Angry Creative vs Competitors
WordPress vs Drupal
Choosing the right CMS (Content Management System) is a strategic decision that affects everything from daily content flows and security to long-term development costs and scalability. WordPress and Drupal are two of the market’s most established and powerful open source platforms – both capable of powering large enterprise solutions, but with different focuses and philosophies under the hood.
In this article, we compare the systems in areas such as user-friendliness, cost, e-commerce and international scalability to help you navigate the choice between Drupal’s technical flexibility and WordPress’s versatile ecosystem. You will also learn more about our Qala solution, which offers the best of WordPress, optimised for speed and business value.
At Angry Creative, we are specialists in WordPress and have seen the platform’s tremendous development since 2007. Our experience has shown us what it takes to succeed, but also what often goes wrong in complex projects. We have packaged these lessons into Qala, our refined platform that makes advanced web projects easier, more cost-effective and predictable.
In this article, we compare Drupal, WordPress and Qala. No fluff, just a straightforward comparison to help you make the right decision.
What is Drupal?
Drupal is a powerful open source CMS known for its flexibility and ability to handle highly complex data structures. It is often used for large-scale websites with advanced taxonomy and rights management needs. The platform is often marketed as a “developer-first” system, which means a high technical threshold but great freedom for those who can code.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is the world’s most widely used CMS, built on open source code. It powers over 40% of all websites on the internet, from small blogs to huge, global e-commerce solutions and media sites. Its strength lies in its endless flexibility, massive community and an ecosystem of millions of themes and plugins that can customise the platform for just about anything.
WordPress has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to get started and grow, even without a technical background. With thousands of add-ons, ready-made themes and smooth integrations, new features can be added without in-house development. The platform is easy to work with, cost-effective over time, and fully customisable, with control over design, workflows, and integrations. This makes WordPress a strong choice for both small businesses and organisations with growth ambitions.
What is Qala?
Do you recognise that WordPress is incredibly flexible, but that it can be complex to ensure performance, security and the right functionality for advanced needs? That’s exactly why we created Qala. Qala is our solution that takes the best part of WordPress, its flexibility and user-friendliness, and packages it with a stable, upgrade-proof foundation, pre-configured premium plugins and ready-made components for high performance and security. It’s WordPress, but optimised for businesses that mean business.
Drupal vs WordPress vs Qala in a nutshell
Drupal
WordPress
Qala
User-friendliness
Drupal
The platform has a significantly steeper learning curve than most other systems. The interface is often complex and can be perceived as inaccessible to non-technical editors. Updating content or changing layouts often requires in-depth technical expertise, which means that the marketing team can easily become dependent on developers for everyday tasks.
WordPress:
The interface is designed with the user in mind. The block-based editor (Gutenberg) makes it easy and visual to get started right away. Content can be structured, updated and managed without technical support, making it a good choice for teams that want to work independently.
Qala:
Based on the WordPress interface but enhanced with preconfigured templates and flexible components. This makes it easier to launch advanced page layouts quickly, without compromising on structure or quality.
Cost
Drupal:
Although Drupal itself is free and open source, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is often very high. Development and maintenance require specialist expertise that is both more expensive and harder to find than for WordPress. Projects in Drupal often take longer to complete, and the technical requirements for keeping the system up to date lead to ongoing high development costs.
WordPress:
The core platform is free (open source), which eliminates licence costs. Instead, the investment lies in customisation, development, hosting and maintenance. The cost can vary greatly depending on the choice of agency and level of ambition. Without the right expertise, “free” can quickly become expensive due to poor technical choices. To guide you in your choice, there is a quality-assured partner programme from Automattic, the leading company in the WordPress ecosystem.
Qala:
Qala is a packaged WordPress solution that lowers the total cost with a preconfigured set, tested add-ons, and a structure that can handle future upgrades. The time to launch is shorter, and operation and further development become more predictable and economical. It is this methodology and expertise that has made us one of the few certified Automattic partners in the Nordic region.
