Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Drupal VS Wagtail CMS

Compare Drupal VS Wagtail CMS 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.

Wagtail CMS logo Wagtail CMS

Django-based Content Management System.
  • Drupal Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-18
  • Wagtail CMS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-04

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.

Wagtail CMS features and specs

  • Flexibility
    Wagtail provides a high level of flexibility, allowing developers to create custom content types and workflows tailored to specific needs.
  • User-Friendly Admin Interface
    The admin interface is designed with content editors in mind, making it intuitive and easy to use for non-technical users.
  • Strong Community and Support
    Wagtail has a growing and active community, providing a wealth of plugins, extensions, and documentation, along with strong support from developers.
  • Built on Django
    Leveraging the power of Django, Wagtail benefits from the robustness, security, and scalability of the Django framework.
  • SEO-Friendly
    Wagtail includes features such as customizable URL structures, meta descriptions, and easy integration with SEO tools which help improve search engine rankings.
  • StreamField
    This feature allows developers to create flexible and reusable content blocks, providing greater control over the layout and content structure.
  • Open-Source
    Being an open-source project, Wagtail is free to use and modify, with a transparent development process and no licensing fees.
  • Scalability
    Wagtail can handle projects of varying sizes, from small websites to high-traffic enterprise applications.

Possible disadvantages of Wagtail CMS

  • Learning Curve for Developers
    Due to its flexibility and customization options, new developers may face a steeper learning curve compared to simpler CMS options.
  • Limited Built-In Features
    Out-of-the-box, Wagtail may lack some features that are available in other CMS platforms, requiring additional development for certain functionalities.
  • Smaller Ecosystem
    Compared to more established CMS platforms like WordPress, Wagtail's ecosystem of themes and plugins is smaller, potentially requiring more custom development.
  • Hosting and Maintenance
    As a self-hosted solution, Wagtail requires users to manage hosting, updates, and maintenance, which could be a challenge for non-technical users.
  • Few Marketplace Integrations
    Wagtail does not natively support eCommerce or marketplace features, so integrating such functionalities requires additional plugins or custom development.
  • Performance Considerations
    For very large and complex sites, performance tuning might be necessary to ensure optimal speed and responsiveness.

Analysis of Drupal

Overall verdict

  • Drupal is a good choice for those seeking a flexible, scalable, and security-focused CMS suitable for complex and high-traffic websites. It may not be as beginner-friendly as some other CMSs, but it offers immense capabilities for advanced users and developers.

Why this product is good

  • Drupal is a powerful content management system (CMS) known for its flexibility and scalability. It offers robust tools for content authoring, reliable performance, and excellent security measures. Drupal is highly customizable and can handle complex sites with heavy traffic and specific requirements. It supports a wide range of add-ons and integrations, allowing developers to create feature-rich sites. Furthermore, the active open-source community continually contributes to enhancing its ecosystem with modules and themes.

Recommended for

  • Large enterprises and organizations
  • Complex and custom web applications
  • High-traffic websites
  • Websites requiring advanced content management and workflows
  • Non-profit and government websites

Analysis of Wagtail CMS

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Wagtail CMS is considered a good choice for many organizations, particularly those seeking a flexible and developer-friendly content management system. It is trusted by major organizations and has a steadily growing community, which ensures that it is continually updated and improved.

Why this product is good

  • Wagtail CMS is widely appreciated for its simple and intuitive interface, robust features, and focus on flexibility and scalability for developers. It is built on Django, a popular web framework, which contributes to its strong foundations and allows developers to extend and modify it as needed. Wagtail also offers great support for integrating with other systems and content types, making it a versatile choice for many projects.

Recommended for

    Wagtail CMS is particularly recommended for medium to large organizations looking for a customizable and developer-friendly CMS. It is ideal for developers who are already comfortable with Django or those willing to learn. It is also suitable for projects that require a high degree of custom content structure and delivery, such as news websites, and institutional platforms.

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

Wagtail CMS videos

Wagtail CMS - part 1

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Drupal and Wagtail CMS)
CMS
85 85%
15% 15
Blogging Platform
88 88%
12% 12
Blogging
81 81%
19% 19
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 Wagtail CMS

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

Wagtail CMS Reviews

We have no reviews of Wagtail CMS yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Wagtail CMS should be more popular than Drupal. It has been mentiond 44 times since March 2021. 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: almost 3 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: almost 3 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: almost 3 years ago
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Wagtail CMS mentions (44)

  • Matt Mullenweg deactivates WordPress accounts of contributors planning a fork
    > Django with plugins could be made to look like and work similar to Wordpress I bet. https://wagtail.org/ is a solid CMS. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Wagtail on Docker
    Wagtail - is a leading open-source Content Management System built using Python. Read more here: [https://wagtail.org]. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Wordpress.org bans WP Engine, blocks it from accessing its resources
    I’m not GP, nor using PHP, but can highly recommend WagtailCMS: https://wagtail.org/ It’s based on Python/Django and has an excellent developer and user experience. They pay a lot of attention to detail, including a block-based content editor, similar to Gutenberg, and first class accessibility support. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Introducing Django Headless CMS: A Powerful and Flexible CMS Solution
    Why choose Django-headless-cms over alternatives like Wagtail, Django-CMS, Strapi, or Contentful? - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • A new beginning, with Google Summer of Code (GSoC)
    On the 1st day of May 2024, I got an announcement email that my proposal was selected and that I had made it to the GSoC community. I applied to a community I really liked (Wagtail), and my efforts over the months paid off. I quickly told my friends and family (who'd been supportive and encouraging throughout the application process). It was easily my biggest win of the year, but I knew I had a lot of work to be... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Drupal and Wagtail CMS, 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.

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.

DEV.to - Where software engineers connect, build their resumes, and grow.

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.

Mixcore CMS - Mixcore CMS is an Open Source Enterprise ASP.NET Core / Dotnet Core CMS for building amazing digital experiences. It's made by a dedicated community. Anyone can use it, and it will always be free.

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.