Carrd vs Drupal: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Carrd and Drupal offer distinct advantages for different user needs, with Drupal slightly leading in the overall score.

Carrd (Overall Grade: 6.1/10)

excels in simplicity and ease of use, making it an ideal choice for individuals and small businesses looking to create single-page websites quickly and efficiently. Its user-friendly interface, affordable pricing, and mobile responsiveness cater to users who need a straightforward solution without the complexities of a full-fledged CMS.
Drupal (Overall Grade: 6.4/10)

, as a flexible and extensible open-source CMS, is better suited for users requiring a robust platform capable of supporting complex websites and applications. With its wide range of modules and themes, Drupal offers more creative control and customization options, making it a preferred choice for developers and larger organizations with specific web development needs.

	Overall grade: 6.1	Overall grade: 6.4
Design functionalities & templates	7.5	7.8
Ease of use	9.0	5.4
Ecommerce	3.5	7.5
Website Editors	7.0	7.5
Product testing options	6.0	7.1
Price	8.9	5.7
Hosting quality	5.0	0
Website speed optimization	8.2	6.4
Plugins/extensions and integrations	5.8	8.6
Marketing features	5.8	8.0
Customer support	6.2	6.7
Website security	7.6	8.3
AI capabilities	0.0	7.5
User management	4.3	9.1
Overall	6.1	6.4

Best for ecommerce

3.5

7.5

Verdict

: For users seeking advanced ecommerce capabilities, Drupal is the clear winner over Carrd, offering a robust platform with extensive customization options.

Carrd

: Carrd is best suited for simple ecommerce needs, offering basic product listing options and integration with popular payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe. It’s an ideal choice for small-scale projects or individuals looking to sell a limited number of products online with minimal setup.
Drupal

: With a comprehensive suite of ecommerce features, Drupal excels in creating complex online stores. Its Drupal Commerce module enables detailed product management, customizable workflows, and integration with a wide range of payment gateways, making it suitable for businesses with extensive product lines and custom ecommerce requirements.

Best for informational & business websites

7.9

7.5

Verdict

: Carrd is best suited for simple, single-page informational websites due to its ease of use and speed, while Drupal offers greater flexibility and customization for complex, content-rich sites.

Carrd

: Excelling in simplicity and user-friendliness, Carrd is ideal for individuals and small businesses looking to quickly set up a single-page website. Its straightforward design and affordable pricing make it accessible for creating personal profiles, landing pages, and portfolios.
Drupal

: With its robust content management capabilities and extensive customization options through modules and themes, Drupal is better suited for developing complex informational and business websites. It offers scalability and flexibility for users with specific, advanced website requirements.

Detailed comparison

7.5

7.8

🏆

Winner: Drupal.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more creative control and a wide array of design features, Drupal is the preferred choice.

Carrd is a versatile platform that offers a wide variety of templates and designs, catering to different needs and preferences. Users can choose from a broad selection of themes, ranging from simple and minimalist to complex and dynamic layouts, ensuring there’s something for everyone. The platform continuously updates its library with new designs, keeping up with the latest trends in web design. With its user-friendly interface, Carrd makes it easy for users to customize templates, allowing for a high degree of personalization and creativity in creating unique websites.

Carrd Themes

Compared to Carrd, Drupal, as a highly flexible and powerful content management system, offers a vast array of templates and designs to cater to virtually any website need. With thousands of themes available, users can choose from minimalist designs, industry-specific layouts, and highly customizable multipurpose themes. These templates are designed to be responsive, ensuring that websites look great on any device. Moreover, the Drupal community continuously contributes new designs and templates, expanding the options for users to keep their websites modern and engaging.

Drupal Themes

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9.0

5.4

🏆 Winner: Carrd

. With a score of 9.0, Carrd is designed for simplicity and ease of use, making it ideal for beginners and those seeking to create single-page websites quickly. On the other hand, Drupal, scoring 5.4, is known for its flexibility and extensibility, but its steep learning curve can be challenging for beginners or those not familiar with web development principles.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Drupal

. Despite its complexity, Drupal offers a wealth of learning resources, including extensive official documentation, a vibrant community forum, and a variety of online courses and tutorials. Carrd also offers quality learning resources, but they are not as extensive as Drupal’s.

