Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Drupal VS Strapi

Compare Drupal VS Strapi and see what are their differences

Drupal logo Drupal

Drupal - the leading open-source CMS for ambitious digital experiences that reach your audience across multiple channels. Because we all have different needs, Drupal allows you to create a unique space in a world of cookie-cutter solutions.

Strapi logo Strapi

Manage any content. Anywhere. The leading open-source headless CMS. 100% JavaScript / TypeScript and fully customizable.
  • Drupal Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-18
  • Strapi
    Image date //
    2024-06-07

Drupal features and specs

  • Flexibility
    Drupal is highly customizable and can be tailored to meet the unique needs of almost any web project. Its modular architecture allows developers to add functionalities and change behaviors without modifying the core system.
  • Scalability
    Drupal can handle large volumes of content and high traffic levels, making it suitable for both small websites and large, complex applications.
  • Security
    Drupal is known for its strong security features and has a dedicated security team that continuously works on identifying and fixing vulnerabilities.
  • Community Support
    Drupal has a large, active community of developers, designers, and users who contribute modules, themes, and support, facilitating problem-solving and innovation.
  • Multilingual Capabilities
    Drupal offers excellent support for multilingual websites, providing built-in translation modules and interfaces for managing content in multiple languages.

Possible disadvantages of Drupal

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Drupal's flexibility and power come at the cost of complexity, which can be daunting for new users and developers.
  • Performance Optimization
    While Drupal can handle high traffic, it requires careful performance tuning and caching strategies to perform optimally, which can add to development and maintenance overhead.
  • Development Time
    Building a site with Drupal can take more time compared to other content management systems due to its complexity, especially if custom features are required.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running a fully-featured Drupal site can be resource-intensive, often requiring more server resources compared to simpler CMS solutions.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies and updates for the numerous modules that make up a Drupal site can be complex and requires careful attention to compatibility and security.

Strapi features and specs

  • Open Source
    Strapi is an open-source platform, meaning it's free to use and has an active community contributing to its improvement. This can lead to rapid innovation and a wealth of community-driven resources.
  • Customization
    Strapi offers high levels of customization, allowing developers to tailor the content management system to their specific needs. This is beneficial for unique projects with specific requirements.
  • Headless CMS
    As a headless CMS, Strapi decouples the backend from the frontend, enabling developers to use any frontend technology they prefer, which increases flexibility and scalability.
  • RESTful and GraphQL APIs
    Strapi automatically generates RESTful APIs and also supports GraphQL out of the box. This makes it easier to integrate with various types of applications.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    Strapi provides a user-friendly admin panel that is powerful yet easy to use, making content management less of a chore for non-technical users.
  • Plugin Ecosystem
    Strapi has a growing ecosystem of plugins that can extend its functionality, allowing users to add features without extensive custom development.

Possible disadvantages of Strapi

  • Learning Curve
    Although Strapi is highly customizable, it can have a steep learning curve for new users, especially those who are not familiar with JavaScript and modern web development practices.
  • Performance Issues
    In some cases, users have reported performance issues, particularly when handling large amounts of data or complex queries, which may require optimization.
  • Community Support Variability
    While Strapi has an active community, the level of support and available third-party resources can vary, especially when compared to more mature CMS platforms.
  • Limited Built-in Features
    Out of the box, Strapi might lack some features that come built-in with other CMS platforms, requiring users to implement or configure these features themselves.
  • Self-Hosting Requirement
    Strapi requires self-hosting, which means you need to manage your own servers and infrastructure. This can be a downside for those looking for a fully managed solution.
  • Frequent Updates
    Frequent updates can sometimes introduce breaking changes, requiring developers to continuously adapt their codebase to stay current.

Drupal videos

Drupal Vs WordPress - Which Is The Best CMS?

More videos:

  • Review - Drupal 8: Comments, Reviews and Content Moderation Workflows
  • Review - Drupal Product Management Review: Out-of-the-Box

Strapi videos

Let's Checkout... #Strapi CMS

More videos:

  • Review - Quick Strapi Review
  • Review - Learn Strapi in 12 minutes 🚀

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Drupal and Strapi)
CMS
55 55%
45% 45
Blogging Platform
67 67%
33% 33
Blogging
50 50%
50% 50
Website Builder
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Drupal and Strapi

Drupal Reviews

Comparing 9 WordPress alternatives & competitors in 2024
Drupal isn’t for beginners, as it lacks in-product tutorials, and you will need to find a separate hosting service to publish sites online. But if you’re an experienced developer looking for a tool that gives you complete design control, Drupal might be the right choice.
Source: webflow.com
19 Best WordPress Alternatives in 2025
Drupal is a content management system known for its flexibility, scalability, and security. It's popular for complex websites, including news outlets, e-commerce platforms, and government portals. While Drupal is free and open-source, customization and development require technical expertise.
Source: www.pixpa.com
Top 10 Web Content Management Systems
Keeping up with the trend of introducing great open-source CMS systems, Drupal is our next entry on the list. Drupal is one of the oldest and most reputable customizable CMS options out there, with its original release dating back to 2001, making it older than WordPress. As a web CMS, Drupal’s principal focus is on security. It is known to have one of the best security...
Source: cloudzy.com
8 Great Drupal Alternatives to Try for your Website (Nov 2021)
Whether you're creating a new website from scratch or looking for a way to upgrade your existing one, you'll need the right content management system. A content management system (CMS), is a tool that helps you to modify and optimize your website however, you choose, without the need for any complex API or PHP work. While some CMS solutions allow you to have some control...
WordPress alternatives: Which CMS platform is the best?
With Drupal, the startup costs are higher than WordPress, since developing with Drupal requires more technical expertise. It’s more complex than WordPress, and you will likely need to pay for a developer. Besides that, you’ll have to invest in the basics like – domain registration, hosting, added security, and so on.
Source: factory.dev

