php Why most government web applications/websites use Drupal?

[roosevelt]

Hi,

 

I have been programming for a while now and have created web applications utilizing various frameworks and CMS. From my experience MVC based frameworks (e.g. CakePHP, Laravel... heck even Zend) is perfect for rapid development and the MVC patterns just makes development easier and allows the developers to follow a very similar path. But what's the deal with the government that has a special liking for Drupal?

 

When you are building a simple website using blocks, views, panels, etc... Drupal definitely rocks! But some companies want to build a complex application all in drupal. The thing that frustrates me sometimes on drupal is when I'm using a mix bag of community modules. The problem with such modules is that they tend to go about their own ideal way of doing things and does not necessarily follow the standards set by drupal. So, if there is a bug or lack of documentation, it can be time consuming to figure out why certain logic was set forth by the community developer.

[Seahorsepip Veteran]

Why are there more drupal then joomla(or other cms) sites? It's kinda simple I think, Drupal has been around since 2001 and as example Joomla appeared later in 2005. So when joomla appeared most governments had already chosen for drupal and did not want to change because that costs money and time. New government sites are made by the same people who made the old ones and these people were used to drupal so they used it again.

 

It's just my guess why drupal is chosen.

[xendrome]

I don't know of any government web applications/sites that use Drupal, and I work in government. So I think your generalizing base on just your small observations of  what you have seen?

[123456789A]

What does Obamacare use? Healthcare.gov

[Max Norris]

I don't know of any government web applications/sites that use Drupal, and I work in government. So I think your generalizing base on just your small observations of  what you have seen?

https://groups.drupal.org/government-sites

I knew the White House used it, but turns out it's quite a lot apparently.

[bigmehdi]

I don't know if it has changed but drupal offered more flexibility than joomla, especially with their tagging system.

Joomla code is more bloated than drupal, so if you like to program stuff , you might prefer drupal .

I believe that Joomla has the edge only because of it's better community, and more convenient extension directory.

Also developpers of Joomla extension, are not forced to upload their stuff at main website, and can generate some traffic to their website .... There are more incentive for people to developp/ distribute stuff for joomla. But drupal is pretty good too.

[adrynalyne]

What does Obamacare use? Healthcare.gov

No CMS.

[TAZMINATOR]

Why this concern you?

I don't care what they use on their website.

They pick whatever they want that works for them.

[Dick Montage]

You have to understand the mentality of a lot of public sector sites.  Their concerns are:

 

1) Has another project used this?  If so, I have a valid justification for choosing it and that can't be used against me.

2) Is it a widely known platform?  If so, I have a valid justification for choosing it and that can't be used against me.

 

There is a lot of ass covering in the public sector for such management roles.  As such, once one agency or technology delivers well, all the others flock to it, and if put out to tender it stands very much in it's favour.

[roosevelt]

Why this concern you?

I don't care what they use on their website.

They pick whatever they want that works for them.

 

Have you ever done Drupal programming? Have you ever tried migrating a Drupal 6 website to Drupal 7? Drupal does have a quite a following (surprisingly) like many other CMS out there but at the end of day solutions like CakePHP, Symfony, Ruby on Rails or Django have a much shorter learning curve and development is quite easy to do as well. God bless Ruby on Rails!

 

I believe +Nik L answered most of my questions though. Drupal 8 is based on the Symfony Framework, so I'm sure it will make things fun but I wonder if these top government entities pays much attention to the speed at which a drupal website performs or the amount of time it takes to build something on Drupal vs on a MVC framework like Phalcon PHP.

[spenser.d]

Lowest bidder would be my guess.

[Dick Montage]

Lowest bidder would be my guess. 

 

Worst (aka Most Wrong) guess ever.

 

The price is often moot, heck I have seen councils and governments opt for the most expensive solution under the assumption it is the best.

 

And Roosevent: They don't care about the technology, stop thinking like a developer.

[Guest]

I have built a few Drupal sites recently - not saying I prefer it, but I understand why a lot of these type of sites are built using Drupal

• Open Source (avoid possible vendor lock-in)
• Secure / reliable modules developed by the community.

It may not be as flexible as a MVC framework but they don't care as much about that as others have pointed out - all about covering their asses.

[Dick Montage]

^^^ This guy gets it!