E-commerce
Drupal:
Offers the Drupal Commerce framework, which is extremely flexible but also very complex to set up. It requires extensive customisation and expert knowledge to function effectively. For companies that need an agile e-commerce solution that is easy to optimise and scale, Drupal often becomes too cumbersome and expensive.
WordPress:
WordPress does not have its own support for e-commerce either, but with add-ons such as WooCommerce, it can easily be built on. WooCommerce provides features for product management, payment, shipping and promotions. Much of it is ready to use from the start, making it easy to both get started and grow.
Qala:
Qala E-commerce is developed for more advanced needs. Support for multiple languages, regional pricing, product logic and integrations is already in place. Our platform also has advanced search and filtering functionality to handle large product catalogues with complex selection requirements, which is crucial in areas such as technical B2B sales. This makes Qala particularly relevant for organisations with multiple markets or complex requirements from the outset.
Plugins
Drupal:
The ecosystem is based on “modules”. There are over 40,000 modules available, but these are generally more technical and require a developer to configure and integrate them correctly. The pace of innovation for ready-made, user-friendly solutions is slower than in the WordPress world, which means that more time must be spent on customised code.
WordPress:
WordPress has thousands of add-ons for SEO, analytics, e-commerce, forms and integrations. This makes it easy to customise and expand functionality, often without the help of developers. Many add-ons are free or have low licence costs, making it easy to keep both budget and time consumption down.
Qala:
Qala builds on the WordPress plugin model, but limits the selection to a carefully chosen set of stable and long-term maintained plugins, tailored for companies with high demands on operational reliability and support.
SEO
Drupal:
Has powerful built-in tools for SEO, but they require an expert to implement them correctly. It often lacks the intuitive guidance for editors that WordPress offers, making it more difficult for those who are not SEO professionals to optimise content on an ongoing basis.
WordPress:
Has clean web addresses, fast loading times and mobile adaptation as standard. However, add-ons are needed to create a complete SEO structure. Tools such as Yoast or Rank Math provide content teams with concrete support in their daily work. Even more advanced needs such as structured data and multilingual SEO can be solved with add-ons.
Qala:
Builds on the strengths of WordPress and adds preconfigured settings for SEO. Support for structured data, technical optimisation and multilingual content is included from the start. Our immediate roadmap also includes functionality for AI-driven search engine optimisation to further streamline the work.
Security
Drupal:
Widely known for its extremely high level of security and very strict security architecture. This has made the platform popular with authorities and organisations with extremely high data security requirements. However, this security requires resources to implement the often technically complex security updates as soon as they are released.
WordPress:
When set up correctly, WordPress can be very secure. The platform supports two-factor authentication, firewalls, monitoring and a wide range of security tools. The challenge with the wide range of tools available is that not all of them are designed to work together, which requires expertise and time to configure and test a stable whole. Its widespread use means that WordPress is often exposed to attacks, but with clear procedures, good plugin management and regular updates, security can be maintained at a high level. Shortcomings usually arise when the provider lacks the right expertise.
Qala:
Qala is the answer to that challenge. Instead of a collection of separate tools, the platform is delivered as a guaranteed working whole, where all components are tested to work optimally together. This provides fundamental security and predictability in both implementation and ongoing operation.
B2B
Drupal:
Can handle complex data flows and B2B scenarios, but is best suited for more static, long-term projects. For the modern B2B company that needs to be able to quickly test new campaigns, integrate marketing tools and customise the customer experience, Drupal’s structure is often too rigid and slow to work with.
WordPress:
Particularly effective for B2B initiatives where content and marketing are the focus. Easily integrates with CRM systems, marketing automation and lead management tools. This makes WordPress a natural choice for sales-driven teams that need flexibility, speed and control over their work.
Qala:
Qala takes WordPress’s B2B strengths and shapes them into a cohesive ecosystem that works right from the start. Features for logged-in content, lead capture and connections to CRM systems are not separate add-ons, but fully integrated components. This creates a stable and predictable foundation for sales and marketing across multiple regions.
