Experts in Drupal Development & Design

Drupal Development & Support

Thinking About Building with Drupal? Or do you need help with your current Drupal website?

As a Drupal agency, we can help, and if you are looking for a good alternative to Drupal, we can help with this too.

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Drupal is a powerful and flexible open-source web content management system (CMS) software. It has a large global community of Drupal developers who design and develop new websites in Drupal and provide Drupal maintenance and support.

Following its initial release in 2001, Drupal grew into one of the preferred content management systems for large enterprise companies, government agencies and ASX-listed companies.

Drupal became a common choice for businesses with complex requirements for their websites. Drupal can include advanced custom solutions that other software solutions like Magento or WordPress cannot.

All of this meant that over the past 20 years, Drupal became widely used for both e-commerce and non-e-commerce applications.

Drupal sounds pretty good, right?

Drupal is pretty good… Or at least, Drupal used to be pretty good.

Security has been a major priority with Drupal. When the Drupal codebase is maintained correctly, Drupal is a secure content management system, as long as your Drupal website was built on a supported software version.

Now, the people at Drupal are discontinuing support for older versions of Drupal. This creates major security problems for any business whose current website runs on an old and soon-to-be unsupported version of Drupal.

Now there are better options with new technologies that are more powerful, more flexible and often much more cost-effective.

Exploring these better alternative options will make sense for anyone with an existing Drupal website, especially if (or when) you need to update to use a new version of Drupal.

The upgrade path is often very complicated to migrate from an older version of Drupal to the latest version. You often need to treat the upgrade as if you are building a totally new website.

If that is the case, then it’s smart to look at better options that can be more cost-effective.

While Drupal might have been a good choice in the past, a new software called Laravel has come on the scene recently and is growing in popularity.

Laravel provides unmatched security and unlimited customisation, all at a lower cost than Drupal.

Positives

If your website is built on the latest supported versions of Drupal, your website can be relatively secure. This is because the Drupal software is well built and competently managed by its community of developers. The core Drupal software and extra modules that provide extra functionality are usually well designed and maintained.

While their latest supported versions are very secure, the older and unsupported versions are open to hackers. This is a worry.

Drupal projects allow for an expansive range of functionality and customisation. Drupal designers can create high-quality custom modules and themes built to your specifications. While Drupal is a very powerful open-source CMS, it is complex to implement and could be overkill depending on what your requirements are.

Draw Backs

If you need anything custom-built, then custom programming takes longer and costs more, especially for custom Drupal websites.

If your website is built on an old version of Drupal that is no longer supported AND your website has a lot of customisations, then it can be very complex and costly to move to the latest supported version.

You effectively have to totally rebuild your website and since most Drupal versions are supported for only 3 years, that’s a lot of rebuilding on an ongoing basis. This can become a huge cost to business, and it makes Drupal an expensive system to use.

Even if your website build is straightforward, which isn’t likely given it was built on Drupal, there are significant differences between each version including the core functionality and the structure of the CMS. This can take a long time to upgrade to the new version which results in high development and migration costs.

When a Drupal software version reaches its end-of-life date, it means it is no longer supported and kept up to date by Drupal. This makes websites built on unsupported versions vulnerable to hacking.

For example, support for Drupal version 7 is about to end in November 2023, so it’s time to start thinking about upgrading or rebuilding in a different software to keep your website secure.

Many hackers will be ready and waiting for the end date in November when all these websites built on version 7 become vulnerable.

Even experienced Drupal developers will not be able to keep your site secure once the version is at end-of-life.

It’s essential that you are aware of end-of-life dates. To check if your Drupal version is supported you can head to https://endoflife.date/drupal

If you’re not sure what version of Drupal your website is built on, get in touch and we can help you find out.

Drupal is not built to be used by laymen.

Any Drupal project will require professional services and expertise from a Drupal agency to both build the website and maintain it over time. Since Drupal is more difficult to code in than other platforms out there, web development and software development costs are usually higher.

Laravel, Like
Drupal But Better

If you’re considering building a website on Drupal, or need to upgrade to the newest version of Drupal, you may want to consider Laravel.

Imagine the power and customisation capacity of Drupal, but with literally limitless customisation and scalability – and most importantly you won’t put your website at risk of hackers on an outdated version.

With most open-source CMS software like Drupal, you start with a pre-made CMS. You can change the configurations and add new modules, but ultimately you work with the core system that you cannot alter. This can mean you are stuck with new features you don’t require, will never use but cannot remove.

Laravel is also an open-source software but has no CMS ‘body’ that you have to work from. Programming in Laravel is like building with ‘lego bricks’ of code. It’s totally customisable with ultimate flexibility to create a very secure custom website that only has what you need.

Building in Laravel is faster and easier. It’s infinitely scalable and allows for seamless third-party API integrations. And the biggest benefit when compared to Drupal CMS, you aren’t forced to update the whole software every few years to keep it secure.

The possibilities are limitless in Laravel, from software development to web development, mobile app development, and web development.

Our Drupal Services

Drupal Support

We offer Drupal development help on all websites that are built on supported versions of Drupal.

Drupal Upgrades & Migrations

Our Drupal experts can also assist in migrating your website to a new platform or migrating to the latest version of Drupal.

Drupal New Builds

Thinking about building your website on Drupal?

Our team are experienced with Drupal as well as other software.

We are platform agnostic, which means we will find the best software to support your project and unique requirements, whether that be Drupal, Laravel, Shopify, PrestaShop, or even WordPress.

Many design and development companies aren’t flexible and get pigeonholed into one software like the Drupal CMS, and won’t give regard to anything else. At Concise Digital, we’re different, as we believe that every platform has its pros and cons. Rather than make your business fit into the software, we ensure that the software fits with your business.

Discuss Your Options

More Than a Drupal Agency

While we do offer Drupal services and support, it doesn’t stop there. Many digital agencies offer web design or digital marketing but not both under one roof.

We are a full service digital agency with web design, development, hosting and digital marketing services. (In fact, our agency has a highly professional superstar team of web developers and digital marketers).

From web development services to search engine optimisation, our team has the expertise to help with all aspects of your digital presence.

A digital strategy is more than just a Drupal website. It goes beyond design and development, you need marketing.

SEO

Ranking well in search engines is not by chance, it’s by method. Our SEO specialists team know exactly how to optimise your website to rank in search engines for keywords important to your business.

Google Ads

Our Google Ads Management delivers clients a significant return on ad spend with Google Ads campaigns that reach segmented and specific audiences, ready to book your services or buy your products.

Email Marketing

Concise Digital has extensive experience working with businesses to develop email marketing solutions that help reach out to new customers, improve customer engagement, and build customer loyalty and retention.

Social Media

At Concise, our services include in-house social media management. We can integrate your social media channels with your site as well as create effective and creative social media marketing campaigns to grow your customers.

Let’s Chat

Please leave your details below or give us a call on 1300 226 624

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