After facing the fact that I need a faster hosting provider, I finally decided to try out some of Amazon’s hosting products. Amazon has so many web services that it can be a little daunting to get started with them, but I decided to give it a go.

The first thing that I looked for was the ability to host WordPress websites. After a little research, I found that Amazon had just introduced a program for WordPress. Using their new “LightSail” product, I discovered that it was actually pretty straight forward to configure and load up WordPress. There are several other popular CMS apps as well, such as Drupal and Joomla. If you are interested in an e-Commerce solution, Magento is also supported.

Lightsail is not for large deployments, but it’s pretty darn easy for smaller requirements. In a nutshell, you sign up, put in your domain name, set up WordPress, set up your DNS zones, map the static ip address that’s assigned to you, and it launches.

When you go to launch one of the apps, Amazon refers to them as “instances”. You would select the instance that you are interested in (WordPress, Drupal, etc) and follow the step-by-step directions.

1. The first thing is to name your instance. If you don’t name it, Lightsail will create a name for you. Amazon works in zones, and in my case, it’s usually Virginia. You can change the zone if you like, but I’ve found it’s better just to leave it at the default zone.

2. You will also pick your instance plan, which is the monthly fee that suits your requirements.

3. You can also run other various scrips and choose either the default SSH key pair or change the key pair. As above, I always stick with the default.

4. Then click create. It takes a couple of minutes and then a page comes up with a public ip address and a username to connect to the instance. You will need your private key from your Amazon account, so if you don’t have one, you’ll need to create it.

5. Bitnami is used to connect to the new site. But after, you’ve loaded WordPress, you login exactly the same way with every other hosting company. Bitnami is pretty intuitive and doesn’t take more than 15 or 20 minutes to learn how to navigate around.

There is also some project guides and videos as well to help with the install. According to the WordPress project guide there is only 5 steps, but in reality, it’s more like 8 steps.

I loaded this up a few weeks ago, so I haven’t had time to fully build it out, but I had no problems loading the theme. I’m also using an AWS plugin (free) that will copy any media files to Amazon S3 and serve from S3 Cloudfront. Hopefully, this will cut down on load times for my pages.

It takes some getting used to not having cpanel, but, all in all, I would say, It’s a definite “Yes” to at least trying Amazon’s Lightsail to host your WordPress sites.

Next on the Amazon agenda? HTML sites.

Background

While the majority of people are still only discussing WordPress, Joomla and Drupal as the three best Open source Content Management Systems, more and more commercial Open source Content Mangement Systems are launched. These systems will be reviewed through first hand experience. But, we will add to the equation, a Commercial Open Source CMS system and analyze the major differences between the three open source system and then group those open source system and compare them with a Commercial Open source system.

Only within the last year has WordPress actually begun to step up as a true CMS. However the other two, Drupal and Joomla, have apparently always been fighting for that top spot in the community. Both are open source, and both are widly developed with thousands of members in their community helping to develop and extend the possibilities of use for each. While WordPress considered the underdog in the CMS war, it is most definitely the king of blogging software (something that Joomla and Drupal struggle to do efficiently).

In contrast, Commercial Open Source systems are build on open source technology but are bundled as a software service in a service platform with a large amount of standard features embedded in the platform. Those platforms have a tendency to eliminate the FUD factor when implementing the latest web technologies, they eliminate the proprietary licensing fees, they are lowering the cost of ownership by simplifying development and maintenance efforts, they are delivering a scalable solution that meets the demands of small and large enterprises and they are enticing both the business owner and the Web Developers alike. The last point being the key difference between the open source platforms and the current available commercial open source platforms.

WordPress … usable beyond blogging?

It is widely accepted that WordPress is an excellent system when you want your ideas out quickly on the web. It is therefore often used as a blog, because you are out there quickly, but WordPress can be configured in many different ways.

