Ask HN: Drupal or Wordpress for a mostly brochure site? (Details inside) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Drupal or Wordpress for a mostly brochure site? (Details inside)

1 pointwmeredith2 comments

Gearing up to build an e-commerce site with some lite social networking functions integrated. All purchasing will take place off-site (think PayPal buttons or free trial download links with actual purchasing done in-app or with vendors, in other words, there will be no cart on the site).<p>I use Wordpress a lot and have built all manner of sites using it, so I'm recommending that to the client. The client's friend (who will not be maintaining or building the site, natch) says it's junk and to go with Drupal. So now I have to have a debate. Not just looking for support; if I really should go with Drupal, I'm open to that, but this guy is not convincing me. What do you guys think?

If I were to build a simple brochure site for someone I would try as much as possible to get away with just building a static site, especially if the client isn't willing to pay for someone to upgrade the site regularly and won't need to update content much. Lack of maintenance will eventually lead to the site being exploited and the host shutting the account down.

Alternatives might be a hosted CMS service such as wordpress .com or using some sort of desktop management system for updates of the static site.

I have also recently built a simple site using the Scanty blogging software (running on Sinatra) and hosted it on Heroku's free plan. Scanty is super slim on code and doesn't get targeted like Wordpress and Drupal, but you still have to keep an eye out for security updates.

If you want to turn it into an app, ever, go with drupal. You're more familiar with WP, so use that as the default unless the "friend" can give you a list of concrete reasons to go with drupal.

When it all comes down to brass tacks, use what you know (especially since getting it rapidly deployed is probably more important than making sure it has a billion eCommerce modules and hooks).

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