Moving to Backdrop CMS
by Jen Lampton & Luke McCormick
Who are you?
Do you have a website you want to move?
Is it Drupal?
Is it WordPress?
Is it something else (and if so, what?)
What is Backdrop CMS?
The free and Open Source CMS
that helps you build websites
for businesses and non-profits.
The Drupal fork
What is Backdrop CMS?
Drupal 7, modernized!
Drupal 7, modernized
- Core features from modern Drupal.
- Contributed featutres from legacy Drupal.
- Many other improvements.
Drupal's core features
- Mobile First, HTML5
- Built-in Rich-Text editor
- Views (and CTools) in core
- Configuration Management System
- Additional Field Types: Date, Email, Link, Reference
Drupal's contrib features
- Admin menu
- Token
- Pathauto
- Redirect
- Project Browser
- Scheduler
- Block Class
- Comment Closer
- LinkIt
- Live Preview
- Rabbit hole
- + 66 more
Ohter improvements over Drupal 7:
- Decreased complexity
- Increased performance
- Improved user exprience
Backdrop CMS is Simple
Even complex tasks should be simple to accomplish.
Backdrop CMS is Fast
Backdrop performs faster than a comparable Drupal 7 site.
This is thanks to a decrease in page-rendering complexity, and improvements to various caching systems (EntityCache in core, and the new Backdground Fetch for the page cache).
Backdrop CMS is easy
Improved user exprience
over both Drupal and WordPress
More than 565 user-experience improvements
to the project since it's inception
Why move to Backdrop from Drupal 7?
- You want a better editor/administrator experience
- You are happy (enough) with your current Drupal 7 site
- You want all the same features you have now
- You want ongoing improvements to your software
- You don't have a real need to rebuild/migrate
Why move to Backdrop from WordPress?
- You want a better user/administrator experience
- You feel limited by what your WordPress site can do
- You are tired of paying for unsupported Plugins
- You are hoping for a richer content experience: content types, fields, taxonomies
- You are hoping for a richer API to add your own additions
Moving your Content
Moving content into Backdrop CMS can be done in various different ways.
- CSV file + feeds module
- XML/Data feed + feeds module
- Database + migrate module
- Anything
- WordPress
- Drupal 7
Data source: CSV file
Use the Feeds module
If you have a spreadsheet containing all your content, that can be used in conjunction with the Feeds module to bring it into a Backdrop site.
You'll need to set up mappings between columns in the spreadsheet and fields in the CMS, but after that, getting the data in should be straightforward.
Data source: Data feed
Use the Feeds module
If you can get your current website to put out an XML feed, a JSON feed, or any type of data feed, that can also be used with the feeds module.
You'll need to set up mappings between the parts of the data feed and fields in the CMS, but after that, getting the data in should be straightforward.
Data source: Database
Use the Migrate module
If you are coming from any other CMS, or have a database containing your content, you also have the option of using the Migrate module to connect directly to another database.
Data source: Anything
Use humans
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people sitting at home at a computer right now, some of whom are out of work. These people might appreciate a little side job copying and pasting. If you don't have too much data, and need to move it only once, this might actually be a reasonable solution for you.
Data source: WordPress
Use the WordPress Import module
If you are coming from WordPress, there is a WordPress Import module for Backdrop that can pull in all your pages, posts, and comments.
Data source: Drupal 7
Backdrop CMS provides a built-in upgrade path from Drupal 7
Because Backdrop and Drupal 7 are so similar,
converting an
existing websut to Backdrop is much easier than converting it to Drupal 8.