International stores
Drupal:
Is technically capable of handling multilingualism and international sites, but implementation is complex and time-consuming. Managing multiple markets, currencies, and local content requires an extensive technical setup that is both expensive to build and complicated to manage over time.
WordPress:
Uses multisite to handle multiple markets. It works, but lacks important features in the standard version. The result is often a poorer experience for editors and higher customisation requirements.
Qala:
Developed for international growth with support for localised content, currencies, tax rules and store-specific logic in multiple markets, all managed through a common interface.
Summary
Key features Drupal
- Flexible architecture for complex data structures
- Enterprise-grade security and rights management
- Powerful system for taxonomies and categorisation
- Modularity that allows for extremely customised development
- Large community of technical specialists
Advantages: Drupal is suitable for organisations with highly complex data management needs and a strong internal IT organisation or budget for heavy development resources. The platform offers a stable and secure environment for websites that do not change very often but require a high degree of technical precision. One strength is the advanced support for unique rights roles and deep integrations in technically heavy environments.
Disadvantages: The biggest challenge is the extremely high threshold for both users and owners. The high complexity drives up development costs and makes the organisation sluggish. The dependence on expensive specialist consultants for the slightest change creates technical lock-in, and the lack of an easy-to-use interface for editors means that the website is often not used to its full potential by the marketing department.
Key features of WordPress
- Intuitive and editor-friendly interface
- Easy to implement and highly customisable
- Wide range of ready-made themes, add-ons and integrations
- Built to grow across markets and use cases
Advantages: WordPress is the world’s most widely used CMS. It is quick to implement, flexible and works equally well for simpler content sites as it does for more advanced solutions. Together with WooCommerce, it offers a cost-effective route to e-commerce with a short time to launch and low operating costs.
Disadvantages: For more complex needs such as large product catalogues, advanced logic or high traffic volumes, the solution often needs to be reinforced. This requires complementary tools, a clear structure and sometimes technical optimisation to ensure performance and scalability.
Key features of Qala
- Packaged and refined WordPress platform
- Guaranteed functioning and integrated ecosystem
- Built for complex needs (B2B, international e-commerce)
- Reduces total cost of ownership (TCO)
- Shorter time to launch and increased operational reliability
Advantages: Qala offers a ready-made solution for advanced needs, but without the risks and costs that a large, customised project from scratch often entails. The platform’s greatest strength is that it provides shorter lead times, increased operational reliability and a lower total cost of ownership, as the technical foundation has already been tested and quality assured. It is ideal for organisations that want the power and freedom of WordPress, but with the predictability and stability of a proprietary system.
Disadvantages: Since Qala is built for complexity and high demands, it is not the most cost-effective choice for simpler websites, such as a blog or a small business site. The platform has a defined architecture to guarantee performance and security, which can mean slightly less total freedom compared to building a completely unique solution from scratch. For the simplest projects, a standard WordPress installation is often a more suitable starting point.
User-friendliness
Drupal
Drupal has long profiled itself as a “developer-first” system. The platform’s philosophy is based on extreme flexibility and modularity, which is a strength for technicians but often a nightmare for the non-technical editor. The interface is functional but complex, with a multitude of technical settings visible to the user. This creates a high threshold where a regular marketing coordinator often needs extensive training to even perform basic updates.
This technical burden often slows down editorial work. Whereas WordPress allows editors to work visually and intuitively, Drupal often requires an understanding of the underlying logic of the system. As a result, the organisation quickly becomes dependent on developers to build new landing pages or adjust layouts. For teams that want to work agilely and independently, Drupal therefore often becomes a bottleneck in daily operations.
WordPress
WordPress is designed to make content management easy. The block-based interface is visual and intuitive, allowing editors to quickly create, structure and update content without technical assistance. The learning curve is low and teams can start working right away.
The publishing workflows are smooth, and features such as drag and drop, preview and reusable blocks simplify daily work. It is quick to keep content up to date and consistent, even on larger sites.
WordPress is also built to grow. As needs increase, it is easy to introduce structure and customisation without losing user-friendliness. The combination of simplicity and control makes WordPress a good choice for organisations that want to be able to work independently, but have the option of bringing in developers when needed.
