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What Is Drupal? Explained for Beginners

You’re likely to encounter Drupal at some point if you have anything to do with designing, building, or updating websites. After all, Drupal has been around since 2009 and is now used by half of fortune 500 companies. 

This article is ideal for anyone who wants to get familiar with Drupal, understand its features and benefits, and find resources to adopt Drupal for their website. 

What is Drupal

Drupal is an open-source content management system (CMS) used to build and manage websites. It provides a flexible and scalable platform that allows users to create a wide variety of digital experiences, from simple blogs to complex enterprise-level applications. Drupal is known for its high customization capabilities, extensibility, and robust community support.

Key features of Drupal

1. Content Management

  • Drupal allows users to create, edit, and manage various types of content like articles, pages, blogs, and multimedia. It also supports custom content types with fields and taxonomies to structure data in any way you need.

2. Modularity

  • One of Drupal’s strongest points is its modular nature. You can extend its functionality through thousands of available modules (plugins). These modules cover everything from SEO tools and user permissions to advanced features like e-commerce or forums.

3. Flexibility and Customization

  • Drupal can be used to build highly customized websites. You can define your own content structures, views, and user permissions, and use custom themes to create unique designs. It supports custom code through modules and themes, making it a great choice for complex or highly specific projects.

4. Taxonomy and Metadata

  • Drupal allows you to categorize and organize content using a flexible taxonomy system. It also supports advanced metadata management, enabling you to implement complex content relationships, tagging, and classification systems.

5. User Permissions and Roles

  • Drupal has a powerful user access control system. You can define different roles with customized permissions, giving granular control over who can view, create, or edit specific content.

6. Security

  • Drupal has a strong reputation for security. It is regularly updated with security patches, and it includes robust features to protect against common web vulnerabilities, such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection.

7. Multi-language Support

  • Drupal has built-in support for multilingual websites. You can easily create content in multiple languages and provide users with a seamless experience based on their language preferences.

8. Community and Ecosystem

  • Being open-source, Drupal has a large and active community of developers, designers, and users. There are many resources, tutorials, forums, and professional services available to help you get the most out of Drupal.

9. Scalability and Performance

  • Drupal is highly scalable, capable of handling large volumes of content and traffic. Many high-traffic websites and organizations use Drupal due to its robust performance capabilities and its ability to handle complex, dynamic content.

What Is Drupal Used For?

Now that you understand what Drupal is, you might be wondering what types of projects it’s typically used for. Drupal’s superb flexibility, out-of-the-box features, and open source model make it a go-to CMS for large, complex websites—as well as a favourite in the higher education, government, healthcare, and not-for-profit sectors. While many other CMSs focus on serving specific use cases, Drupal has evolved to accommodate almost any use case that involves digital content.

Drupal powers a wide range of digital experiences, including:

  • Corporate and institutional websites – distributed publishing workflows, corporate branding
  • Intranets – private content, custom workflows for internal processes, listings of internal content, single-sign-on
  • Online directories – advanced search interfaces, related content listings, integrations with third-party content
  • Interactive websites – features for logged-in users, multi-step forms, content personalization, custom JavaScript to create dynamic interfaces like maps and visualizations, decoupled front-ends
  • Marketing portals – landing pages that drive SEO and user experience, integrations with marketing automation tools, taxonomy and metadata management

Why Choose Drupal?

Choosing Drupal as your content management system (CMS) comes with a variety of benefits, especially for projects that require high levels of customization, scalability, and flexibility. Here are the key reasons why many businesses, organizations, and developers opt for Drupal:

1. Flexibility and Customization

  • Custom Content Types and Fields: Drupal allows you to define custom content types with specific fields (like text, images, dates, files, etc.), which means you can model your content structure exactly how you need it. Whether you’re running a blog, an e-commerce store, or a media site, you can create content types tailored to your business needs.
  • Modular Design: With thousands of contributed modules, you can extend Drupal to meet the specific needs of your project, whether it’s adding SEO tools, social media integration, or complex data management features. This modularity allows you to add or remove features as your project evolves.

2. Scalability

  • Handles High-Traffic Sites: Drupal is built to handle large volumes of traffic and content. It’s used by some of the world’s largest websites (e.g., Tesla, The Economist, Harvard University). Its scalability makes it an excellent choice for enterprise-level websites, multi-site environments, or platforms that require heavy performance optimization.
  • Large-Scale Deployments: Drupal’s ability to manage multiple websites from a single installation (using multisite functionality) is ideal for organizations operating in multiple regions or languages.

3. Security

  • Strong Security Features: Drupal has a strong track record when it comes to security, and its dedicated security team works hard to patch vulnerabilities. It follows best practices and guidelines to ensure that your website is secure against threats like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and cross-site request forgery (CSRF).
  • Enterprise-Level Security: Due to its robust security framework, Drupal is trusted by many government organizations, financial institutions, and enterprises that require high security, including the U.S. government.

4. Extensive Community and Support

  • Active Community: Drupal has one of the largest and most active open-source communities in the world. The community contributes to continuous improvements, the development of modules, and offers support through forums, documentation, and events like DrupalCon.
  • Commercial Support Options: While Drupal is free and open-source, there are also numerous professional services available, including agencies, freelancers, and consultants that offer specialized support, custom development, and maintenance services.