Learn Carrd

Learn Drupal

3.5

7.5

When it comes to ecommerce, Drupal, with a score of 7.5, outperforms Carrd, which has a score of 3.5. Drupal’s Drupal Commerce module provides a flexible ecommerce solution with a wide array of features, including product management, shopping cart, payment gateway integration, and customizable workflows. However, it has a steep learning curve and may require extensive customization to meet specific ecommerce needs.


Ecommerce themes and templates	4.5	7.8
Product page customization	3.0	8.3
Payment processing and commissions	5.0	7.5
POS capabilities	0.0	5.5
Payment gateways	5.5	7.7
Product numbers	2.0	7.0
Additional ecommerce features	3.5	8.0

Carrd ecommerce features:

Paypal and Stripe Integration
External Widgets integrations
Basic Product Listing options

Carrd.co Add a product

Drupal ecommerce features:

Shopping Cart and Checkout Process
Payment Gateway Integration
Order Management and Invoicing
Tax Calculation and VAT Support
Shipping and Fulfillment
Promotions and Discounts
Reporting and Analytics
Security and Compliance

Ecommerce themes & templates

Carrd provides a selection of 14 ecommerce templates aimed at users looking to quickly launch online stores for products ranging from e-books to physical goods. These templates are crafted with a focus on simplicity and conversion optimization. On the other hand, Drupal offers a wide array of ecommerce themes designed to cater to different types of online stores, from clean and simple designs to more sophisticated and feature-rich options.

Product page customization

Carrd offers a streamlined approach to ecommerce product page customization, primarily through integrations with third-party platforms such as Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, and Gumroad. Users can create product pages within Carrd by adding product details like name, description, image, and price, and then integrate a checkout button using Carrd’s Widget element for platforms like Stripe. In contrast, Drupal offers extensive customization possibilities for product pages through its modular architecture, allowing for detailed content types, flexible displays with Views, and theme customizations.

Payment processing

Carrd allows for payment-enabled forms for Pro Plus users or higher, integrating with Stripe Checkout for payment processing. This setup enables creating forms for various transactions like order forms or paid email lists. For payment gateways, it specifically supports Stripe and Paypal. On the other hand, Drupal supports a wide range of payment gateways through third-party modules, including popular ones like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.Net. These modules enable seamless integration for e-commerce functionalities on Drupal sites.

7.0

7.5

🏆

Winner: Drupal

. Drupal, with a score of 7.5, offers a wide range of features tailored for content creation and management. It supports rich text editing, enabling users to format text, insert links, images, and media, as well as create tables and lists with ease. The editor is highly customizable, allowing administrators to configure toolbars and options according to the needs of their site. Furthermore, it integrates seamlessly with Drupal’s content management system, supporting features like automatic content saving, version control, and access control, making it a powerful tool for building and managing diverse web content.

Drupal editor

Carrd’s website builder editor, scoring 7.0, is designed for simplicity and efficiency, catering primarily to users looking to create single-page websites. It offers a user-friendly interface that allows for easy drag-and-drop functionality, enabling users to add, customize, and position elements such as text, images, buttons, and forms with minimal effort. The editor also provides a range of pre-designed templates and responsive design options, ensuring that websites look professional and work seamlessly across various devices. Additionally, Carrd includes basic SEO tools and integration capabilities with external services, making it a versatile choice for personal projects, portfolios, and small business landing pages.

Carrd editor

Mobile editor/app

5.5

🏆

Winner: Carrd

. Neither Carrd nor Drupal offer a dedicated mobile editor app. However, Carrd allows users to edit their websites via a mobile browser, which gives it an edge over Drupal in terms of mobile editing. This feature can be particularly useful for users who need to make quick changes on the go. Despite its simplicity, Carrd manages to provide a decent mobile editing experience, earning it a score of 5.5.

