Why Drupal? Why not Confluence? Or custom?

Ben Spead · Feb 26, 2016

Scott,

There was an attempt in the past to try custom but it didn't suceed. Why re-invent the wheel when there are already mature platforms out there?

The use of Confluence came after the Drupal deployment was already launched. It is a fairly new tool within US team at InterSystems.

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Scott Beeson · Feb 26, 2016

"Why re-invent the wheel?"

Because we'd still be using stone or wood :)

I'm trying to be fair but I've just never seen a Drupal implementation go well and this one seems to be a bit rough too. It is definitely getting there.

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Ben Spead · Feb 26, 2016

Thanks for your patience Scott - it's no question that this has been a little bumpy ;) But I am confident that we will get there.

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Iran Hutchinson · Feb 26, 2016

I will start by saying I like to use the right tool for the job when the option is available.

The Atlasssian guys agree with that approach: https://www.cmscritic.com/atlassian-chooses-magnolia-cms-for-groundbreaking-product-training-website/

Drupal is a CMS (Content management system) / WCM (Web content management) system while Confluence is an enterprise collaboration and wiki platform. Sure there is feature overlap but the product goals are different.

Though I’m a fan of products that run on the Java Platform, one cannot deny the popularity, ecosystem, and success of technologies like PHP for web content management.

I’ve deployed several successful sites on Drupal technology and so has Acquia (The creators of Drupal). However, I like to make data driven decisions as experience (including my own) can bias choices.

Some points of research:

Analyst reviews:
- Acquia Named a Leader in new Gartner WCM Magic Quadrant and Click here to learn why Forrester named Acquia a leader in the social platform marketplace
Who is using Drupal:

Ecosystem / Community (Very strong): https://www.drupal.org/

I also evaluated the latest versions of Joomla, Wordpress, HippoCMS and few others. The total offering of Drupal/Acquia/Community/Ecosystem led to the selection of Drupal.

This site is currently at its initial version and infancy. It will evolve in feature, function, and aesthetics. Success one is getting it launched.

More to come...

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Scott Beeson · Feb 29, 2016

Oddly, I hate Java and that was my biggest complaint and headache with JIRA and Confluence :)

I agree that Confluence is (currently) an "Enterprise collaboration and wiki platform" but it is evolving, and with some of the very high-quality addons available I think it could have been a good fit for this community. For instance, there is a very good Question & Answer addon.

I just sincerely think Confluence is a superior product and though it may not have been the ideal fit I feel like it would have taken less effort to get it to a better point already.

That's not to say that I think this is or will be a failure. As I've said, it's progressing nicely and I'm confident it will be usable and valuable. I was just curious as to why Drupal was chosen.

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Scott Beeson · Feb 29, 2016

And just one more comment. I see Drupal much like Sharepoint. A very solid platform that became a victim of its own success...

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Scott Beeson · Feb 29, 2016

According to this question dated a year after that article (4 years ago), the user interface is custom built but serves data via JSON that is hosted on "a CMS".

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