5. Multi-language Support

  • Built-In Multilingual Features: Drupal has powerful built-in multilingual capabilities, making it an excellent choice for websites that need to support multiple languages or cater to a global audience. It provides support for translations, content management, and localized experiences.
  • Flexible Translation Management: You can configure language-specific content, define custom translation workflows, and handle multilingual content in an intuitive way.

6. SEO-Friendly

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Modules: Drupal includes a wide range of built-in SEO features, and many contributed modules further enhance its SEO capabilities. With modules like Pathauto (for clean URLs), Metatag (for custom meta tags), and Redirect (for managing redirects), you can ensure that your site ranks well on search engines.
  • Clean Code and Semantic HTML: Drupal generates clean and semantic HTML code, which is important for search engine crawlers and improves the overall SEO of your site.

7. Content Workflow and Permissions

  • Advanced Content Workflow: Drupal includes robust content workflows that enable you to manage how content is created, reviewed, and published. This is particularly useful for large teams working on a site with many contributors, allowing you to define custom editorial workflows.
  • Granular Permissions: Drupal’s role-based access control system allows you to assign different permissions to users based on their role, so you can restrict access to sensitive content or features. This feature is essential for websites that have multiple contributors, editors, and administrators.

8. Mobile-Friendly and Responsive

  • Responsive Design: Drupal’s theming system allows for the creation of responsive websites that automatically adjust to different screen sizes (desktop, tablet, mobile). With mobile-first design principles in mind, Drupal ensures that your content is accessible on all devices.
  • Mobile App Integration: Drupal can be used as a back-end content management system for mobile applications. Its RESTful APIs allow seamless integration with mobile apps, enabling real-time updates and content delivery.

9. Integration Capabilities

  • Third-Party Integration: Drupal supports easy integration with third-party systems such as CRM, ERP, marketing automation tools, social media platforms, payment gateways, and more. Popular integrations include Salesforce, Mailchimp, and Google Analytics.
  • API-First Approach: Drupal is designed to work as an API-first CMS, meaning that you can integrate it with various external systems via APIs. This is ideal for modern web applications, progressive web apps (PWAs), or headless setups where you use Drupal only for managing content while delivering it to different front-end systems (like JavaScript frameworks or mobile apps).

10. Cost-Effectiveness

  • Open-Source and Free: Drupal is free to use, which can significantly reduce your development costs compared to proprietary CMS solutions. There are no licensing fees, and you have complete control over how you build, manage, and scale your website.
  • Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): With a large ecosystem of free and open-source modules, Drupal can help you minimize ongoing costs compared to proprietary platforms that require expensive licenses, updates, and add-ons.

11. High Performance

  • Caching Mechanisms: Drupal includes built-in caching systems (like page caching, block caching, and views caching) to improve the performance of your website, especially when handling high traffic.
  • Content Delivery Networks (CDNs): Drupal can easily be integrated with CDNs to serve static content (like images, CSS, and JavaScript) quickly and efficiently across the globe.

12. SEO and Accessibility

  • SEO-Friendly Features: Out-of-the-box, Drupal supports SEO best practices such as friendly URLs, sitemap generation, and meta tags. Modules like Metatag, Pathauto, and Redirect help fine-tune your site’s SEO.
  • Accessibility: Drupal is committed to web accessibility and includes tools to help developers create websites that are accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. It adheres to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards, making it a great choice for public-sector and educational websites.

13. Headless CMS Capabilities

  • Decoupled Architecture: If you want to use Drupal purely for content management and deliver content to different front-end technologies (like Angular, React, or Vue.js), Drupal can be used as a headless CMS. This allows you to build modern, dynamic web applications while leveraging Drupal’s content management power on the back end.

A Quick Drupal Glossary

When you’re getting familiar with Drupal, part of the learning curve is understanding the terminology. Don’t worry—you’ll soon find it’s not nearly as complicated as it might sound. Here are some useful terms to help you get started right away:

  • Node – any piece of individual content, such as a page, poll, article, forum topic, or a blog entry. 
  • Content type – a template for a specific node type. Typically, each content type has a set of fields that authors use to create it.
  • Taxonomy – vocabularies and terms used to organize your content. For example, this allows you to tag and categorize blog posts or news items.
  • View – a list of content, from a simple news list to something more exciting like a map or a calendar.
  • Module – code that you can add to your Drupal website to enable new functionality.
  • Theme – defines the layout and design of the user interface.
  • Block – a container for displaying anything on a page (the search form, the logo, the copyright notice in the footer.)
  • Permission – a task that a user can do (e.g. viewing content, posting a comment, editing an event.)
  • Role – a type of user (e.g. author, editor, or member.)
  • Drupal core – the out-of-the-box features and functionality that Drupal provides.
  • Contrib module – add-on functionality, made available by the Drupal community.
  • Custom module – add-on functionality, built in-house to address the need for a specific project (e.g. a module that integrates with a custom CRM.)