No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Drupal vs HCL Connections comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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)
4th
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 (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) category, the mindshare of Drupal is 16.6%, up from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Connections is 5.8%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Drupal16.6%
HCL Connections5.8%
Other77.6%
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

"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."
"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."
"We use a part of the solution called Acquia, and the personalization portion of this is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"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."
"The ability to create a complex website with a few developments is the most valuable feature, that's what got me started."
"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 feature I find most valuable is that Drupal is a framework and not only a CMS, and I like that it's a good product to manage complex digital solutions."
"The most valuable feature is Files, because we are working together with our accounting department in different countries."
"The blogs became the main source of information for the organisation and establishing dialogue."
"For example, you can really collaborate in multiple channels, using Connections, so whether it's cognitive collaboration, or file or content collaboration, it makes it much easier."
"The most valuable feature is the Activity flow that is used to catch new activities."
"The most valuable features of Connections would be that it opens up communication silos that previously existed in the company, so that people have the opportunity to discover talents and interests in other areas that may not pertain to their normal job function."
"It is the single source of truth that can be shared anywhere."
"It is the single quickest way for us to start consolidating all of our files together when we are going to many countries."
"One thing that I really have to give to IBM is that they do have a really good vision on what they are trying to accomplish and they're taking the product to that point."
 

Cons

"Drupal community and forums are not as easy and straightforward as Wordpress, the number of areas covered by existing plugins should be larger, and it is resource hungry compared to Wordpress."
"I think Drupal has to improve the UX for some administrative pages, such as the modules list page."
"It needs better and more themes available for download, like you have in WordPress."
"The main complaints of the clients or newcomers to Drupal are about the UX of the admin interface."
"Since Drupal is not developed for any specific use cases, it has some learning curve and requires effort to learn."
"Drupal 8 can be somewhat complex to set up because of the supporting technologies that should be installed, such as Composer, Drush, and Drupal Console."
"The technical support is below average as compared to all the other products."
"Sometimes, you just have to read the code to understand how it works or how to use an API, which is not the best way to learn for everyone."
"The wiki is the weakest part of Connections, compared to standalone wiki solutions."
"It is not easy to create a company’s Intranet home page since the home page is the first page the user lands on."
"The downside for me, as an admin, is that the admins don't have that much of power in the back end/background, i.e., not much power in terms of the access, tweaking and changing the settings."
"The installation process is a bit complex."
"The administration part of the product could be increased."
"Deployment can be a little complex, but a lot of this relates to the network, corporate LDAP, and security requirements."
"Generally, I believe IBM are addressing all of these issues but progress seems very slow."
"We've had a few issues, but overall the stability has been pretty good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would like to see better pricing."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Corporate Portals (Enterprise Information Portals) solutions are best for your needs.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
11%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
18%
Construction Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.