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Mastering Drupal CMS Architecture.

Submitted by Vidyashri on
Mastering Drupal CMS Architecture.

A content management system (CMS) is software that helps users to create, manage, and update content on a website without the need for technical knowledge.

In simple words, a CMS lets you build a website without needing to write code from scratch.

The content management system isn’t just a backend management interface, though. It also makes all of the content that you create show up for your visitors exactly like you want it to.

The primary goal of a CMS is to streamline the content management process, making it easier to organize, update, and publish content on websites, blogs, e-commerce sites, or other digital platforms. They often offer various functionalities, including content scheduling, version control, SEO optimization tools, and integrations with third-party applications or services to enhance website functionality.

Overall, CMS platforms are powerful tools for individuals and businesses to efficiently manage their online presence, enhance user experience, and maintain dynamic and up-to-date digital content without extensive technical expertise.

Examples of Content Management Systems-

  • Drupal
  • WordPress
  • Wix
  • Joomla
  • Magento
  • Squarespace
  • Webflow

Drupal:

Drupal is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) with a large, supportive community. It’s used by millions of people and organizations around the globe to build and maintain their websites. You probably use Drupal every day without knowing it, as many top businesses and government organizations use Drupal, like the Government of Australia, Red Cross, Harvard, The Economist, BBC, NBC News, Whole Foods, Cisco, Twitter, and many, many more.

Drupal is easy to install and is highly accessible. It also supports multilingual content and provides a multilingual UI. It is collaborative by design, enabling users to create content and collaborate on content creation, site administration and other tasks. Finally, Drupal's modular approach enables nontechnical users to build websites, online stores, blogs and web applications.

Drupal is free to download and anyone can modify and extend the platform. This ensures freedom from vendor “lock in” and it empowers users worldwide to monitor Drupal’s underlying code for compliance and security issues and fix them quickly.

Various types of architecture available currently in Drupal-

Coupled architecture-

Coupled Drupal architecture is basically an approach that connects the front-end and the back-end of a website in a single application code base. This aims to be a single solution to managing both the content in the backend and front-end. They contain everything from the database for content all the way up through the presentation layer.

In simple words the Frontend and the Backend are managed by the CMS itself. Drupal performs the Frontend and Backend role.

Decoupled architecture-

In Decoupled Architecture there are essentially two ways in which you can decouple Drupal , Fully Decoupled architecture and Progressively Decoupled architecture .

  • Fully Decoupled Architecture:

A fully decoupled approach in Drupal, as the name suggests, completely releases the front-end from the back-end. In this complete separation, Drupal serves as the data layer providing content to JavaScript or other front-end layers creating dynamic user experiences.

The front-end of the web experience interacts with the back-end via APIs which connect the two in a seamless and flexible manner. This, although leaves the editors of the website at the whims of the developers, gives end users a captivating and interactive web experience.

  • Progressively Decoupled Architecture:

It is also called Partially decoupled architecture. Progressively decoupled architecture adds a JavaScript layer to the front-end delivering some or all the components of the webpage. The back-end CMS remains on Drupal,  whereas

The front-end uses JavaScript to render interactive web experiences. In a progressively decoupled Drupal architecture, the developer holds more control over the experience end-users will get.