The Pros and Cons of Drupal Hosting
Drupal is open source software usable by both individuals and groups of persons. It is available freely to those with technical know-how and those without technical skills for use in content management and web development. It has developed rapidly since its introduction a few years ago. Again, it has evolved into a robust web development tool. Its availability is wide as it comes in over 180 languages and is in usage in over 90% of world countries. It has great features like outstanding security, a user-friendly interface, it is secure, and something worthy to note is its flexibility. As is true with technology, it has its drawbacks too.
Pros of Drupal
Modularity
One of the best things about this type of hosting is its elasticity. When you first unwrap this product, it is virtually a blank slate. Embedded in it lies a goldmine of structures that let you define what you want to appear on your website and how you want it to look. It is an enormous plus since it allows novices to come up with complex ideas and execute them within short periods of time thus saving on manpower and time. It has inbuilt themes that render web building straightforward. It gives users the liberty to tailor the templates to their expectations thus becoming convenient for advanced web developers.
Allows for Customization and Prototyping
Drupal comes with pre-built add-ons that increase its functionality. It thus allows you to come up with an entirely new idea and have it working in say a weekend. The individual products serve as starter kits. You have the freedom to make hybrids of the components by for example using the WYSIWYG editor to copy and paste texts and move videos. Better still you can assimilate Drupal with peripheral applications available to you. Concerning content management, no other software comes close.
Security Updates are Regular and Thorough
Feeling secure while working makes you have the peace of mind. With this type of hosting, safety is taken seriously. Drupal is open source thus making it vulnerable to attackers. It should not worry you as the Drupal security crew works to ensure safety for your websites around the clock. You only need to subscribe to Drupal security email notifications where problems meet solutions quickly.
It Has a Global Community of Collaborators
Drupal has an almost fanatical following globally. Developers, designers, strategists, trainers, editors, coordinators and sponsors work together. This following creates documentation, provides support and shares networking opportunities. It enables users to create and contribute their innovations. The admin exercises control over creations and publishing on the site. The joint commitment and spirit elevate Drupal to even higher levels.
Cons of Drupal Hosting
Learning Drupal Takes Quite an Effort
Those in the Drupal world even have coined a term to refer to learning the system- Drupalism. It just politely means one should follow Drupal empirical methods. It is not sufficient for you to be proficient in PHP. It is a problem one has to contend with especially since Drupal is open source technology. Lots of learning takes place, what matters is hidden within pages upon pages of API documents. Having had no prior experience in Drupal would indeed demand a lot of money and time.
Issues with Compatibility
Drupal hosting systems are rather new to the scene. It is not familiar to many people thus you may not find it useful. Furthermore, it is not compatible with other platforms and systems. Drupal is open source. Therefore, we have many variants under the umbrella Drupal. As is the case, Drupal contributors are third party individuals. They do their upgrades during their free time resulting in late releases of updated software. Updating full versions of software under Drupal hosting is a tedious task. It is partly to decisions made by the Drupal community of breaking the norm of laying down legacies just so that previous versions can be compatible with new software. The thinking being that, new releases of Drupal may accommodate new technologies in the hope that it breeds a good overall system over and above continuity. So if you are thinking of moving from say Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, you will need more effort in that you will have to buy the new version and not just upgrade parts of the old system.
Slow Speeds
Technically, a Drupal-based system has to cover a lot of scenarios for it to be flexible. It makes it seem slow as it has to run more code than flexible systems. This problem stems from Drupal being open source. Some contributors do not put in the time and hard work required to come up with optimized code. Another problem is large Drupal based sites do not run well with shared hosting as this sites do not have the flexibility Drupal has.
Large Website Incompatibility
With the growth of sites, addition extra modules become standard. All this modules run their code when they hook onto Drupal’s core. As they pile over each, there is bound to be conflict resulting in slow speeds, poor user experiences, crashes, and errors. People then develop the notion that Drupal cannot run large websites.
This post should give you some understanding about hosting on Drupal. Owing to its newness on the scene, it has its shortcoming since it is still in the development stage. The greatest thing about it is its individuality and its proven credibility in lots of areas in the web sphere. As a developer or an interested party, experiment with different technology, this will make you a better developer in the long run. As a client, look at the needs of your audience and then decide what technology you would choose.
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