WordPress is extremely easy to use and setup. It can of course work as a blog, comments are already built into the system, as well as pinging services, multiple blogger profiles, trackbacks and common features you might expect from a blog. Most of the functionality is out of the box, and works as expected without the need of customization.

But the fact that customization was not the key driver for WordPress, also is to a certain extend its limitation. Because very often, if you try to customize or you try to do different things with the system, it breaks or disappear altogether. WordPress is far from being developer friendly and too many times upgrades to the system causes your website to simply disappear as well along with the upgrade and the customization and modifications you made are no longer available.

The advantages of WordPress are that it is very easy to use and few modifications are needed, that it is excellent for blogging or sharing thoughts in a sequential manner and that you have an easy learning curve, also for the not so sophisticated users.

The disadvantages of WordPress are that it is not developer friendly, that the community seems to like to complain about its usability and that upgrades more bugs than fixes.

Drupal … can it be used by non-developers?

If you enjoy tweaking the code that makes up the framework of a website, then Drupal is probably for you. This advanced content management system is more a developer platform than a traditional CMS. Its not to say that only developers can use the system though, but to say that they will feel more at home here than in the other two.

Interestingly, being more developer friendly does not automatically make it more user friendly – in fact the developer has to work hard to make it that way if they need the end-product to do so.

For those that are not so developer-minded, this can be the trial of their lives, but for people who live in code – well, they can literally get lost developing some very cool websites.

Being in essence a development platform and if you are a developer and are willing to learn the ins and outs of the proprietary system, you can certainly make great websites with Drupal. But you will have a hard time make it look and feel the same way as it function. The undering technology is perfect, the usability and the design is far from being perfect. So in a lot of cases, you could end up with a perfectly working website, but that is difficult to use and is not very neat in its design.

The advantages of Drupal are that it is extremely developer friendly, but you need to engage in proprietary Drupal code, that you have a strong community to help discern the dozens (dozens) of functions and tags available and that it can be used to create some really awesome websites that can outperform a majority of other sites out there.

The disadvantages of Drupal are that it is not very designer and user-friendly. It's hard for someone with little code knowledge to make the leaps required to do the very cool things that Drupal is becoming known for, that the theming of Drupal has been a huge case of failure. Themes are made by developers, not designers, and that getting a Drupal website published could cost you more time, and then more money, than WordPress or Joomla and certainly compared to commercial open source software.

Joomla – a community of web builders!

Joomla means in Swahili (Urdu) "all together" and to a certain extend they have been living up their name of being a system that is end-user friendly, developer friendly and also takes care of the design of your website and the way a content management system should work.

Designers will choose Joomla because of the amazing capabilities that its engine has in making websites look fantastic. Newcomers to Joomla (and website management) will love the fact that it is very easy to use and even customize as more and more developers create tools that are easier to understand. Developers, likewise, will choose the system because of its large capacity for development and customization. The new MVC framework was built just so that anyone with the knowledge could override the core of the CMS without actually modifying the original code.

But it is not as flexible for developers as Drupal is and it is not as user-friendly as WordPress. It can not run multisites from one backend database, and parts of the system have to be taken as is and can not be customized or modified. In other words, you need lo learn the limitations as you are sometimes treated in between a developers platform and modules that are in essence self-contained.

Joomla claims to be user friendly, and to a certain extend it is, but you need to go through a leasing curve of Joomla specific proprietary code and without you are a developer or a designer or both, that willingness is often lacking.

So, trying to be the all together for the web site building community, Joomla has also the risk of being caught in between Drupal and WordPress. People who want simplicity will go to WordPress, and through developers who love to develop and code will go for Drupal.

The advantages of Joomla are that it is friendly for most types of users – Designers, Developers and Administrators, but not Content Managers or end-users. That it has a huge community is awesome for assisting with creation of websites and that it has been rapidly growing and improving itself for the past years.

