Drupal vs. Google Sites
Hi,
We're having a discussion about moving two websites from their current commercial CMS to a different host and CMS. The choices seem to be to use Drupal running on www.dreamhost.com or to use Google Sites. The two sites have different purposes and requirements -- one is for an industry association, and the other is a commercial site representing a firm that does web-based marketing, some government consulting work, and in the future e-commerce.
Seems to me that the use of Drupal might be more secure, depending on how viligant we are at maintaining the site. On the other hand, maintaining a Drupal-based site requires a level of technical sophisication and dedication beyond that of the Google Site version.
My inclination is to say that the industry organization website is OK on Google Sites, since the organization will never have enough money to continuously maintain a Drupal site, and because the industry organization site has no serious security concerns.
And my inclination is also to say that the commercial site should be based on Drupal so that it's more secure and potentially more flexible in the future. In all fairness, I am suspicious of Google's plans for future use of data on their hosted websites.
What do you think?
--Richard Akers
I have only just played around with Google sites and I am not impressed. I generally dislike sites that are created with "web builder" applications as they often limit what you can do and do not allow anyone to tweak code. Many of them also have "that look" that makes them appear like a web-builder site. It is not a good look in my opinion. It reminds me of the early days with FrontPage.
In reading through the limited materials about Google site, I could find no information about custom URLs or using ones own domain. Apparently it is possible, but I am guessing that if Google Sites is like WordPress.com, you don't get this option with the free version.
It depends on the organization, but having your own domain name, I believe, is essential.
As for "Drupal vs Google," I see them as being apples and oranges. Drupal is a robust, completely customizable CMS that is hosted on web server, either your own, or a hosted plan. Google Sites is a free hosting service that (apparently) requires you to use their site builder. You cannot host a Drupal CMS on a Google Site.
I am not going to say much about my bias against the use of Google apps and privacy/security concerns, except to say that I have concerns and won't use them for these reasons.
In choosing a CMS, you may also need to consider some other packages depending upon the needs and resources of the client. They may need the depth and customizable potential of a Drupal site, but they may also get by with a WordPress or Joomla site. It really depends on their needs and to some extent their development budget.