Important Reasons Why Drupal Should Be Every Government's CMS

• By Aayushi Gill
• 09-09-2022
• Technology

Government websites deal with a large amount of sensitive and private data, handle tremendous traffic, and offer important services to their audiences. Among all the content management systems available, most government agencies worldwide prefer to choose Drupal because of its high-end security and extensive CMS features. So, what makes Drupal the best CMS for government organizations? This blog post highlights important Drupal CMS features that make it the most preferable CMS for government websites.

Why Is Drupal the Best CMS for Government Websites
Over 150 governments and organizations around the world are already investing in Drupal development services. So, why is Drupal so popular amongst such data-sensitive niches? One of the most significant reasons is that the Drupal CMS offers uncompromising security for websites. Besides, it is reliable and affordable, it can efficiently handle huge traffic, and its features are easy to deploy.
In addition to these Drupal CMS features, the platform offers great personalization, essential social tools, and community support for government websites.

Let’s find out how Drupal is an ideal CMS for government organizations.

1. Superior Level of Security
Drupal has an impressive track record of any potential security problem and the systematic process for probing, verifying, and publishing security issues that occurred.

So, when compared to other CMS solutions, Drupal has a dedicated Security Team that works together with other councils to monitor and investigate those issues.

They promptly create backups and ensure that best practices for security are infused into Drupal sites. Additionally, several highly efficient Drupal security features make the platform highly secure.

Some of the Drupal security modules include:
Login Security – This feature keeps the website secure and extends the Drupal core’s security. It adds more access control features and organizes them as per your needs. For example, ban the IP address of a user for a few hours or permanently.

Password Policy – Compel users to create stronger and more complicated passwords.
Security kit – It protects the site against cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting, clickjacking, and the likes;
The Security Review – Reduces the security vulnerabilities of websites with automated testing for several common mistakes.
Two-factor Authentication (TFA) – It adds an extra layer of security with one-time code verification on mobile.

2. Open-Source CMS
Drupal is an affordable CMS because it is open source. When you opt for Drupal development, you enjoy the support of a vast Drupal community that provides free security modules, extensions, distributions, and other effective maintenance. This can help governments to save huge amounts of money and use it for other critical purposes.

Even countries generating low income can leverage Drupal CMS features for their websites. And, therefore, countries from Herzegovina and Bosnia to Bangladesh and Rwanda rely on Drupal website development.

Furthermore, the platform receives a valuable contribution from the massive Drupal community. Thousands of developers make contributions that are constantly developing and evolving. Drupal is practiced and maintained by an active community of more than 630,000 global Drupal CMS developers and users.

For example, the Ireland’s healthcare and quality authority website use Drupal as its CMS. It contains enormous amounts of documents related to medical law and regulations for its audience and other essential information for the daily working of the citizens. Users can also raise a concern, ask for an investigation, and read latest the research and publication.

3. Great Third-party Integration Solutions
Most government websites appear dull and unappealing, however, that can be changed. They realized that they need to provide valuable content and services. Drupal CMS supports many third-party services and solutions and it can seamlessly integrate with any database, enterprise content, and internal publishing tools.

If you’ve noticed, many government sites offer attractive sections of recent news, government policies, announcements, and other useful information. Therefore, Drupal SEO modules are core features that make Drupal the best CMS for governments.

Since it is an open-source CMS, Drupal offers an extensible platform that can seamlessly integrate with external solutions. It creates essential features such as payment methods, citizen service centers, patented legacy systems, etc.

The Australian government, for example, attempts to promote useful information that can be valuable to its citizens. Furthermore, Drupal core also allows you to define and add unlimited user roles. The platform can easily manage multiple site users and bloggers with various user roles and permissions. This is another reason why Drupal is the best CMS for governments.

Also, a person can create a new kind of content, from pages, Stories Books, Blog entries, and Polls. This gives complete control over content as to where and how the content will be displayed.

Therefore, governments have finally started to harness the power of content marketing.

4. Enhanced UX with Multisite Feature
Australia has 100+ websites using the Drupal CMS, and France has around 25 websites, including Ministry websites. Building multiple websites from scratch is a very time-consuming and expensive process for every country. With Drupal development, they can create multiple sites with a single installation of the Drupal CMS. This is another significant advantage that makes Drupal the best CMS for government sites.

5. Highly Scalable CMS
Other than security, scalability is another major concern for government websites. So, they need a platform that can handle highly trafficked websites.

USA’s Disaster assistance organizations also use the Drupal CMS for their websites. They run a service-based website that allows people, affected by different disasters, or natural accidents can immediately apply for the needed help.

Therefore, they preferred to choose Drupal over others as it can efficiently handle content-rich websites without breaking or bending.

Presently, Drupal fuels over a million websites with top websites with high traffic volumes, including government sites. Some examples of websites using Drupal include Mercedes, Time, The EU, CERN, etc.

Furthermore, websites with tremendous traffic, like the Weather.com website, leverage Drupal CMS features to operate flawlessly.

6. Responsive Sites and Mobile Apps
Another reason why governments hire Drupal CMS developers is that they help in building responsive websites and creating web apps that deliver optimum user experiences. Drupal aids in providing the best responsive design practices and offers a perfect content experience every time a user accesses the website using any device.

7. Easy Upgrades and Migrations
Drupal migrations and upgrades are incredibly easy and convenient. From Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 migration, is extremely effortless, according to its developers. Drupal CMS developers can make the upgrade themselves using the Upgrade Status and Drupal Module Upgrader. This also helps in understanding whether the existing modules and themes are compatible and competent enough for the latest Drupal version and converting custom codes accordingly.

8. Supports Latest Technologies
Drupal is constantly evolving and has the potential to leverage the latest technologies to deliver a more enhanced user experience. Some of the cutting-edge technologies like AI-powered chatbots, IoT, virtual reality, Blockchain, digital voice assistants like Alexa, and cognitive search can be integrated into Drupal websites.

Considering the aforementioned features, Drupal can be regarded as an ideal choice for government sites. With Drupal development, governments can build fully functional, secure, and future-proof websites for their citizens.

Here’s a List of Government Websites Using Drupal
Here are some top examples of government websites and organizations using Drupal:

Ministry of Finance, Somalia
City of Boston
The Weather.com
NASA.gov
Talk London
The White House
Canadian Tourism Commission
Human Rights Museum
USA’s Federal IT Spending Dashboard
Data Gov
Innovate Direct Gov
New Zealand Government
Embassy of the UAE in Washington
Prime Minister of Australia

Wrapping Up
Bringing digital transformation to government websites has become imperative to meet the growing expectations and requirements of the citizens. While such a transformation can be a challenging task, eventually, it will be beneficial for both the government and its citizens.

Countries including France, Brazil, and Australia are using Drupal to boost their government websites to protect their data and services. All of them have realized the significance of a robust government CMS with easy maintenance, high-end security, and greater scalability. Of course, the Drupal CMS features are not limited to this list, and therefore, many leading brands, media, and other companies are relying on Drupal.

So, a government that wants to embrace digital transformation and is ready to adopt digital technology can improve the quality of life of its citizens and strengthen the government-citizen bond. Drupal, as an effective CMS solution, can provide the best support in bridging the gap between citizens and the government.