The disadvantages of Joomla are that it is still not user-friendly enough for everyone to understand, that it is not quite as powerful as Drupal, and can be a bit confusing for some to jump and that joomla recently rebuilt the entire system from ground -up, and so there are still many out there sticking to the old versions.

Commercial open source platforms are setting new standards in web site building – an example.

Open source cms systems like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are build by a community of developers and have as such never the end user in perspective. Commercial open source platforms are using the same open source tools as Joomla or Drupal but they have a strong leniency towards service and servicing the end-user, being the owner of the website and the viewer, being the customer of a particular website.

The major advantage of this approach is the total service aspect – from a neat design platform, over a richly featured content management system where you can activate all types of content and modules in just minutes, over a hosting service for your created websites and a Hotline to help you in case you get stuck in the design or the implementation of a module.

The largest advantage of commercial open source platforms is the time to market and the implementation time for your website. Once you have a design (which is basically a PSD File) or once you have picked one of the many available standard templates, implementation time for the standard modules is a matter of hours. Even more complicated models like the shopping cart can be configured in days and be online within a week, not weeks.

Implementation cost, cost of ownership and implementation risks are quite reasonable because of the modularity of the design and the content management modules.

And it is the best of all worlds: captive and easy to use design module, fully featured online content management system and extremely user friendly for administrators, content managers and content contributors. And all that without the need to enter in to the code.

One of the major trends in site building and content management these days is the de-mystification of the content management system and the site development activities. Anyone who has information to share on the web want to do it instantaneously and want to do it without going to external sources. Commercial open source software plays very well in this arena, because of the extreme attention to third party content input, the easy of activating a host of modules for content generation and a suite of application driven Templates, all customizable by users and content managers who have no under knowledge of web coding.

It is also a bit of a contradiction that open source systems like Joomla and Drupal are using special or specific coding to create templates and web sites, and then there is proprietary software, and that commercial open source software has a tendency to stick to wider-spread standards like HTML and CSS to create templates and build and manage web sites. It is therefore much easier to gain knowledge, also as a non-developer on commercial open source platforms as the knowledge of standards like HTML and CSS are widely spread and widely documented in online and offline publications. In another article, I will further elaborate on certification issues when dealing with a proprietary, although open source platform versus a "standards based" commercial open source platform.

Main Advantages of Commercial Open source systems are the friendship for all types of users – Designers, Developers and Administrators, Content Managers or end-users. The use of standard HTML and CSS coding. Time to market for a Complete WEB Systems and a Total service concept, including Hosting, Training, and Helpdesk.

The disadvantages of such a system would be no access to the open source code, a community of designers that is growing slower then the Joomla community and that developers and designers have to re-Think in terms of Business Drivers – not Code or Modules. Change from Code Technology to Business Technology.

Conclusion

Each of the above mentioned systems has its merits and depending on what your goals and resources are you may pick either one of the open source systems or rather opt for a commercial platform that is continuously serviced, upgraded and maintained and where continuity in customer service is key.

All these systems are pushing the website building community further down a path of standardization and transparency, vital for the continuous growth in the sector.

Open source platforms, whether developed by a community or a set of developers for commercial reasons are pushing the web site building exercises down to designers and content managers and business managers who are using these tools as a commercial / community window to the outside world and who are creating fully hosted web-enabled front end and back end business systems.

In a time of dramatic cost cutting, time to market, transparency and a variable cost model for building and managing your web presence will be a decisive factor of choice.

Introduction:

A Content management system (CMS) is a software application that provides the website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools to allow users with least knowledge of web programming languages to create and manage website content with relative ease. CMS designed for Web publishing provide options and features to index and search documents as well as specify keywords and other metadata for search engine crawlers. This enables businesses to handle the complexity of maintaining web and digital experiences easier to make global in reach. This system is mostly used in collaborative set-ups where multiple team members can monitor and manage web content.

Best Content management system Tools:

WordPress:

WordPress is one of the world’s most popular CMS tools. WordPress is a free and open-source Content management system based on PHP and MySQL. This does not call for the need of PHP or HTML knowledge. A preinstalled plugin and template system permits to be installed very easily.

