Drupal vs. EPiServer– CMS battle between two strong players in Finland (2014)

2014-05-19 / Helsinki, Finland

Perttu Tolvanen, Web & CMS Expert, @perttutolvanen

North Patrol Oy2

CMS market in Finland

Local CMS

players

Liferay

WordPress

SharePoint

DrupaleZ

Publish

EPiServerSitecore

Heavy-weight CMSs (eg.

Oracle, SDL Tridion)

Decision criteria

1. Typical scenarios (web / extra / online store / etc.)2. Product "character" (platform / product / service / ecosystem)3. Expectations for customer's team4. Partners in Finland5. Other support and service network6. Hosting solutions and pricing7. Developers' view (coder requirements)8. Ecosystem (add-ons, global network)9. The future10. Project price range and licenses

1. Typical scenarios

• Drupal– Extensive online service entities comprising

several sites, such as large media companies– Centralized content management typical, for

example media company videos and similar common content

– Extranet-type services requiring log-on that include large amounts of structured content (for example, data banks)

– Custom-made community sites– Custom-made online stores

• EPiServer– Extensive, multi-language online service

entities, such as the main sites of large corporations

– Content producers often dominate site content management as structural management and multi-language management well supported by system

– Some intranets (especially in Sweden) and simple online stores (especially in Sweden)

2. Product "character"

• Drupal– Includes almost nothing out-of-the-box, not

even a WYSIWYG editor– Package assembled for each individual

customer case from the viewpoint of the service, things can be solved in many ways

– Ecosystem includes thousands of versatile plugins with wide expandibility (if competencies available)

– Between a framework and CMS– "Everything can be made to work with some

plugin or add-on"– Aptly described as "a set of building blocks"– There is no one single "Drupal way"

• EPiServer– A strongly performing product for content

editing and site structure management– Has clear "construction principles" – A few dozen commercial and free add-ons,

some very versatile and valuable (for example ActiveStandards, SiteAttention)

– Consistent, steady product development, product management works reasonably well

– The product has clear-cut models to achieve a multitude of goals, which are worth making use of—unfortunately, though, even integrators don't always know which is a good model to use and which isn't

3. Expectations for customer's team• Drupal– Content producers focus on content, not

appearance or optimization– Content producers usually have limited

possibilities to manage things like front pages or how the site works in general

– The service is a system running like a machine, preferably developed through a "product owner" like a software product

– The best efficiency is achieved if in-house Drupal coding competency available, but an active partnership gets you far and gets done whatever you wish!

• EPiServer– Content producers are also editors who

optimize, preview and experiment– Content producers are able to, for example,

manage front pages and creating "highlight systems" of their own

– The service is a website that content producers and web producers can manage and develop very independently, for example build a variety of targeted content highlights, content blocks visible only in certain situations etc. (if they know how to)

– Partners needed mainly for creating additional apps and customization

4. Partners in Finland

• Drupal– The strongest: Exove, Wunderkraut– Others: Activeark JWT, Druid, Tieto plus

dozens of smaller organizations– To be noted: A relatively strong Finland-

centered community that gets together, organizes, discusses; including clients

• EPiServer– The strongest: Solita, Tieto, Sininen

Meteoriitti, Creuna Finland, KnowIt– Others: CGI, HiQ, Tietotalo and about a

dozen smaller companies– To be noted: EPiServer country office with

three employees is exceptionally active

5. Other support and service network• Drupal– A worldwide community that discusses,

distributes code, develops the platform and organizes gigantic seminars

• EPiServer– Has its own support organization that

provides education and support when needed; however, rather sporadically in practice

6. Hosting solutions and pricing

• Drupal– Hosting requires specialist know-how, and

good hosting costs money– Few off-the-shelf solutions despite platform

popularity– Requires in-depth familiarization and often

building your own environment

• EPiServer– EPiServer's own Everweb is the choice of the

overwhelming majority, the specialized hosting includes CDN support and application-level support

– Absolutely not cheap but a good deal considering the price-quality ratio—which is why Everweb is usually chosen by even large corporations

7. Developer view

• Drupal– Learning curve several months even for

experienced PHP developers due to extensive system

– Somewhat similar to SharePoint in its layered construction, because many times "things just have to be done like this, because it's Drupal"

– Add-on experience is developers' most valuable intangible capital, which is why developers like big companies (Drupal is not a lone rider's tool)

– Best Drupal developers are front-end/back-end hybrids, because Drupal's theme layer is inseparably married to its functionality

• EPiServer– An experienced .Net developer will get the

hang of the system in a couple of weeks– .Net development competencies are totally

applicable in the EPiServer environment (if totally customized results are sought after)

– The best EPi coders are also well versed in front-end development; in general, template creation and system setup is a front-end coder's job anyway a potential problem is that there are few such people available

8. Ecosystem

• Drupal– Thousands of add-ons, new ones being

created all the time– Genuinely open-source code– If the community includes others trying to

solve the same problem, your add-on may be taken further by others

• EPiServer– Not a working market for extensions and

add-ons focuses on commercial extensions

– Some code snippets and instructions available online, but not much

9. The future

• Drupal– Will challenge big players, with a mission to

reach world dominance for big sites– Strong community, but with a very

developer-driven culture all-embracing generalism instead of precision solutions

• EPiServer– Strong in the Nordic countries, no success to

speak of in the US or Central Europe– Business relies on hosting, some analysts

even say license business is going down– In Finland, very strong

10. Project price range and licenses• Drupal– The market in earnest begins at €70k

projects– Typical projects around €100–200k– Necessary to pour more money into

development and maintenance than the average CMS; generally we're talking about minimum budgets of a few thousand per month

• EPiServer– The market starts at the €100k level because

the licenses alone require usually tens of thousands of euros

– Typical projects usually around €100-200k– Price for large projects head-to-head with

Drupal– EPiServer typically less expensive in the long

run as clients can use product features more independently

To summarize:

• If online service is your core business, Drupal is a strong platform for accelerating your own type of development—even a very unique and magnificent one. It is no coincidence that media companies are big players in the Drupal camp. Drupal's model is also well applicable to extremely multi-channel publishing and performance.

• If your online service is primarily sales and marketing oriented, EPiServer's product features should get you excited. Web teams producing multi-language marketing sites, in particular, should consider EPiServer as a power tool.

North Patrol Oy15

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