By Matthew Cheney March 19, 2014
Like many others who build websites using open source software, I believe in the power of the web to change the world for the better. The ability for individuals and organizations to harness the power of open source technology to create their own websites is nothing short of revolutionary for our collective marketplace of ideas. For the better part of the last decade it has been my privilege to help build this kind of technology with the rest of the Drupal community and much of our collective passion at Pantheon is to make it easier for developers to build, launch, and run their own websites using Drupal. It has been amazing to watch the explosive growth of our project that now powers over one million websites. Drupal has a bright future ahead.
The Power of WordPress
It has also been interesting to watch, albeit at a distance, the even more explosive growth of WordPress which now powers over 76 million websites. Although the typical WordPress site does tend to be smaller and simpler than the typical Drupal site, many are not and some of the largest sites on the web use WordPress. It is true that some in the Drupal community invariably see WordPress and WordPress developers as the “competition”, but I think that they are better understood as allies in our collective mission to create an open web powered by open source software. As the many, many developers who use both technologies will tell you, each has its own strengths and weaknesses and using the best tool for the job is one of the smartest things you can do as a web developer.
Pantheon for WordPress
Here at Pantheon we believe that we have built - with our modern, multi-tenant, container architecture and our industry leading developer dashboard - some really special tools for those folks who are building the future websites of the world. Although we designed those tools for Drupal development, as Josh’s post points out these tools are easily adaptable to WordPress development and part of our motivation in formally supporting WordPress is to help bring some of the best practices of the Drupal development community to the WordPress community. As you might imagine, we are often asked by WordPress developers for Pantheon to support WordPress and whenever possible one should give the people what they want.
The Road Ahead: Drupal 8 + WordPress
Drupal will also have a very special place in the hearts of all of the Pantheon and we are super excited about all of the magic contained in Drupal 8. Although it is going to be substantially different from Drupal 7, there is a lot of value in utilizing technologies that are proudly invented elsewhere and participating in the larger PHP renaissance. Drupal 8 is going to open up many new opportunities for web developers and we see our role at Pantheon as supporting those trends and empowering our developers.
Similarly, we see opening up Pantheon to WordPress as just another way we can help build a better and more open web by helping developers to build, launch, and run the best websites they can. There has been a lot of talk about getting off the island and although trying WordPress may look more like a technology vacation for Drupal developers, I think it is important to recognize the internet is a very big place and trying out new technologies - the latest version of WordPress is really quite impressive - is a worthwhile thing to do. So sit back, relax, strap on your seatbelt, and take WordPress for a test drive.
Topics: Drupal, Education, WordPress
