If you're leading a website redesign for your college or university, "what CMS should we use for our website?" is probably one of the first questions your team asks, and probably the one you'll get the most conflicting advice about. The honest answer: there's no universally best CMS for a higher ed website. There's a best fit for your institution's content, your editorial team, and the systems you need to connect to.
Two platforms come up again and again in higher education website redesigns: WordPress and Drupal.
WordPress: built for speed and simplicity
WordPress powers a large share of the web, and it's popular in higher ed for good reason. It's fast to launch, familiar to most content editors, and less expensive to maintain over time. If your site has one or two content editors and minimal custom workflows, WordPress usually gets you to a polished, on-brand website faster and at a lower total cost.
Drupal: built for complexity
Drupal shows up disproportionately often at large universities, especially those managing hundreds of pages, multiple departments, and complex integrations. Its architecture is built around structured content types, granular permissions, and multisite management, which matters once you're juggling admissions, academics, athletics, and alumni relations under one roof. Institutions that need to model course catalogs and faculty profiles, or give dozens of departments their own governed sub-site, tend to lean Drupal.
Neither platform is "the" answer
The right choice usually comes down to a few practical questions. How many sub-sites or departments need their own presence? How technical is your editorial team? What does your website need to integrate with, Slate, Salesforce, HubSpot, your SIS? What's your realistic budget and staffing for year two and year three?
As you research higher ed website design agencies, or design studios for your redesign, ask each one how they approach this decision, and how early in the process they make it.
How we approach it at our design agency
As a design agency that's built higher ed websites on both platforms, we typically walk into a discovery phase with a solid, working idea of which CMS is likely the right fit for your institution, based on its size, structure, and goals. But we don't lock that decision in on day one. Our discovery process maps your actual content model, integrations, governance needs, and editorial team against both platforms before we confirm it, so the recommendation fits your institution rather than a default.
If you're weighing a higher ed website redesign and aren't sure where to start, our website design and development team can walk through your specific setup, or you can browse examples of our recent higher ed and nonprofit work.
We'll help you figure out the right platform, together.
