AMODX vs Drupal: Enterprise CMS Comparison for 2026

Last updated: January 2026

Quick Answer

Drupal is best for: Large enterprises with complex content workflows, government agencies with compliance requirements, organizations with dedicated DevOps teams.

AMODX is best for: Technical agencies managing 5-20 client sites, teams wanting enterprise security without enterprise complexity, developers tired of Drupal maintenance overhead.

Architecture Comparison

The Drupal Maintenance Burden

Drupal is powerful. It can model any content structure. But that power comes with operational cost:

Quarterly Security Updates: Core and contrib modules require constant patching. One missed update exposes the site. High-profile Drupal vulnerabilities (Drupalgeddon) force emergency patches.

Major Version Migrations: Drupal 7 to 8, 8 to 9, 9 to 10. Each migration is a full rebuild. Custom modules require refactoring. Sites stay on EOL versions for years because migration is too expensive.

Performance Tuning: Drupal is slow out of the box. Requires Varnish or Redis for caching. Database queries need optimization. Cron jobs must be tuned. Performance degrades as content grows.

Module Compatibility: Contributed modules conflict. Updates break sites. Testing required before every update. Agencies maintain staging environments just to test updates.

AMODX eliminates this burden. No major version migrations. No contrib module conflicts. No performance tuning. Deploy once. Forget about it.

What Drupal Does Better

Complex Content Modeling: Drupal's Entity system handles hierarchical taxonomies, field collections, paragraphs, and reference fields. AMODX has basic content types (Page, Post, Product). Custom types require coding.

Workflow and Permissions: Drupal supports multi-stage editorial workflows, granular permissions, content moderation, and publishing schedules. AMODX has role-based access (Admin, Editor) with simpler workflows.

Multilingual Out-of-Box: Drupal core includes translation management, language negotiation, and content translation. AMODX multilingual support requires custom implementation.

Enterprise Integrations: Drupal has modules for Salesforce, SAP, LDAP, SSO, and enterprise search. AMODX integrations require writing Lambda functions.

What AMODX Does Better

Security by Architecture: Drupal secures through patching and hardening. AMODX secures through isolation. No database exposed to internet. No PHP runtime. Attack surface is static files on CDN.

Zero Idle Cost: Drupal requires always-on servers. You pay $100-500/month whether the site has traffic or not. AMODX scales to $0.00 when idle. Lambda functions wake on request.

Deployment Simplicity: Drupal deployment involves Composer, Drush, config sync, database migrations, and cache clearing. AMODX deployment is one CDK command. Infrastructure as code. Repeatable.

No Version Migrations: Drupal forces major version upgrades every few years. AMODX has no concept of major versions. Lambda functions are isolated. Breaking changes are impossible.

The Cost Math (Real Numbers)

Scenario: Agency managing 10 enterprise client sites.

Drupal (Managed Hosting): Platform.sh or Acquia. $300-500 per site per month. Total: $36000-60000/year.

Drupal (Self-Hosted VPS): $100/month per VPS (Digital Ocean, Linode). 10 sites = 10 VPS = $12000/year. Plus DevOps labor for patching and monitoring.

AMODX: $299 one-time (Founder's Circle). $60-180/year AWS costs when idle. $500-1000/year with moderate traffic.

Migration Path from Drupal

AMODX does not have automated Drupal import (unlike WordPress XML import). Drupal's complex content model does not map cleanly to AMODX's simpler structure.

Migration requires: Export content via JSON or Views Data Export. Write custom import scripts to map Drupal entities to AMODX content types. Rebuild custom modules as Lambda functions.

Budget 40-80 hours per site for complex Drupal migrations. Simple sites (basic pages and posts) can migrate faster.

Who Should Stay on Drupal

You have complex content workflows with 5+ editorial roles and multi-stage approval processes.

You need multilingual sites with translation management out-of-box.

You have deep Drupal expertise and a dedicated DevOps team.

You require enterprise integrations (Salesforce, LDAP, SSO) that exist as Drupal modules.

You are a government agency or regulated industry requiring Drupal for compliance reasons.

Who Should Switch to AMODX

You manage 5-20 sites and Drupal hosting costs are killing margins.

You spend weekends patching Drupal security updates.

You want enterprise-grade security without enterprise complexity.

You are technical (or willing to learn AWS basics) and want infrastructure you own.

You charge clients $3000+ per site and want architecture margins instead of labor margins.

Pricing Transparency

Drupal Managed Hosting: $300-500 per site per month (Platform.sh, Acquia, Pantheon). Enterprise tiers $1000+/month.

Drupal Self-Hosted: $50-200 per VPS per month. Plus DevOps labor for patching, monitoring, scaling.

AMODX: $299 lifetime (Founder's Circle). AWS costs $0-5/month for 10 idle sites. $50-100/month with moderate traffic.

Real Talk: Drupal's Declining Market Share

Drupal powered 7% of websites in 2014. In 2026, it powers 1.8%. WordPress grew. Drupal shrank. Why?

Complexity became a liability. Drupal 8 introduced Symfony, Twig, and modern PHP. This alienated site builders who wanted simplicity. It attracted developers who wanted frameworks but they chose Laravel or Next.js instead.

Version migrations killed adoption. Drupal 7 sites stayed on Drupal 7 for a decade because migration to 8 was too expensive. Those sites eventually migrated to WordPress or went headless.

AMODX targets the developers who left Drupal. You wanted enterprise security and performance. You did not want enterprise operational overhead. AMODX gives you both.

Get Started

Explore AMODX: https://amodx.net

Join Founder's Circle: COMING SOON

Open Source: https://github.com/andreirx/amodx