User-friendly design – In this system anyone can develop and charge for their plugin or theme. You can get everything you need in the WordPress install source to build a basic free website.

Community – WordPress is an open source project, which was created by and for the community. This implies you are free to use it for any type of website without paying a license fee. You can save plenty of time by having quick access to the script you need.

No prior characterization requirement – There is no need to worry about dealing with an in-depth prior characterization. The script has over plenty of plugins available on its website. You just start with what you want and include features as you go along.

Drupal:

Drupal is a free open source Content management system which can be used by individuals or groups of users for easy creation and managing many types of Web sites. Drupal transform business content management into powerful digital solutions. This system has awesome standard features, like easy content authoring, reliable performance, and great security.

Quickly test out your ideas – Because of convenient design, you can have a prototype tested out over an entire weekend if you so desire. Drupal helps you to build the versatile, structured content that dynamic web experiences prerequisite.

Updates are prompt and reliable – Administrators of Drupal system are automatically notified of the new releases through the Update Status module hence maintains a security announcement mailing list. Thus delivers quality results.

Community – Drupal Content management system is one of the largest open source communities in the world. With abundant passionate developers, designers, trainers, coordinators, editors, and sponsors working together, you can create documentation, share networking opportunities, and more. As the Drupal Content management system (CMS) is an open source one, it stands with the rules of the open source community means that the software is licensed for free to provide universal access.

Conclusion:

A Content management system (CMS) is critical to the success for every website. It covers the complete lifecycle of the web pages, from providing simple tools to create the content, through to publishing, and to end with archiving. Greatest benefit the CMS can provide is to achieve your business goals and strategies. There are many things you should consider when choosing a Content management system, based on your aims and the purpose of the website. WordPress is the fast and easy way to go, whereas Drupal works best for large, complex, enterprise-class websites. WordPress is very good choose for a beginner’s while Advanced users with advanced needs would have to install many plugins to have can opt for Drupal.

Remember how the web used to be some 10-15 years ago? It was all static with pages having static web content which required a lot of labor and time whenever any changes were made. Today, that manual procedure has been replaced by a much simpler, quicker and effective system of managing the content of a website. With the advent of content management systems, the process of changing content of websites was automated. Websites built over a CMS allow admin to change the content on the website without manually changing the HTML code or any programming on the website. These things are automatically done by the system and user has to just worry about the content required to be changed.

Developing websites over a CMS is currently the most popular and favorite technique for acquiring web solutions. Clients just need to hire PHP developer from an experienced and well reputed website development company and convey their requirements to them. The rest of the work could be easily and conveniently completed by the developers.

Some of the most popular and effective content management systems are:

WordPress: WordPress is the most dominating CMS available for developing websites. It popularity and effectiveness surpasses that of any other content management system and makes it the most celebrated open source CMS. WordPress has also been adorned with hall of fame award 2010 by Packt Publishing editorial house. WordPress was originally a blogging tool which expanded and enhanced to become a full fledged platform for developing high-end web solutions. Further, it is supported by a huge online community which always ready to help out fellow developers having any problem while developing solutions over it. The wide range of themes and plugins make it a very desirable solution.

Joomla: Joomla is another great CMS having a considerable share among all the websites which is estimated to be around 10%. Joomla is a PHP based system and has MySQL in the back-end. Joomla can be installed, customized and executed very easily. Further, web developers have access to abundant extensions which allow them to create top quality web solutions. Joomla is a very effective CMS for developing e-commerce web solutions having advanced features and enhanced functionalities.

Drupal: This is a little advanced content management system and has a complex programming interface. In-spite of this interface, this CMS is able to provide quick installation along with an easy to manage system. Drupal is also a PHP based system and supports various databases including MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL etc. Drupal is a little complex system which is basically meant for advanced developers and not for completely new entrants.

