Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Just thought I`d share this.  Drupal (www.drupal.org) is a great, free content management system with loads of free templates and extensions.  Its also really easy to install, even on GoDaddy.  I would recommend it to anybody who is looking for a way to build their small business website cheap with a lot of functionality.  I used it to building my site : Small Business Ideas and Management.  I have also used it to build sites for a few friends.

Here an article explaining more about what drupal is and how to get it.

Any CMS is good for a startup. And drupal is one of the better CMSs out there

Nice looking Drupal site.  I`m a Drupal fan.  My Drupal sites are

Messing around with Drupal now on a local install, XAMPP. It`s got a learning curve but that`s fine for me. Seemed like a better choice to me than Joomla after doing some research.

Anyone got any Drupal-made sites they`d like to showcase?

Oh man.  Here`s my lame Drupal site: http://malibumentor.com

My site - www.sbimonline.com is a Drupal site that I have been working on for a year...  it does take some time to learn but is worth it.  There are some great books out there as well.

I have heard great things about Drupal for eCommerce sites.  For my own site, I use Wordpress, which is commonly placed within the "blogger" side of Content Management Systems but has developed into a robust tool as good as Drupal and Joomla, Drupal`s supposedly more user-friendly competitor.

Open source CMS really transforms the possibility for low-cost website development.



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Tammi L. Coles
Archer Targeted Communication
ArcherTC.com
Follow me on Twitter @archertc

As a long-time web architect / programmer, I have only recently moved heavily into open-source applications such as Drupal - in the past all my work had been custom.  Since mid-2008, my company has developed several Drupal sites for clients (we have also worked with Silverstripe and Wordpress). While Drupal can be a fantastic platform, I believe its important to consider several key pieces when planning deployment:

1. If you are non-technical, engage a firm that has a solid Drupal track record. 
2. Premium templates are almost always worth the money.
3. Get educated - even if you are contracting for services, at the least read David Mercer`s Building Powerful and Robust Websites with Drupal 6.
4. Make sure you are using Drupal modules (such as Views, Panels, Content Templates, etc) rather than custom programming.
5. Be prepared to adjust or modify your requirements - especially when considering funky, page-specific programming - to account for Drupal`s theory of architecture and design constraints.
6. Drupal and its modules require regular upgrades - on a complex site I would plan on weekly downtime of 1-2 hours for upgrades.
7. Maintain a development and a live version of your site.  Absolutely.  Positively.  Not just a backup - but a running version.  Test ALL new block releases before placing on your live site.
8. Take core Drupal security releases seriously.  Very seriously.
9. Select a hosting company that not only supports Drupal, but brags about supporting it.  Don`t try to save $5 - $10 month with a cut-rate host.

See more at http://drupal.org/node/51169

Oh, in case any true believers think I am picking on Drupal - only Wordpress is easier to maintain.  And custom code from scratch - mine included - is 10x more expensive than adapting a mature open-source platform like Drupal.   Drupal, Silverstripe, and Wordpress have become my company`s benchmark solutions.


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Phillip Barnhart
Web Architect / Managing Partner
SiteRiver: Web Applications Intelligence

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