Qala
Qala builds on WordPress’ user-friendly interface with ready-made templates, reusable content types and clear workflows. This provides a more controlled and consistent experience that simplifies editorial work, especially in organisations with multiple languages, departments or markets.
It reduces the need for developers or external support in day-to-day work, shortens the start-up phase and makes it easier to work in a structured way from the outset.
Cost
Drupal
Drupal’s cost model differs from licence-based systems in that the software itself is free (open source). The real cost lies instead in implementation and ongoing management. Because Drupal is a complex system, specialist expertise is required for virtually every customisation. In the UK, the supply of experienced Drupal developers is limited, which drives up consulting fees to levels that are often significantly higher than for WordPress.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is also heavily influenced by the platform’s maintenance requirements. Major version updates (such as the jump from Drupal 7 to newer versions) have historically involved huge, costly projects that in practice have been akin to building entirely new websites. While WordPress focuses on backward compatibility and smooth updates, Drupal often requires heavy technical efforts to avoid being left behind on an outdated version. This means that the long-term cost of a Drupal solution often comes as a negative surprise to organisations.
WordPress
The core platform is free (open source), which eliminates licence costs. Instead, the investment lies in customisation, development, hosting and maintenance. The cost can vary greatly depending on the choice of agency and level of ambition.
To guide you in your choice, there is a quality-assured partner programme from Automattic, the leading company in the WordPress ecosystem, but unlike closed systems, the choice of supplier is completely free.
Without the right expertise, “free” can quickly become expensive due to poor technical choices. With ready-made themes and thousands of add-ons, features can often be added without having to develop everything from scratch, reducing both costs and time to launch.
Qala
Qala is a packaged WordPress solution built to systematically lower the total cost of ownership. With a preconfigured set, tested add-ons, and a structure that can handle future upgrades, time to launch is shorter, while operation and further development become more predictable.
It is this methodology and expertise that has made us one of the few certified Automattic partners in the Nordic region. This gives teams with high demands better control over both timelines and future costs.
E-commerce
Drupal
Drupal uses the Drupal Commerce framework for e-commerce. It is an extremely powerful solution that can handle very complex product logic, but it is also known for being cumbersome and difficult to configure. Running e-commerce in Drupal requires a significant technical investment and long development cycles before you can even start selling.
The administration of the store is often perceived as fragmented as the interface is not optimised for fast e-commerce operations. For companies with serious growth ambitions, this means an inefficient architecture where technology rather than business sets the pace. Compared to WooCommerce, which is built to be user-friendly and conversion-focused from the start, Drupal Commerce often becomes too complex a choice for all but the most specific and technically demanding use cases.
WordPress
WordPress also does not have built-in support for e-commerce, but can be easily supplemented with WooCommerce. It is an established add-on for WordPress that provides support for both simpler e-commerce and more advanced solutions with product catalogues, B2B flows and campaign logic. WooCommerce integrates seamlessly with payment solutions, shipping systems and inventory management, making it a natural choice for organisations that want to work with online sales without building everything from scratch.
Qala
Qala is developed for organisations with more complex requirements than WooCommerce can handle in its standard version. Support for multilingualism, regional pricing, tax rules and integrations with business systems is already in place.
The platform also has advanced search and filtering functionality to handle large product catalogues with complex selection requirements, which is crucial in areas such as technical B2B sales. This makes Qala particularly suitable for organisations with demanding business logic and multiple markets from the outset.
Plugins
Drupal
The Drupal ecosystem revolves around “modules”. There are a large number of modules that cover most needs, but unlike WordPress plugins, these are rarely “plug-and-play”. A module in Drupal almost always requires a developer to install, configure and style it to fit into the rest of the system.
The downside is a slower pace of innovation for the end user. Where the WordPress community focuses on creating tools that editors can use right away, the Drupal community focuses on tools for developers. If you want to integrate a new marketing tool or add a new feature, in Drupal it will almost always be a custom development project rather than a simple activation of a ready-made solution. This makes it difficult to quickly adapt to new technical opportunities in the market.
