Is Drupal the best CMS for publishers?

The American open source expert, Seth Gottlieb from Content Here, has just published a new vendor neutral evaluation report titled Drupal for Publishers. If you are considering Drupal, the popular open source CMS,  in your organisation, this 25-page report is indeed worth your time – even if you do not consider yourself a publisher. While Drupal for Publishers takes a rather technical approach, it also provides useful information about different business scenarios, product history and background on the community.

Drupal has seen increased adoption and populartiy with its built-in emphasis on interaction and community contributions. As of writing, the system is downloaded almost 200,000 times each month. In comparison, Umbraco, another popular open source CMS, is only downloaded 20,000 times each month according to founder Niels Hartvig (in March 2009).

An indicator that Drupal is popular amongst publishers is the dedicated “Newspapers on Drupal group”. In Denmark, Drupal has also been picked up increasingly, especially in the publishing vertical,  where two of the largest national newspapers, Berlingske Media and Information, are both using it.  If you look outside the publishing industry, the large organisations using Drupal become fewer and farther between.

Gottlieb’s new report costs USD 100 and is divided into 3 main areas:

1. What publishers need to know
2. What editors needs to know
3. What developers needs to know

In addition, the report  lines up 5 short case studies from Fast Company, Lifetime TV, Morris Publishing, Now Public and The Onion. It finishes  with a product-at-a-glance sheet, where different product areas are rated on a 5-point scale ranging from “non-existent” to “exceptional”. According to Gottlieb, Drupal is actually at least “average”  (grade 3) in all areas. To quote the  introductory abstract:

“Drupal is particularly well suited for building social content applications. Indeed, Drupal’s interactive features are a key reason for its adoption by traditional media companies looking to engage their audience ans a contributing community. [...] Startups and established companies have also found that Drupal is extensible and scalable enough to grow with them.” (p. 2)

Drupal gets the job done according to Gottlieb. The report, however, also points out some caveats; especially with regards to 3rd party modules and the upgrade process. For a future edition, a mention of Drupal’s handling of accessibility and standards would be a valuable addition. On a more practical note, I miss a table of contents.

If you are a fan of the CMS Watch reports and carefully graded evaluations, you’ll like this report. As the title implies, Drupal for Publishers is more focused on the publishing industry, so if you are looking for something that is more generally enterprise-oriented or if you want to easily compare with alternatives, consider the Web CMS Report from CMS Watch.

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