Case Study
View Case StudyTray.ai
Migrating hundreds of thousands of pages, re-platforming and extending for the leading composable AI integration platform

From Strapi to Drupal
Key pain points
Strapi has a fan club because it’s self-hosted, which sounds great until you realise that means you are now responsible for every update, every backup, every scaling issue, and every “why is the server down again?” moment.
Wouldn’t it be easier to use a cloud infrastructure that just… scales, instead of babysitting infra at midnight? And having to maintain a Node.js environment for your content editors is completely unnecessary pain, in our opinion.
It also isn’t exactly friendly for non-technical teams. If you don’t have solid developer talent, the learning curve hits hard, and even simple customisations can turn into “let’s build this from scratch” moments. Plugins help, but not always, and you’ll quickly run into gaps that require custom development. Add the lack of traditional CMS features out of the box, and setup time (and costs) spiral fast.
If you're set on Strapi, fine! Just let us look at it first so we can tell you whether it's actually doable or whether you're about to become a full-time system admin by accident.

Steep learning curve
Strapi looks simple at first, then politely reminds you it’s a developer-first tool. Non-technical teams usually hit a wall long before they hit publish.

Node.js knowledge required
If your team, especially your content team, doesn’t speak Node.js, prepare for a few “so… what does this error mean?” moments. Strapi assumes you’re comfortable under the hood.

Limited traditional CMS features
Things that come out-of-the-box in classic CMSs often need custom setup here. If you’re expecting plug-and-play page building, Strapi is not for you.

Custom development needs
If you need anything slightly beyond the basics, it quickly drifts into “can we ask a developer to build this?” territory. Great for flexibility, not so great for speed.

Plugin limitations
The plugin ecosystem is growing, but not everything works flawlessly, and some gaps still require hand-rolled solutions, which means more dev time than you planned.

Cost-efficiency concerns
Sure, Strapi is free… until you factor in hosting, DevOps, scaling, and ongoing maintenance. “Open-source” doesn’t always mean “cheap.”
Key advantages
We'll give credit where it's due: Drupal is a serious CMS for serious projects. If you're building a government portal, a university website, or a massive multilingual platform that needs to serve content in 24 languages, Drupal is genuinely hard to beat. Its content modeling is incredibly deep, its permissions system is enterprise-grade, and its multilingual capabilities are arguably the best in the open-source CMS world. The European Commission runs on it for a reason.
Where Drupal really shines is in complex, structured content architectures. You can model relationships between content types, build granular taxonomies, and set up editorial workflows that would make other CMS platforms weep. If your content team has 50 editors across multiple departments with different access levels, Drupal handles that without breaking a sweat. It's also one of the few traditional CMS platforms that has genuinely embraced decoupled architecture, so you can use it as a headless backend with a modern frontend framework if you want.
The community is smaller than WordPress but significantly more technical. Drupal developers tend to be proper engineers, and the ecosystem reflects that. Module quality is generally higher, security patches are taken seriously, and the project has strong governance. If you're in an enterprise or government context where compliance, accessibility, and security auditing matter, Drupal is a well-trodden path.
That said, we'd only recommend Drupal for projects that genuinely need its power. If you're building a marketing site or a blog, you're using a sledgehammer to hang a picture frame. Talk to us first, and we'll figure out if Drupal is actually the right fit or if you've been sold on it by someone who bills by the hour.

Exceptional content modeling
Drupal's entity and field system lets you build deeply structured, relational content architectures that most CMS platforms can only dream of. Complex taxonomies, references, and custom types are all first-class citizens.

Best-in-class multilingual support
With over 90 languages available out of the box and proper translation workflows baked in, Drupal is the gold standard for multilingual sites. No plugins, no hacks, just native support that actually works.

Granular permissions and workflows
The access control system is absurdly detailed. You can lock down roles, content types, fields, and editorial workflows with a precision that enterprise clients genuinely need and other platforms struggle to match.

Viable headless architecture
Drupal's JSON:API and GraphQL modules make it a legitimate headless CMS option, letting you pair a robust content backend with a modern frontend framework like Next.js or Nuxt.

Strong security track record
The Drupal security team is proactive and well-organized. Security advisories are clear, patches are timely, and the community takes vulnerabilities seriously, which matters a lot in government and enterprise contexts.

Open source with no vendor lock-in
You own your data, your code, and your hosting. There's no monthly SaaS bill that scales with your content volume, and you can move between hosting providers without rewriting anything.
Book a meeting with us to discuss how we can help or fill out a form to get in touch
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