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Drupal vs HCL Connections comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Drupal
Ranking in Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Management (5th)
HCL Connections
Ranking in Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Social Software (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) category, the mindshare of Drupal is 18.6%, up from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Connections is 6.0%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Drupal18.6%
HCL Connections6.0%
Other75.4%
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals)
 

Featured Reviews

it_user982032 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
A good product that helps me to manage complex digital solutions
My advice to others would be that Drupal is not only a CMS, you need to learn the Drupal fundamentals before to start the project. Drupal is a handy tool whenever you work on a digital infrastructure broad project and not only a simple website. So if you have a big project, you can use Drupal. But if you have a small website, like a blog or simple website, my advice would be not to use Drupal, because Drupal is too complex and the cost to maintain the platform can be too high, related to the value of your website, for example. If you have a website with a big product catalog, for example, in many languages and in many countries in the world, then Drupal is good. But if you have a simple website, like a portfolio or five page-website, you can use many other technologies that'd be simple to maintain and implement. On a scale from one to 10, I will rate Drupal an eight. In the next release, I would like to see basic page buttons and better integration with the analytics platform. A drag and drop function to create simple pages will also be handy. For example, if a customer wants to create a landing page, it should be easy for him or her to do so. I would also like to see better translation management.
Hasnain Zahid - PeerSpot reviewer
Talent acquisition & development specialist at Software Productivity Strategists, Inc. (SPS)
A stable tool useful to manage marketing-related activities
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. Sometimes, the portal hangs because I find that if I am on a web page, I have to log out, and then I have to log in to the portal again. Since I see that the portal hangs at times, I have to move from one side of the portal to the next, making me feel that some things are scattered in the product. I attended a meeting with IBM recently, and they are improving a few of the things, in my opinion. The concerns that I have related to the product are being improved since I think many other users have reported issues similar to the ones I faced.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Drupal is an open source content management system which provides an easy installation process, a good range of modules for features' expansion, as well as a supportive community that will help resolve issues that you face with Drupal."
"It has a huge community and support from all over the web."
"The most valuable are the security features and a wide array of available modules, or extensions, that can be used to add functionality to a Drupal website."
"It is good for big projects."
"Drupal could be chosen not only for its adaptability and ability to tackle big website projects, but for its core functionalities, which are unmatched in the free software CMS world."
"We now have more time to focus on crucial features that our client needs, like custom mail notifications, statistics, or other features that can give our clients business value."
"I encourage others to use this product; it is a very powerful CMS tool with a lot of themes and modules and is great for enterprise use."
"Its ability to style the article module is the most valuable feature, as it gives the developer the flexibility to show the articles the way he or she wants."
"For us, the most valuable feature is really the threaded conversations, because we don't get a threaded conversation with other tools."
"Some of the valuable features in this product are: Profiles – It is easy to find people with similar tech skills and reach out to them internally for a project requirement, and project managers find it easy to know who in the organization possesses a skill that matches the requirement."
"It is the single source of truth that can be shared anywhere."
"IBM Connections Pink means a new way of collaboration, like you have never seen before."
"All social interaction between users is really great, and I also like the Community feature and that everything is accessible via mobile devices."
"IBM Connections is a great product, with new functionality each year."
"The most important feature of IBM Connections is that it is a Social Collaboration suite covering nearly all aspects of modern enterprise communication and collaboration."
"Our productivity has increased by using IBM Connections."
 

Cons

"There are not enough Drupal developers to satisfy demand."
"It has to improve the speed of the admin section. Sometimes you will get stuck while updating the configurations, especially because it uses AJAX in the interface."
"It needs better and more themes available for download, like you have in WordPress."
"The user experience in designing layouts should be much easier or much more helpful."
"The main complaints of the clients or newcomers to Drupal are about the UX of the admin interface."
"We had stability issues. I have a lot of 'Out of memory' issues."
"I think the support needs to improve, as well as the integration with tracking and analytics systems."
"My advice would be not to use Drupal, because Drupal is too complex and the cost to maintain the platform can be too high, related to the value of your website, for example."
"The UI and UX portions definitely need to be improved."
"We've had some load time and performance issues with concurrent users. The page was just not coming up."
"It would be helpful to have more interfacing of all the IBM platforms."
"The different Features (Blog, Wiki, Forum, ...) do not behave equally e.g. how they handle files or links."
"The wiki is the weakest part of Connections, compared to standalone wiki solutions."
"The file plugin for Mac need some improvement."
"The product has a pretty flat structure for communities; they are in principle a long list."
"I have found the wiki to be lacking in functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like to see better pricing."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user8925 - PeerSpot reviewer
Developer with 51-200 employees
Aug 23, 2013
Jive vs Sharepoint vs Drupal Commons
At Mediacurrent we often get requests to compare Drupal to other platforms used for intranet sites and social business platforms (like https://dev.twitter.com/ for example). This is often referred to as “Social Business Software”, which has grown in popularity in recent years. I decided to do a…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Performing Arts
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise26
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with HCL Connections?
The support is an area where the product can improve. My company faces some support-related issues because whenever we create or generate a ticket, it takes two days for the product's support team ...
What is your primary use case for HCL Connections?
I use HCL Connections for marketing purposes. The IBM product in our company already provides us with direct links to the marketing and HR sides.
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM Connections, Lotus Connections
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BMJ, The Economist, New Republic, SpaceX, Lush, Danone, Tesla Motors, Peugeot, Stanford Law, Harvard, Oxford University, MIT Media Lab, The Beatles, MTV UK, The Weather Channel, NBC, BBC, grammy.com, Mus_e du Louvre, Whitehouse.gov, London.gov.uk, Gouvernment.fr, New Zealand Government, The Prince of Wales, British Council, NYC Metropolitan Transport Authority, Gatwick Obviously
Yamato Financial Co. Ltd., University of Zurich, Gwinnett County Public Schools, Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., Telus, Rabobank, Christian Brothers Services, Grupo Financiero Banorte, The Loft Group, Dow Water & Process Solutions, JGC Corporation, College of Medicine, Swansea University, solvito GmbH, Loft Group, Hamm-Reno Group GmbH, Geno SA
Find out what your peers are saying about Drupal vs. HCL Connections and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.