Strapi Reviews

21 Headless CMS Platforms That You Should Check Out
Strapi is one of the most used headless CMS platforms. Strapi is an open-source headless CMS that is customizable and easy to use. Companies such as Walmart, eBay, Toyota, IBM use this platform.
Source: popupsmart.com
Best Headless CMS in 2022
Strapi is an open-source Node.js headless content management system, which means that the entire codebase is available on GitHub and thrives on contributors. Strapi generates a working RESTful API or uses GraphQL for developers in minutes after installation. Data is made available through a customizable API. It’s important to note that Strapi is a self-hosted, not a SaaS...
Source: flatlogic.com
Best Node.js CMS platforms for 2022
Strapi is a popular, flexible, and open-source headless CMS that enables us to create rich digital experiences. Strapi provides REST and GraphQL APIs developers can use to access the content stored in its repository.
Best Headless CMS for 2020
Valid argument. But what is the alternative? Strapi on a server with a Database? What about doing backups? Isn't it even more complicated? In a git-based CMS you can at least undo all changes, which isn't that easy with a database.
Source: dev.to
11 Headless CMS to Consider for Modern Application
Strapi is an opensource CMS intended to be transparent and striving to be a perfect balance between a CMS, framework, and an automation tool to speed-up back-end development and management.
Source: geekflare.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Strapi seems to be a lot more popular than Drupal. While we know about 336 links to Strapi, we've tracked only 28 mentions of Drupal. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Drupal mentions (28)

  • Is there and easy way of porting a site from d7 to d9?
    I would be interested in some good migration tools, paid ones are also ok. I found a post about this on drupal.org, but it didn't seem like an easy process. It is a multilanguage site with many content types, and a totally custom theme. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Is there any nice group, where I can ask questions, when I get stuck and recieve some guidance instead of crytics?
    You got already good advice, but wanted to point the guide of drupal.org where you can see some tools listed with instructions and channels https://www.drupal.org/community/contributor-guide/reference-information/talk/tools. Source: over 2 years ago
  • MAMP issue after Pro trial ended
    There is a service call GitPod that provides a temporary container Drupal environment. If you are familiar with what is going on around the future of how Drupal modules will eventually be offered up, you will likely have seen the "Project Browser" module as a contrib demo of the approach. It is used for people to give feedback to the developers. So they set up the typical 'SimplyTestMe' but also a GitPod... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Best Modules for Product and Recipe?
    For reviews, it depends entirely on what you mean by "review". I believe core has a simple comment module, although it may have been deprecated for D9? There are likely many review-style modules on drupal.org that might work, or if you just want to link out to third-party reviews then it could just be a repeating-value link field on the Product content type. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Leadership?
    They should also use standards tools like Github. The drupal.org platform was certainly impressive 10 years ago, today it's a pain to use it. They ducktape it with gitlab, but really it sucks to have to read documentation to simply do a pull request. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

Strapi mentions (336)

  • Build a Strapi 5 Plugin with Medium & Dev.to APIs — Part 1
    One of the features of the Strapi CMS is the ability it gives you to unlock the full potential of content management, thus allowing you to build custom features for yourself and the community. Victor Coisne, the VP of marketing at Strapi, explained this in his article “Building Communities That Drive Growth”. - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
  • Mastering Next.js 15 Caching: dynamicIO and the 'use cache'
    We'll be using Strapi for our backend API layer. Strapi is a headless, decoupled, API-driven content management system that lets you manage and serve content directly from an admin panel—in just a few minutes. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Building a Customer Support Portal with Strapi, GPT, and Next.js (Part 1)
    In this 3-part series, I will walk you through building a robust customer support portal using Strapi, GPT, and Next.js. You will learn how to set up the backend, integrate AI-driven support using GPT, and implement user authentication to manage customer queries effectively, ensuring a seamless experience that fosters trust and loyalty. For the first part of this series, you will learn how to set up Strapi for the... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • A Guide to Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) in Strapi
    Familiarity with Strapi CMS(Content Management System). - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Nuxt 3 Deployment: Automating Environment-Specific Builds with GitHub Actions
    Recently, I needed to prepare a deployment procedure for a Nuxt-based frontend. Based on my experience, I initially expected to create a single build that could be used across all environments — QA, UAT, and PROD. However, I discovered that I had to generate separate builds for each environment, each with its own .env file defining the Strapi URL and other parameters. This limitation arose due to the @nuxt/image... - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Drupal and Strapi, you can also consider the following products

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Contentful - You don't need another CMS. You need a better way to manage content — unified, structured, and ready to deploy to any digital channel.

Joomla - Joomla! is the mobile-ready and user-friendly way to build your website. Choose from thousands of features and designs. Joomla! is free and open source.

Ghost - Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication. We power blogs, magazines and journalists from Zappos to Sky News.

Sanity.io - Sanity.io a platform for structured content that comes with an open-source editor that you can customize with React.js.

SquareSpace - Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. Pages, galleries, blogs, e-commerce, domains, hosting, analytics, 24/7 support - all included.