Drishtikone transforms from Drupal to WordPress

Transform

Since last few months, I have been analyzing the platform I was using for Drishtikone.com with a view to see how it can be made simpler and also more user friendly. All these years, I have been a hard core proponent of Drupal as a great CMS. It is. But it had certain issues that were impacting my ability to do things. For example:

  • There is a new Drupal version every year. And the upgrade is not as easy as it is WP. It takes a fair amount of effort. And the new version does not support the old modules or themes. So, you have to see which modules and themes work with the new version. Many a times, one cannot make the move.
  • The developers for Drupal are VERY hard to find and keep with you. Finding someone who was good at Drupal was very hard.
  • Getting decent themes and designing is tough for Drupal vs WordPress.

As much as Drupal has grown so tremendously in the last few years, WordPress has also taken quantum leaps, not just in areas it was weak (Community functionalities) but also it has attracted developers and companies to make cutting edge plugins that are specifically targeted to blogging. The blogging experience and rendering is taken to a whole new level by the proliferation of the plugins in the WP world.

Every single functionality has multiple plugins which compete against each other and try to better the other in some way. And, that seems to be the weakness of Drupal. It really has one module per functionality, since they are pretty much official and formally backed by the entire community. That limits the creativity.

I had thought that such a move will be very tough. Thankfully, I came to this website Migrate to WP, and got in touch with Jordi Cabot there. He and his team were able to help me do this effortlessly. I am very wary of my technical skills and expertise and was walking very gingerly… not sure if I would really like to go the whole distance. But before I knew it, I was on WP and the blog looked just fine. The price he charged was also very reasonable, given the complexity involved.

Some kinks remain. For example my comments were on Disqus and they have been a nightmare to get. So, instead of retaining Disqus or going to Livefyre, I have decided to take all my comments to the native WP commenting system.  It will take a few days, but we are working to get them in WP soon.  So, all the commenters, please bear with us.. we haven’t lost your comments.. they are safe with us!

One thing that I would have missed – reactions from Facebook and Twitter – was solved by as usual some really kick-ass plugin called Social. This thing solves so many things in one shot itself!

In the coming months, I intend to add of lots of cool features and content and make Drishtikone an even more enriching experience for all.

Btw, what do you think of the change? Do you like it? Dislike it?

(Image courtesy: fdecomite)

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