Sitecore: The Sitecore is a proprietary web content management system which is built upon.Net framework. At the backend it is connected to Microsoft SQL server, Oracle database or the Microsoft Azure. The system is very SEO friendly and allows easy management of website’s content thus helps businesses in achieving their goals. Being a.Net based system, it provides you with a highly secure, robust and reliable web solution that supports multiple languages and allows you to easily develop social communities.

There are many more CMSs available for developing websites but these are some of the most popular and effective ones that are used by almost every website development company for developing web solutions for their clients. Businesses are required to choose the CMS for their website after proper research and analysis as each system has some strong points which makes them a better choice for different requirements.

The number of websites that are launched every year is growing and the figures are staggering. A recent study by the Daily Mail showed that 70 new domains and 571 websites are launched every minute. Another survey showed that in the beginning of 2016 alone, around 866 million websites were launched. This is because when it comes to satisfying a need or getting a solution, the whole world is turning to the internet.

While many businesses opt to hire a web designer for building their websites, they fail to consider the many options that they can use to set up a decent website on their own. This can be pretty economical for small and medium businesses and also for professional freelancers.

The most popular way of setting up websites is to use Content Management Systems (CMS). CMS software allows you to set up your website without having to commit a single pixel or line of code. If you have the time and energy, then CMS is the perfect option for you.

Globally, the most popular CMS providers are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

1. WordPress

Released by Matt Mullenwegg in 2003, WordPress has become the most popular CMS provider in the world and is widely used by small-to-medium businesses as well as major corporations, including Forbes, Sony and CNN. More than 12 million websites are powered by WordPress and the software has had more than 140 million downloads.

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

WordPress is open source software and can be downloaded for free. It is extremely customizable with 2000+ themes and 27000+ plugins. Installation is easy and does not take more than ten minutes for the average user. It is also quite user-friendly – users with limited computer knowledge can operate the software without any hassles. All these features combined to make WordPress one of the most popular content management systems in the world.

2. Joomla

Joomla was first released in 2005 as a fork of Mambo, an open source CMS development project. Like WordPress, Joomla is written in PHP. It is the most preferred CMS for e-commerce and social networking sites. In 2016, more than 2 million websites are managed using Joomla.

“Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular website software available.”

Like its parent, Joomla is open source and freely downloadable. It has been downloaded more than 30 million times, second only to WordPress, and is used by companies like The Hill and Harvard University.

Joomla has about 900+ free themes and 7000+ plugins to choose from. Similar to WordPress, Joomla can be installed with a single click and the installation procedure will not take more than 10 minutes. However, it is not as user friendly as WordPress and requires a bit of technical know-how to operate.

3. Drupal

Released in 2001 by Dries Buytaert, Drupal is less popular than WordPress and Joomla. Like its competitors, Drupal is also written in PHP. The Drupal CMS follows the “one size fits all” principal and can be used by all kinds of businesses, whatever their requirements may be. More than 600,000 websites in 2016 are managed using Drupal.

“Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world.”

Like its competitors, Drupal can be downloaded for free. It has been downloaded more than 15 million times and is used by Linux, The White House and The Warner Brothers for their websites. There over 1800 themes to choose from as well as 24000+ plugins. Although Drupal is user friendly, it is harder to install and customize compared to WordPress.

Depending on your requirements, any of these content management systems will serve their purpose: powering a decent website that communicates with your audience.

I remember looking at the selection of Drupal themes late 2007 and thinking; who is actually using these? They all appeared to resemble a developer's perspective on design. As a result Drupal themes used to be very boring indeed. In doing my research for this article I was truly astounded at the quality of free and premium Drupal themes available. It's a testament to how Drupal has grown that the quality of the themes prove that it's no longer just developers that are interested in the technology but designers also.

