Drupal vs. Image Relay

We developed a corporate website using Drupal, which features a large number of static pages and several dynamic functions, including a contact us form, location finder, and job posting. We utilized Drupal with some customization to achieve the desired functionalities. We have also worked on e-commerce sites using Drupal, and there is a scope for improvements, specifically in cataloging.

Incentivized

Image Relay is perfect for a creative team that is putting out a lot of content and always creating more. It works great with freelancers and has customizable access for different groups of individuals. I have not seen the PIM side of things with Image Relay. Management chose a different system for our PIM but it was prior to learning about Image Relay. The system we have for PIM seemed more robust for syndicating to multiple channels, however, it does not have the collaboration a creative team needs as Image Relay does.

Incentivized

• Content Types... these are amazing. Whereas a more simplistic CMS like Wordpress will basically allow you to make posts and build pages, Drupal 8 gives you the ability to define different types of content that behave differently, and are served up differently in different areas of the website.
• Extensibility... it scales, ohhhh does it scale. They've really figured out server-side caching, and it makes all the difference. Once a page has been cached, it's available instantly to all users worldwide; and when coupled with AWS, global redundancy and localization mean that no matter where you're accessing the site, it always loads fast and crisp.
• Workflows... you have the ability to define very specific roles and/or user-based editorial workflows, allowing for as many touchpoints and reviews between content creation and publication as you'll require.

Incentivized

• Image Relay keeps things organized well
• It's SO easy to create upload links and send them to people when you need materials from them. I love that you are emailed when someone uploads to a folder you created.
• The support team is great at Image Relay too—I've rarely had any problems, but when I do or have questions they respond very quickly!

Incentivized

• Security and new release notifications are a hassle as they happen too often
• Allowing them to write PHP modules is a big advantage, but sometimes integrating them is a small challenge due to the version the developer is working on.
• Steep learning curve, but worth it

Incentivized

• The AI tagging terms are too generic to really be helpful to us.
• When we did our initial upload the system couldn't pull in old dates, so everything has a date of the day it was uploaded. It will be a while before searching by "most recent" works properly.

Incentivized

I really like Drupal, and besides the one major issue with not being able to update from version 6 to version 7 and I am happy to continuing using it. Hopefully as time goes on they will make it easier to upgrade or provide better tools for mid-level web designers like myself to build out new sites without the help of expensive 3rd party's.

I believe once all of our staff see how efficient Image Relay is in managing our digital assets, there will be no question that the cost vs. value will mandate continued use moving forward. It literally will pay for itself in saved staff time, I believe.

Incentivized

It has a very steep learning curve. When starting with Drupal, the functionality and setup have to be learned, which is complex in comparison to tools like WordPress. Drupal is more powerful and can create a wider range of applications, but it definitely has a learning curve. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to make a dynamic web application bigger than the scale of a WordPress blog.

Incentivized

I didn't have to be trained to figure out how to use it, everything is straight forward which is important when you have a lot of external-facing users on this platform. The folders help you navigate what you have but I also use the search feature a lot if I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

Incentivized

Drupal itself does not tend to have bugs that cause sporadic outages. When deployed on a well-configured LAMP stack, deployment and maintenance problems are minimal, and in general no exotic tuning or configuration is required. For highest uptime, putting a caching proxy like Varnish in front of Drupal (or a CDN that supports dynamic applications).

Drupal page loads can be slow, as a great many database calls may be required to generate a page. It is highly recommended to use caching systems, both built-in and external to lessen such database loads and improve performance. I haven't had any problems with behind-the-scenes integrations with external systems.

Incentivized

As noted earlier, the support of the community can be rather variable, with some modules attracting more attraction and action in their issue queues, but overall, the development community for Drupal is second to none. It probably the single greatest aspect of being involved in this open-source project.

Incentivized

Amazing. We are having a quick call once a week to be sure we are right on track. They answer all our questions right away and if they are missing something they will just find the answer and get back to us as fast as possible. There is no need to look elsewhere!

Incentivized

I was part of the team that conducted the training. Our training was fine, but we could have been better informed on Drupal before we started providing it. If we did not have answers to tough questions, we had more technical staff we could consult with. We did provide hands-on practice time for the learners, which I would always recommend. That is where the best learning occurred.

The on-line training was not as ideal as the face-to-face training. It was done remotely and only allowed for the trainers to present information to the learners and demonstrate the platform online. There was not a good way to allow for the learners to practice, ask questions and have them answered all in the same session.

Plan ahead as much you can. You really need to know how to build what you want with the modules available to you, or that you might need to code yourself, in order to make the best use of Drupal. I recommend you analyze the most technically difficult workflows and other aspects of your implementation, and try building some test versions of those first. Get feedback from stakeholders early and often, because you can easily find yourself in a situation where your implementation does 90% of what you want, but, due to something you didn't plan for, foresee, or know about, there's no feasible way to get past the last 10%

Incentivized

The Image Relay team was very helpful in guiding us through the process. Excellent customer service and guidance.

Incentivized

Drupal's capabilities outpace WordPress by miles. Drupal is more customizable, scales better for larger companies and has advanced content types. If you own a small business or work at a startup company, I would recommend WordPress but if your firm is trying to scale and you have more than 50 employees I would recommend Drupal.

Incentivized

The decision really seemed to come down to the interface, the value, and the approach to innovating how the assets were stored and accessed. It was important to us that our DAM has plenty of features and options while also not being over-designed or overcomplicated. It needed to have a flow and logic to it so that we could do more while not being overwhelmed or lost in the product. In all of these areas, Image Relay really seemed to stand out among the rest.

Incentivized

Drupal is well known to be scalable, although it requires solid knowledge of MySQL best practices, caching mechanisms, and other server-level best practices. I have never personally dealt with an especially large site, so I can speak well to the issues associated with Drupal scaling.

Incentivized

• Drupal helped us launch a creative, marketing- and product-focused website with custom coding integrations tailored to our goals.
• Drupal allows us to rely on secure and consistently updated core code.
• Drupal's code taxing on the server does start to get a bit heavy as you go along with customizations, so at some point, we decided to stop. We want to ensure our Google Page Score remains high, including paying close attention to page load speed.

Incentivized

• It is a huge time saver for our team
• It enables us to quickly share information and files internally as well as with customers and vendors externally.
• Being able to share files in real-time makes our decision process faster, more accurate, and far more effective.

Incentivized