WordPress
WordPress supports thousands of add-ons for everything from SEO and performance to e-commerce, automation, and integration with external systems. This makes it easy to expand functionality without developing everything from scratch and to adapt the solution as needs change.
Teams with high performance or security requirements need to choose their tools carefully. The quality of add-ons varies, but thanks to the large ecosystem, there are often well-documented solutions with a good track record to build on.
Even for more unique needs, it is often possible to develop faster and more cost-effectively than in many other platforms, thanks to the open source code and established development frameworks. This makes the CMS particularly effective for organisations that want to build on it over time without spending resources on costly further development.
Qala
Qala comes with a carefully curated set of ready-made and tested add-ons, tailored to common needs in more complex solutions. All add-ons are tested together and maintained on an ongoing basis, which reduces the risk of future problems and creates a more secure foundation to build on.
This simplifies planning, reduces the need for troubleshooting and contributes to a sustainable solution even in larger projects.
SEO
Drupal
Drupal has good technical conditions for SEO and offers powerful modules for managing metadata, URL structures and taxonomies. For a technically knowledgeable user, Drupal provides a high degree of control over how search engines index the site.
The limitation lies in the editorial support. The platform lacks the type of intuitive, real-time SEO tools that have become standard in WordPress (such as Yoast or Rank Math). In Drupal, SEO is often a technical setting that is made at the start, rather than a living part of content creation. For organisations with high ambitions to win competitive keywords, Drupal therefore requires more manual intervention and consulting hours to achieve the same results that WordPress editors achieve on their own.
WordPress
WordPress has strong SEO support right from the start, with clean URLs, mobile responsiveness and fast loading times as standard. This provides a good foundation for content to perform well in search results, without requiring technical expertise. With add-ons such as Yoast or Rank Math, content teams get guidance directly in the editing interface. Keywords, metadata and structured data are easily managed, providing complete support for optimisation.
For organisations that want to work with SEO in the long term without developing everything from scratch, WordPress, together with the right add-ons, provides both flexibility and a stable framework for continuous improvement.
Qala
Qala retains WordPress’ strengths in SEO and complements them with pre-configured technical settings, including structured metadata, sitemap management and multilingual optimisation. It supports established tools such as Yoast and Rank Math, but without requiring manual configuration.
Our immediate roadmap also includes functionality for AI-driven search engine optimisation to further streamline the work. This provides a stable starting point for teams that manage content in multiple languages or regions.
Security
Sitemap
Security is Drupal’s forte. The platform has an extremely strict security architecture and is used by everything from international banks to government agencies. There is a dedicated security team that reviews modules and core code with very high standards.
However, this high level of security comes at a price: the maintenance burden. Security updates in Drupal are often critical and technically complicated to implement without risking other parts of the site breaking. You have a high level of security, but you are completely dependent on having a technical partner who continuously spends time patching and monitoring the system. It is a security model that requires resources, unlike WordPress, where modern hosting solutions and Qala handle much of this in a more automated way.
WordPress
When set up correctly, WordPress can be very secure. The platform supports two-factor authentication, firewalls, monitoring and a huge range of security tools. The challenge with the wide range of tools available is that not all of them are designed to work together, which requires expertise and time to configure and test a stable whole.
Its widespread use means that WordPress is often exposed to attacks, but with clear procedures, good plugin management and regular updates, security can be maintained at a high level. Shortcomings usually arise when the provider lacks the right expertise.
Qala
Qala is the answer to the security challenge. Instead of a collection of separate tools, the platform is delivered as a guaranteed functioning whole, where all components are tested to work optimally together. This provides fundamental security and predictability in both implementation and ongoing operation.
B2B
Drupal
Drupal is technically capable of handling complex business processes and large amounts of data, which is why it is often chosen for B2B projects. But in the modern B2B world, where digital self-service and rapid integration with CRM and PIM are crucial, Drupal often becomes too slow.