On the other hand, Drupal, known for its robust and flexible web development capabilities, does not offer mobile editing and scores 0 in this category.

Therefore, for mobile editing, Carrd is the clear winner.

6.0

7.1

Overall Result

:

Drupal Wins

. Drupal scores 7.1, while Carrd scores 6.0 in product testing options. Drupal, being an open-source CMS, offers a free version with no trial limit. However, it does not provide the possibility to test premium features. On the other hand, Carrd offers a 7-day free trial where users can test premium features, but it does not have a free version or a money-back guarantee.


Free Plan	No	Yes (open-source software)
Trial Duration	7 days	No trial
Testing Premium Features	Yes, during free trial	No
Money Back Guarantee	No	Not applicable (open-source software)

8.9

5.7

Carrd offers affordable pricing plans, while Drupal is free but requires separate purchases for domain, web hosting, and website builder subscriptions.

	Offerings	Offerings
$0-$1	Pro Lite ($0.75/month): Basic features suitable for simple, personal websites. Up to 3 1-page websites. Value for price: 6.0	No offering at this amount.
$1-$3	Pro Standard ($1.58/month): Offers more features and flexibility, ideal for professional profiles and small projects. Up to 10 1-page websites. Value for price: 7.5	No offering at this amount.
$3+	Pro Plus ($4.08/month): Enhanced features for more complex sites, including additional customization options. Up to 25 1-page websites. Value for price: 8.5	No offering at this amount.

In some cases companies have different prices based on various components like a
location. As a result in rare cases the prices displayed here can differ from the ones you see on their
websites.

5.0

🏆

Winner: Carrd

Carrd offers integrated shared hosting with its website-building platform, making it a convenient choice for users who prefer an all-in-one solution. However, it does not provide specific information on bandwidth or storage limitations, and does not have a traditional backup system. Drupal, on the other hand, does not directly provide hosting services. The type of hosting, uptime, and data centers depend on the chosen hosting provider.


Do they offer hosting?	Yes	No
Type of hosting:	Shared Hosting	Depends on hosting provider
Uptime:	Not provided	Depends on hosting provider
Uptime Guarantee:	No	Depends on hosting provider
Data Centers:	Not disclosed	Depends on hosting provider

8.2

6.4

🏆 Winner: Carrd

Carrd, with its simplicity and straightforwardness, takes the lead in website speed optimization over Drupal, which, while flexible and extensible, can have varying load times and PageSpeed scores depending on optimization and website complexity.


Focus	Mobile Responsive design, Caching, Cloudflare CDN	Drupal offers numerous guides and tutorials on speed optimization
Performance Tools	Built-in tools in Carrd	Drupal’s modules and themes
Key Strategies	Mobile Responsive design, Caching, Cloudflare CDN	Users can optimize almost all aspects of their website
Load Times	Minimal due to simplicity of Carrd websites	Varies depending on optimization and website complexity
Page Speed Scores Range	High due to simplicity of Carrd websites	Varies depending on optimization and website complexity
Core Web Vitals Improvement	Carrd does not disclose any information related to Core web vitals improvements	Depends on users

Carrd, with its simplicity and straightforwardness, is expected to have minimal load times and high page speed scores. Its key strategies for speed optimization include mobile responsive design, caching, and Cloudflare CDN. However, Carrd does not disclose any information related to Core Web Vitals improvements.

On the other hand, Drupal, being an open-source CMS, offers numerous guides and tutorials on speed optimization, allowing users to optimize almost all aspects of their website. However, its load times and PageSpeed scores can vary depending on optimization and website complexity. The improvement of Core Web Vitals depends on the users.

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5.8

8.6

🏆 Winner: Drupal.

With a score of 8.6, Drupal outperforms Carrd, which scores 5.8. Drupal’s extensive range of over 51,000 modules, mostly free and open-source, offers a high level of customization and scalability. Carrd, on the other hand, offers a range of plugins and extensions, both free and paid, but it doesn’t match the breadth and depth of Drupal’s offerings.

