping Cart, Forums, etc. All involve additional licensing and customization costs. With more than 1,800 available modules, (over 4000 extensions to Joomla), the vast majority of your site’s requirements can be addressed with Drupal CMS and the available add-on modules (in a shorter period of time).

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