Building customer portals or advanced access control in Drupal often results in very extensive, customised projects. The management costs for these are high, and the flexibility to change flows retrospectively is limited. For companies where digital channels need to be agile and support the sales process in a dynamic way, Drupal’s technical weight becomes more of a hindrance than an asset.
WordPress
WordPress is particularly well suited for B2B companies focused on visibility, lead generation and rapid adaptation. The platform supports large-scale content-driven marketing and integrates easily with CRM systems such as HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive.
The ability to manage multiple campaigns, landing pages, and regional sites within the same structure gives marketing teams flexibility without losing control. WordPress combines strong SEO with short implementation times, making it a stable foundation for companies that want to grow without rebuilding at every step.
Qala
Qala takes WordPress’s B2B strengths and shapes them into a cohesive ecosystem that works right from the start. Features for logged-in content, lead capture and connections to CRM systems are not separate add-ons, but fully integrated components. This creates a stable and predictable foundation for sales and marketing across multiple regions and simplifies collaboration between marketing and IT.
International stores
Drupal
Drupal has built-in support for multilingualism that is very powerful, but its implementation is notorious for being complex. Setting up an international structure with multiple languages, currencies and local rules requires a huge technical setup.
The architecture of Drupal often makes the administration of global sites technically cumbersome. Managing content for 20 different markets requires an interface that makes it easy for the user, something that Drupal rarely delivers “out-of-the-box”. This leads to high administration costs and a risk that local markets cannot act quickly enough. Companies with international ambitions will find WordPress and Qala a much smoother path to global growth.
WordPress
WordPress supports international growth through multisite functionality, language plugins and WooCommerce. This makes it possible to manage multiple languages, currencies and domains within a common structure, which facilitates presence in multiple markets without losing control or performance.
WooCommerce is a good foundation, but for more advanced needs, such as regional pricing or customised shopping experiences, additional configuration is often required.
Qala
Qala is designed to handle global e-commerce from the ground up, with built-in support for local languages, market-specific pricing, tax rules, and country-specific store views. Where WooCommerce requires additional configuration, Qala offers a ready-to-use structure that can be managed in the same interface. This makes it easier to expand into new markets with control over both performance and editorial work.
For companies with large product catalogues in multiple countries, there is a ready-made integration with Pimcore. It ensures consistent product data and efficient delivery across all markets, without creating new silos in the system environment.
Drupal vs WordPress vs Qala: Summary
Drupal, WordPress and Qala represent different priorities for web publishing. The choice is between a technically heavy architecture focused on IT control and an open, user-centric ecosystem – a choice that directly affects your innovation power and total cost of ownership (TCO).
Drupal is a powerful, open source system that offers extreme technical control and the highest possible security, making it popular for technically complex environments. But this strength comes at the price of a very high technical threshold, expensive specialist consultants and heavy management projects. The flexibility is there in the code, but rarely in the hands of the editor.
WordPress is also based on open source code but is the undisputed world leader, which has created an unparalleled global ecosystem. This dominance means that the availability of expertise is enormous and the speed of innovation is the highest in the market. The platform is built to be editor-friendly and business-driven, which shortens lead times and lowers development costs.
Qala is our refined WordPress solution that takes the power of the open ecosystem and adds the stability and structure required for enterprise projects. We have solved the technical challenges in advance, making it possible to scale internationally, run complex B2B and advanced e-commerce without incurring the high management costs and technical barriers often associated with Drupal.
Ultimately, the choice is whether you want a platform that requires a developer for every step, or a solution that gives your marketing team the freedom to create value on their own. For modern organisations looking for a cost-effective, secure and, above all, user-friendly platform, WordPress or Qala is the strategically superior choice.
Thinking about switching from Drupal?
Are you stuck with a Drupal solution that feels cumbersome, expensive to maintain, or where every little change requires weeks of development? Do you feel that the technology is slowing down rather than supporting your business goals? Then you are not alone. We have helped many organisations migrate from complex systems such as Drupal to the fast and flexible world of WordPress and Qala.
Talk to our COO Amy Slade to see how we can help you.
Amy has worked in development, e-commerce and marketing for almost 10 years and has helped many clients like you choose the right solution.