Ask HN: Do YC startups use Drupal? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do YC startups use Drupal?

5 pointspatkai5 comments

Do any of the YC startups use Drupal? How about PHP - or is it a minus? My startup product is partially based on Drupal7, the API part is Python and I simply can't learn Rails in the next few months, assuming that the advantage I get is not enough to compensate the newbie period.

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It all depends on what you're building but Drupal is an awesome CMS framework that you can extend and mold it into whatever you need. We run a small consulting shop and we leverage Drupal for a lot of our projects. From internationalized corp sites, ecommerce sites (we have a groupon-esqu clone), web apps, and even just as a back-end data store that our mobile apps interface to.

Unless you're trying to really do something super high performance, or have a real good reason why it absolutely needs to be in rails, as we always hear with startup advice, JFDI!

FYI, I know Drupal 7 was just released and its real pretty and shiny but make sure you look into all the compatible contributed modules. Many of them havent been ported over or fully tested for D7.

I use Drupal for my day job, not for startup work right now.

Why is this a concern? Get the best possible product out of the technologies you already know, and success will follow. No one is going to turn down funding your startup or using it just because it does not use their preferred programming language.

The technology is just a tool for the business. Does the change in technology justify a business metric? If not, just stick with what you know best.

I think I need to choose between: 1. progressing fast now, but slowing down when - and if - the site takes off, as I will lose some flexibility I'd have with Rails. 2. progressing slower now and go rails (or even django)

I think I'll go with 1.

You won't get any customers until it's at least out of the door. Seriously, JFDI if you can and get it out. Worrying about flexibility if you're successful is a luxury problem, and if you're not successful then you just saved a load of time.

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