Drupal is an open source and free software content management platform written in PHP and freely distributed under the GNU General Public License, which allows free use, distribution, and modification. Drupal also provides a common back-office platform for more than 12% of the worlds top 10,000 sites worldwide. Drupal is rapidly gaining in popularity because of its solid security and feature-rich design and control over web services. Drupal is used by tens of thousands of web server administrators and designers worldwide in addition to hundreds of thousands of hobbyists and developers. It is free software that works well with the major operating systems. It is user friendly and well documented.
Drupal started life as a successful open source community project. The project’s core team is composed of many full-time developers and contributors that meet monthly to discuss and work on the project’s developments. Drupal maintains the popularity it has today because of its user-friendliness and versatility. Drupal development is delivered as multiple modules that can be seamlessly integrated with one another.
The core Drupal code is licensed under permissive Open Source license that allows any user to use, change or contribute to the software under any license. Drupal is an open source software that is supported by an active community of developers and designers worldwide. Drupal is built upon the principle of flexible content architecture that provides complete freedom with simple coding and modular design. Drupal utilizes an intuitive system of coding where all the processes from customizing individual components to managing entire sites are organized. It is also designed to be highly extensible using an easy to use configuration manager called APEX.
Because Drupal is an open source software, it allows the development of small and large sites easily and quickly. Drupal CMS is considered to be highly user friendly and with lots of modules that can be easily added to the system. With a Drupal site, you can expect to have high traffic with low maintenance. Drupal can also be used for highly advanced and customized applications.
Drupal development has an outstanding user interface and high degree of flexibility. Drupal 8, which is the most recent version of Drupal and incorporates many new features was released in 2007. Drupal 8 features an all new administration interface for a more flexible administrative system, a built-in content management system and many new modules that contribute to the Drupal development community. The most popular modules among Drupal users are Modals, Templates, login options, icons, themes, plugins and search engines.
Drupal works across multiple platforms and browsers. Drupal websites are easy to build using a modular design pattern. Drupal works very well with content management systems that are based on PHP/ MySQL. Drupal CMS works across multiple devices and browsers. Drupal developers use the Open Source licensing platform to release new modules and customize the existing ones. Drupal 8, the latest release, is packed with new features and added functionality such as inventory management, membership management, user web services and contextual installation.
Many companies are turning to Drupal because of its open source community. Drupal developers can contribute code and participate in the open source community forum, helping other developers to work out bugs as well as providing a venue for easy communication. Drupal development is delivered as a package containing a database, web structure and programming code that is installed using the PHP / MySQL combination. These packages can be easily managed using the Drupal control panel or through the command line interface. In addition to writing Drupal scripts, one can also develop new modules and install them as well.
There are several types of Drupal websites ranging from simple forums to highly scalable and advanced e-commerce portals. Drupal offers a flexible solution for everyone. Drupal developers use the Drupal web development tools to write the code for the modules. The modules are then managed by the system administrator, who ensures that the code quality meets the expectations of the Drupal users. Since Drupal is an open source project, there are many tutorials on how to contribute to the Drupal project, as well as numerous modules that one can contribute to. Drupal is highly scalable, cost effective and secure which makes it a preferred choice for many enterprises.