While Carrd’s plugins enhance user interactions and content presentation, Drupal’s modules extend the platform’s capabilities beyond its core features, enabling functionalities like advanced SEO tools, e-commerce solutions, and custom content types and fields. Drupal’s key integrations like Commerce for online stores, Views for content display management, and Google Analytics for web traffic analysis make it a highly customizable and scalable platform suitable for a variety of web projects. Carrd’s integrations, mostly from third-party platforms like Elfsight, facilitate rich content display, direct customer interaction, and improved website performance.

Drupal Applications

Drupal modules

5.8

8.0

🏆

Overall Winner: Drupal

. Drupal stands out for its comprehensive set of marketing features, especially in SEO, social media integration, and analytics and reporting. Carrd, while simpler and more straightforward, offers basic marketing tools and allows for third-party integrations.

Marketing Features
SEO Tools
Email Marketing	✓ (through third-party integrations)	✓ (through third-party extensions)
Blogging
Social Media Integration
Analytics and Reporting	✓ (through Google Analytics integration)	✓ (basic built-in features and Google Analytics integration)
Ads and Promotions	✓ (through third-party integrations)	✓ (through third-party extensions)

6.2

6.7

🏆 Winner: Drupal

. Drupal edges out Carrd in this category with a customer support score of 6.7 compared to Carrd’s 6.2. Drupal offers a comprehensive range of customer support options, including a community support system through Drupal.org for forums and documentation, and professional 24/7 support services via providers like Drupal Connect with flexible “pay-as-you-go” plans.

Carrd, on the other hand, provides 24/7 support via email which typically replies within 24 hours. However, it does not provide enterprise support as they don’t have an enterprise plan. This makes Drupal a more suitable choice for users who require more extensive support services.

7.6

8.3

🏆

Winner: Drupal

. Drupal’s security measures are more comprehensive and robust, offering a wide range of features to protect websites and user data. It includes built-in mechanisms for preventing common web vulnerabilities, supports advanced security features like two-factor authentication, and provides extensive access control capabilities. Drupal’s proactive security approach is bolstered by a dedicated security team that continuously works on identifying and fixing vulnerabilities.

On the other hand, Carrd ensures website security by automatically enabling SSL for all sites and extends this to custom domains and subdomains. It collects personal information and uses cookies for website operation, data gathering, and enhancing user experiences. Carrd implements measures to protect personal information online and offline. However, compared to Drupal, Carrd’s security measures are not as extensive.

0.0

7.5


AI Builder	Carrd does not have an AI website builder	Drupal does not have an AI website builder
AI Ecommerce features	Carrd does not have any AI powered ecommerce features	Drupal integrates AI across various functionalities, enhancing e-commerce through chatbots, content creation, marketing automation, and cognitive services for improved user interactions
AI content generation	Carrd lacks built-in AI content generation tools and does not offer third-party integrations with AI capabilities	Drupal enhances content creation through AI with modules like AI Connect, enabling integration with AI services for diverse functionalities like content generation, SEO optimization, and multilingual support
Additional AI features	Carrd lacks any AI features	Drupal can be enhanced with AI capabilities through modules, third-party services, and custom development to provide a range of advanced features

🏆 Winner: Drupal

. Drupal’s AI capabilities, particularly through its AI Connect module and integration with OpenAI and ChatGPT, are highly innovative and versatile. It excels in offering personalized website design suggestions, content optimization, and streamlined site setup processes. Drupal’s AI also assists in providing SEO recommendations and layout adjustments based on user behavior.

4.3

9.1

🏆 Winner: Drupal

. Drupal’s flexible permission and role system allows for an unlimited number of users to manage and edit a website, only constrained by server capacity and practical management considerations. Administrators can create various roles, such as “Editor” or “Administrator”, each with customized permissions. There’s no inherent limit in Drupal on the number of users with administrative or editing capabilities, enabling extensive collaboration and content management possibilities.

On the other hand, Carrd is primarily designed for individual use or small teams, with each account managing its own sites. The platform introduced a Team feature to allow multiple users to collaborate, but traditionally, Carrd sites are managed by a single account holder with full control. The specifics of access levels and permissions for collaborators, if available, are less detailed but generally include editing capabilities.