Here's my run down on my top 10 free Drupal themes. I've picked these themes not just because I think they're some of the best looking themes available but because in my experience they've been flexible enough for me to do what I like with them and still hold there own. I've bought premium Drupal theme's in the past (being lazy) and some have not stood up to actual usage which I think is pretty important. Remember all of the themes are available from drupal.org. On with the main event …

Top 10 Drupal Themes

1. Root Candy

Root candy is the most important theme I've ever come across. It is an administration theme , which makes it a dubious contender for the top spot although it's the only place you can really use a free theme when developing for a client.

It's typically pretty hard to find a theme that does both the visitors and administrators. Sure Garland.etc. does a pretty good job but I think everyone is tired of seeing Garland. The thing is showing a client an administration back end in Garland is a very underwhelming experience, it does the job but if you're interested in being a designer it just does not work.

Root Candy though is different; it does not try to work for visitors. It's just for the administration area. As a result it feels nicer than any other theme trying to double up as an administration theme and it's something you can be proud of when showing to a client. It's sad to say but icons really do help people navigate around and I seem to get a lot less phone calls about how to do things when I deliver a site with Root Candy. If you have not used it before it's an absolute must.

2. Magazeen

The Magazeen theme is a cool and modern theme with a stylish color scheme. It's everything that's great about a Drupal theme. It looks amazing and it's clearly focussed on Drupal article publishing. It feels similar to a lot of other Drupal themes but it has elements that put it above the rest. It just kind of works for all things Drupal related.

3. Marinelli

Marinelli is a 3 column Drupal theme. It's used fairly broadly but it's well made and does not break easily. I personally like the design but there are some elements I'd tweak myself to give it a little extra edge. In terms of working with a relatively simple theme that has a big impact Marinelli is great. Enabling the Marinelli theme is a quick and nice way to make your Drupal site look ready to go.

4. Id-Facta

I really like this theme. It could be because I'm going through a bit of a minimalist stage at the moment. It's by no means perfect, I'm tidy up certain elements but I think it's really cool that there's a good minimalist Drupal theme out there. As a result it's also got very good performance.

5. Dessert

It's not quite finished yet, but I've used it and really like it. It's just something a little bit funky for the Drupal community. Give it a go; I'm sure the creators would like as much feedback as possible.

6. Quicksilver

The theme was initially created by Artist and then tweaked by a Drupal theming company. It's pretty basic and because it's an Artiseer theme originally I imagine it's got a fair a few tags over the place. I have not used it myself but I think it's a good example of a basic Drupal theme that can help spruce things up a little.

7. Summertime

Summertime is a beautiful theme with lots of small fancy things which will make your Drupal website look unique. It's actually one of the nicest looking themes available; it's caked in web 2.0 features and does not feel like Drupal theme which is actually a pretty good thing.

8. Arthemia

I really like this theme a lot, with a little work this could easily be the best Drupal theme out there. The only reason it's not higher up on the list is simply due to a lack of styling for certain core (ish) Drupal elements. For instance look at the demo site and tell me why the poll is not fully styled? Simple touches like that will turn this theme into something great. In fact being slightly incompletely as it gives you the perfect opportunity to customize it to your requirements. Every cloud eh?

9. Elements

I really like this, background textures are majorly "in" so it's about time Drupal got on board and this theme from Nicolas Borda does just that. It's a very nice theme indeed.

10. Beach

Another quirky theme, it's not really a corporate look but there are some nice design elements and it's a pretty flexible theme. It reminds me of a bit of the theme for the Drupal conference website (can not remember URL). Go give it a go.

