Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Wagtail VS Drupal

Compare Wagtail VS Drupal and see what are their differences

Wagtail logo Wagtail

Wagtail is a mobile community for dog lovers.

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 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-06
  • Drupal Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-18

Wagtail features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Wagtail offers a clean and intuitive admin panel that makes content management straightforward even for non-technical users.
  • Flexibility
    It provides developers with the flexibility to customize and extend functionality, enabling tailored solutions for specific project requirements.
  • Django Integration
    Built on Django, Wagtail inherits all of its scalability, security, and robustness, making it a powerful choice for developers familiar with Django.
  • Strong Community Support
    Wagtail has a growing community and active development, providing users with access to support, plugins, and regular updates.
  • SEO Friendly
    It includes features that assist with search engine optimization, such as customizable page titles and metadata.

Possible disadvantages of Wagtail

  • Learning Curve
    For those unfamiliar with Django, there can be a steep learning curve when first starting with Wagtail due to its reliance on Python and Django principles.
  • Limited Built-in Features
    While customizable, Wagtail doesn’t come preloaded with as many out-of-the-box features as some other CMSs, potentially requiring more development for complex sites.
  • Installation and Setup
    Setting up a Wagtail project can be more complex compared to some lightweight CMS options, particularly for developers without Python experience.
  • Performance Concerns
    For extremely large and complex sites, Wagtail may require additional optimization to maintain high performance.

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 videos

Comparing Wagtail, Django CMS and Mezzanine

More videos:

  • Review - DjangoCon US 2018 - Wagtail CMS - Making Django More User (and Developer) Friendly by Sara Heins
  • Demo - Wagtail Demo & Ecover Review by Wayne

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Wagtail and Drupal)
CMS
5 5%
95% 95
Blogging Platform
6 6%
94% 94
Blogging
6 6%
94% 94
Web Content Management
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 Wagtail and Drupal

Wagtail Reviews

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

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

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Drupal seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 28 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.

Wagtail mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Wagtail yet. Tracking of Wagtail recommendations started around Mar 2021.

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

What are some alternatives?

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

django CMS - Enterprise Content Management with Django The open-source CMS used by thousands of websites since 2007

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.

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.

Plone - Plone CMS: Open Source Content Management — Plone.org

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.