I have been researching Drupal now for the past week or so. They have a wonderful CMS framework that is quite extendable and user friendly at the same time. There also appears to be a large and active community involved with this OS project as well. But is it right for you? The following is an excerpt from Drupal’s site that will help give you a better idea if it is or not. Good Luck!

Drupal is a highly configurable, modular content management system. Before you can answer if Drupal is right for you, consider a couple of questions: Which type of Drupal user are you, and what are your needs?

Below is a list of common user types followed by Drupal features. If the features meet your needs and you have the skill-set required to implement them, Drupal might be a perfect system for you. (See the list at the bottom of this page for more on required skills.)

I’m a Blogger and I need…

• single- and/or multi-user blogs
• to categorize content
• commenting
• trackbacks
• custom style and layout using sample or custom themes
• image and/or other media support using contributed modules (i.e., plug-ins)

Skills needed: end-user, administrator

I’m evaluating Drupal for my organization/company and we need…

• customizable user roles and permissions
• robust security model
• scalability
• to configure and extend functionality to meet specific business needs
• a support infrastructure (documentation, community, etc.)
• to categorize content
• additional features/functionality

Skills needed: evaluator, end-user

I’m a community organizer and I need…

• community members to easily share ideas (blogs, forum, files, etc.)
• members to have tools to help them self-organize
• a site that can evolve as the community evolves (keeping up with the state-of-the-art of interactive web sites)
• a support infrastructure (documentation, community, etc.)
• customizable user roles and permissions
• a site that is safe on the web (security, spam, trolls, etc.)
• a special distribution of Drupal and contributed modules that come preconfigured with community relationship management tools like CivicSpace.

Skills needed: evaluator, end-user, administrator, site developer (to some extent)

I’m a small business owner and I need…

• to set up the site myself
• custom style and layout using sample/custom themes
• customizable user roles and permissions
• a system that is scalable and adaptable to the needs of my changing business
• to categorize content
• a support infrastructure (documentation, community, etc.)
• e-commerce support for
  • shopping carts
  • premium paid content subscriptions
• to configure and extend functionality to meet specific business needs

Skills needed: evaluator, end-user, administrator, site developer (to a limited extent)

I build or design websites for clients and I need…

• to create a custom look and feel with my own themes
• additional features/functionality
• to easily provide support to my clients
• access to a community of designers and developers

Skills needed: evaluator, administrator, site developer, developer (to some extent)

I’m a programmer and I need…

* a robust, well-designed, modular system that I can customize and extend
* well documented APIs
* system and architecture documentation and coding standards
* access to a community of other developers
* a rich feature list

Skills needed: administrator, programmer

Do you know what type of Drupal user you want to be? If you do, review the skill sets below to see what you’ll need to get started:

• Evaluator: Familiar with web terminology and concepts.
• End-user: familiar with browsing, clicking, submitting web pages, selecting options.
• Administrator: Manage roles, select themes, categorize web pages (content), configure module settings, install and upgrade software and databases, apply security fixes.
• Site designer/developer: Install software, design style and layout (with css and minimal php), build and deploy websites, evaluate contributed modules, work with LAMP.
• Programmer: program in php, administer databases, program through a well-defined API, design database objects, evaluating existing solutions and apply patches, collaborate with other developers