Converting from Drupal 6 template to Drupal 7 involves a number of changes on different segments such as Info File, Theme Settings, Templates, HTML, Page.TPL, Region.TPL, Block.TPL, Node.TPL, Comment, Search Theme From, CSS, Javascript, ans Skinr. The whole process is written in PHP, so you need an extensive knowledge of the programming language to convert Drupal 6 template to Drupal 7. However, the step by step process of changing templates is mentioned below:

Converting Drupal 6 to Drupal 7:

• First of all, you need to add classes to variables in the template. The process of sending body classes from template.php to templates is now standardized. Name the variable as $vars.
• Rows are considered as regions. Regions don’t have any direct impact after the conversion, but when it comes to fusion rows, regions should be changed a bit. You should have region.tpl.php template file as well as a preprocess function. The function that was found in the grid row should be converted to the region template and at the same time functions as well. So, now you have grid row in the form of page.tpl.php format.
• You should use the render to complete the conversion from grid to region. You can read the layout settings of grid from.info file. You also can read them template.php. However the first option would be easier for you if you are a beginner.
• Drupal always have contextual links. You need to remove the fusion’s code for editing block links. You also have to remove the function called, fusion core preprocess comment wrapper, so that you can easily remove the unused constants, created by this function.
• Lastly, you need to remove the pre-rendered Ubercart code and set it in node-product.tpl.php template. This step will help you to make Drupal 7 Ubercart.

Now that the template files are ready for conversion, you need to employ some more steps to utilize them in the real-time functions:

• Region.tpl.php is a new template in the fusion core. Drupal 6 grid_row file does the same thing as Region.tpl.php in Drupal 7, but the latter is slightly modified for adding extra functionalities.
• After the changing, there will not be any default search box in Drupal 7. The version has a new search box as search_block_form.tpl.php in drupal 7.
• You should integrate all new templates with the markup including their attributes and classes. You can use the templates as reference in the fusion core.

Now the themes of drupal 6 have been converted to drupal 7 and they are ready to be used.

As one of the most powerful open source CMS platforms on the market today, Drupal hosts sites including Recovery.gov. While Drupal can power major, international websites it is also flexible enough to provide independent and beginning web developers with a way to build quality sites.

Based upon an open source Linux installation, Drupal runs on mySQL and PHP. There is an active development community which continues to help with new releases, features (modules) and designs for the package.

The best part about Drupal is that it combines a variety of enterprise level features, such as social networking and multiple user collaboration, in an easy to install platform. With simple database-driven installation, you can get a Drupal website up and running in under an hour. While the setup process may be simple, the framework itself is capable of hosting powerful websites, including some of the top brands on the Internet today. No matter what type of project you’re working on, the platform can provide a robust solution.

Drupal Website Hosting
You can host Drupal on any Linux based hosting platform, and the installation only requires PHP 4 (or 5) along with mySQL. By creating a database and user, you can begin customizing your Drupal site quickly. Many website hosts also allow automatic installation of the platform, which takes even less time.

The name means droplet in Dutch and stands for the creative ideas which can emerge from the platform. With the seventh full release of the platform, you can easily integrate features such as RSS fees, open logins and membership based features. Whether you want to build a custom site or get a project up and running quickly, Drupal is a great choice for your next site.

From a basic installation you can create custom modules that can turn your site into a news source, online store or community platform quickly. Working with the right web host can ensure you have enough space to grow your site as you see fit.

Drupal is basically a CMS platform (Content management system) and it’s used by various websites all across the web – both start-ups as well as larger enterprises. You may wonder why the variety of businesses? Well, the answer is really simple – it’s got amazing features that make it one of the most preferred choices of various web developers.

It’s not just simple websites that you could build using Drupal; you’d have the option of building huge corporate websites, personal blogs as well as social media sites, community websites such as forums, question and answer sites and so on. This range of opportunities is what makes Drupal the perfect CMS platform today.

Shifting to Drupal?

If you’re planning on shifting your website or blog to this platform you’ve certainly made the right decision because this portal is dynamic, robust and extremely user friendly. There are plenty of themes that you could use and PSD to Drupal themes are amazing and certainly are a boon to your website.

Benefits of using Drupal CMS platform

It’s a plethora of benefits if you actually think about it, but for now let’s just stick to a few that are really important and worth mentioning:

Search Engine friendly

Today there’s a lot of competition when it comes to ranking well for specific terms no matter which search engine you’re considering. Therefore, you need to make sure that the basic structure of your site is search engine friendly.

