Composable vs. Legacy: A Quick Comparison
As experts in the digital experience field, we often help clients weigh the benefits of legacy CMS platforms like WordPress and Drupal against the flexibility and scalability of a modern solution like Contentful. Here’s how they compare.
Traditional CMS Platforms: WordPress & Drupal
Most businesses are familiar with WordPress and Drupal - open-source CMS platforms with broad user bases. WordPress powers a significant portion of the internet, making it a popular choice for quick and customizable websites. Its strong community and self-hosting options allow developers to tailor functionality extensively.
Drupal, while initially designed as a message board, has evolved into a complex web framework, supporting large-scale digital experiences. Like WordPress, it offers customization through themes and plugins and supports self-hosting, giving users full control over security updates and backend management.
Contentful: A Composable Content Platform
Contentful shifts from the traditional CMS approach to a composable content platform. Rather than managing content with a page-centric view, Contentful focuses on delivering flexible, API-based content that can be distributed across any digital channel. This modularity makes it ideal for businesses looking to streamline content delivery across devices, apps, and websites.
For example, Contentful’s Images API allows for resizing, cropping, and color adjustments without requiring additional plugins. With a headless CMS like Contentful, developers have the freedom to choose their stack, with built-in API compatibility for smooth integration.
Developer-First Flexibility
Contentful’s API-first structure offers unmatched flexibility for developers, letting them interact with content using any major programming language- whether it’s JavaScript, Python, or .NET. This “building block” approach allows developers to build customized solutions without traditional CMS constraints.
Why Contentful Stands Out to Adapt
APIs and JSON-Ready: Contentful serves content via APIs in JSON format, making it compatible with any digital platform.
Built for Scale: Unlike WordPress or Drupal, Contentful eliminates the need for plugins or third-party modules, offering a streamlined approach to manage and distribute content.
Cloud-Based Reliability: Contentful’s hosted solution frees you from the headaches of in-house maintenance and ensures reliable, CDN-backed performance.
Here's a Side-by-Side Comparison
| Contentful | WordPress | Drupal |
|---|---|---|---|
Benefits | API-based from the ground up Clear separation between content and visual presentation Reliably hosted and accessed via our CDN Well-documented SDKs for the most popular programming languages | Easy to set up and use for smaller projects Familiar to developers and users alike Self-hosting possible Open source Countless visual themes for a modern look | Open source Small projects can be deployed with little effort Self-hosting possible Has been around for years and has a large community of passionate developers |
Things to consider | Development needed Can’t be installed locally Proprietary solution / code | Only available as a headless solution from version 4.7 Site owners must apply security updates Historically built for webpage layouts | After installing a few modules, databases grow substantially Generated client-side code is lengthy and hard to grasp Getting started requires a reliable hosting provider (or you have to host the Drupal installation yourself) Not an API-centric approach |
See the table from Contentful here.
The Right Choice for Your Project
If you’re focused on rapid setup or building a simple website, WordPress might be suitable due to its ease of use. For more complex, adaptable applications, however, Contentful’s composable content platform offers the agility and developer freedom needed to deliver next-gen digital experiences.
Questions? Don't hesitate to ask.