Drupal User Roles and Access Levels:

Role	Description	Access Highlights
Editor	Users responsible for content creation, editing, and publishing.	Can create, edit, delete, and publish content; can also manage comments.
Moderator	Users focused on site moderation, including comment and user management.	Can approve or delete comments, block users, and manage reported content.
Administrator	Users with full access to all administrative features of the site.	Can change site configuration, manage all content, users, permissions, and install modules/themes.

Additional Features


SSL Certificate
Custom Domain
Free Custom Domain Included
International Domains
Mobile Responsive
Page Speed
Website Builder Mobile App
Convert a Website To An App
Website Analytics
Multilingual Sites
Multiple Users

User Feedback

Carrd

31 reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars

Drupal

415 reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars

Carrd is highly praised by users for its user-friendly interface, excellent customer support, and attractive templates. The drag-and-drop builder, affordability, and mobile-friendly designs are highlighted as significant benefits. However, some users express limitations, such as the inability to create multi-page websites or a desire for more design options. Overall, Carrd is praised for its affordability, ease of use, and suitability for creating quick, simple webpages.

On the other hand, Drupal is appreciated for its ease of use, security, and flexibility as an open-source CMS. Users highlight its ability to scale and support a variety of websites and applications with modern technology tools. The community and documentation are frequently mentioned positives, providing ample support and resources. However, criticisms include a relative lack of plugins and themes compared to competitors like WordPress, the learning curve for customization without coding, and some challenges with installation and updates. Despite these criticisms, Drupal is praised for its robust content management capabilities, enabling users to manage content and user access efficiently. Overall, feedback underscores Drupal’s strength in creating secure, customizable, and scalable web solutions, despite some desires for more intuitive UI and easier setup.

The making of this blog

We followed a clear, step-by-step process to write and research this article.

Our Ranking Criteria

FAQ

Which platform is easier for beginners, Carrd or Drupal?

Carrd is significantly easier for beginners due to its focus on simplicity and user-friendliness. It’s designed for creating single-page websites quickly and efficiently, making it ideal for users with no web development experience. Drupal, while powerful and flexible, has a steeper learning curve and is better suited for users with some web development knowledge.

Can I use Carrd and Drupal for ecommerce?

Yes, but they serve different ecommerce needs. Carrd supports basic ecommerce functionalities, suitable for small-scale online stores or individuals looking to sell a limited number of products. Drupal, with its Drupal Commerce module, is capable of supporting complex online stores with extensive product lines and custom ecommerce requirements.

How do Carrd and Drupal compare in terms of customization and design?

Drupal offers more extensive customization and design options, catering to a wide range of website needs from simple blogs to complex corporate sites. It provides a vast array of modules and themes for deep customization. Carrd, while offering a variety of templates and designs, focuses on simplicity and is best suited for single-page websites with a more straightforward design approach.

What are the main differences in the pricing models of Carrd and Drupal?

Carrd offers affordable pricing plans, making it accessible for individuals and small businesses. It operates on a subscription model with different tiers based on features and the number of sites. Drupal, being an open-source platform, is free to use, but costs may be incurred for hosting, domain registration, and additional third-party services or modules.

Which platform offers better support for SEO and marketing?

Drupal provides more advanced SEO and marketing tools, thanks to its extensive range of modules and integrations. It allows for detailed customization of SEO settings and marketing strategies. Carrd offers basic SEO tools and allows for third-party integrations, making it suitable for simpler marketing needs.

How do Carrd and Drupal handle website security?

Drupal is known for its robust security measures, including a dedicated security team and regular updates to address vulnerabilities. It offers comprehensive security features suitable for high-security websites. Carrd also prioritizes security, providing SSL certificates for all sites and ensuring data protection, but its security features are not as extensive as Drupal’s.

Can I manage a team with Carrd or Drupal?

Drupal is better equipped for team management, offering a flexible permission and role system that allows for detailed access control and collaboration among multiple users. Carrd, primarily designed for individual use or small teams, has more limited user management capabilities.