PSD to Drupal websites are totally SEO friendly and hence you would easily be able to rank well for the terms you’re website focuses on. However, you need to make sure that the content on the site is good enough for algorithms to rank you well.

Total Compatibility

Another important factor that you need to consider when you choose a CMS platform and a theme for your website is its compatibility. You need to make sure that users would be able to use your website no matter which browser they use.

So, whether they use Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Android browsers or even IE they would easily be able to access your site and the content on it. This ensures that you get the most traffic that your site could possibly get you.

W3C validation

Lastly Drupal websites are also W3C validated and hence are built as per the terms of the World Wide Web Consortium. Therefore you’re ensured that the site would run well for years to come without a lot of changes on your side.

If your business has previously used a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress or Joomla and wondered, can I do better? What am I missing out on? Fortunately, one of the most flexible and functional CMS solutions recently launched its newest version. It’s Drupal 7 and there’s a whole lot of chatter about its powerful mix of business tools and easy maintenance.

Drupal is an open source CMS that gives its users a large degree of flexibility to modify, share, and distribute content (text, video, data, business services). Still, Drupal is more than a CMS. It is a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that is perfect for a small business and scalable for any large enterprise. And don’t take our word for it either, check out why it was rated InfoWorld 2011 Top Pick.

We’ve used a number of content management systems in the past, and while none are perfect, some do the job better than others. Drupal lets us stay ahead of the game and take advantage of the ever-evolving community platform that allows millions of contributors to update it constantly. Consider this — somewhere in the world, Drupal is being updated every second. Like Wikipedia, it’s driven by people that care about how it functions and operates, rather than how it’s marketed. It’s the biggest open secret in web development.

1. Drupal Is Free

Many proprietary CMS systems charge significant monthly or yearly fees as part of the licensing agreement to use the software. For many small business web design needs, those costs are prohibitive and sometimes not fully disclosed during the sale. In addition, the subscription costs can range from a couple hundred dollars a year to sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a month for a large implementation. Drupal, on the other hand, is entirely free and doesn’t have any hidden fees. The advantages are staggering when you take a look at the life cycle of a typical website, which typically can be three to six years.

2. Drupal Has High Profile Clients

Some of Drupal’s highest profile customers include:

The White House

The Onion

Wake Forest University

Energy.gov

FedEx

3. Drupal Has Extensive API Support

When deciding on a CMS, it’s crucial to know what kind of out-of-box support is available from third party applications for that specific tool. Today’s savvy businesses run their organizations with the assistance of API’s that let two programs talk to each other. Drupal has extensive API support including:

Salesforce Drupal API

YouTube Drupal AP I

Google Apps API

Sugar CRM for Drupal API

Constant Contact Drupal API

Facebook Drupal API

Twitter Drupal API

Ubercart Drupal API

Google Analytics Drupal API

AdSense Drupal API

Mailchimp Drupal API

Access more here drupal.org

There are thousands of modules available on Drupal.org and Drupal’s extremely well-documented API lets you create your own custom modules.

4. Drupal Web Design Flexibility

Unlike many website content management systems that offer narrow frameworks and custom coding, Drupal comes out of the box ready to showcase your brand in an interactive, highly-useable environment. You can design (or “theme” in Drupal speak) your Drupal web design to match your business needs without many of the restrictions of previous CMS tools.

5. Drupal Is Search Engine Friendly

Once your website is live, search engine optimization (SEO) plays an integral part of your business’s online marketing strategy. Drupal, created as a community platform, was inherently designed to be SEO friendly. In fact, it has a Ph.D. in SEO. Why make such a bold claim? Drupal has enormous flexibility to display content in a way search engines just can’t resist. Some Drupal SEO Modules include:

Page Title: Enhance the HTML page header tag that shows up as