Posted by grantkruger on January 15, 2009 at 7:35pm
Anyone using Acquia Drupal? It seems to give you a small edge by having a larger core that encompasses many excellent contributed modules. The advantage seems to be that you get to update Drupal core and all of these modules with a single download, instead of updating modules one at a time and core separately. However, it does have Acquia modules that appear to be designed to rustle up business, though they can be turned off. So, is it worth it? I know there are some efficiency concerns for some. What are the upsides and downsides? It certainly appears to be a better starting point for beginners.
Comments
Just starting to use it
I've been using it on a site that hasn't left the blocks yet- probably will be up in a month.
The client is a little more button-down than most of the nonprofits I usually work with, so I thought it would be a good fit precisely because it is a bit more packaged. Was going to use 90% of the Acquia modules anyway, so no big deal. Besides, it should be easy enough to revert to a standard install, sans the Acquia mods. And it's not like you couldn't update mods outside of their packaging, either.
Agreed. One has to move the
Agreed. One has to move the modules to the sites folder before reverting to "vanilla" Drupal though. It sure seems like a great option for the redo of my own web page I think. I like shortcuts and efficiency concerns are nonexistent there.
Sala kahle,
Grant
good for larger and well funded orgs
I became a silver partner to see what resources they offered developers and explore the offering in more depth, plus who knows what types of projects it might lead to. I did get one lead so far which didn't materialize into anything. That said, I think it's a good fit for larger, well funded organizations who might, even if not initially than a bit down the road, be interested in paying for an ongoing support contract with Acquia. In this case it's a win all around: we as the developers can take on large and interesting projects and worry less about ongoing support, clients get the reassurance of support team backing their site, and Acquia gets the support contract.
It's important to remember that many larger orgs might shy away from Drupal, or any open source package, precisely due the (perceived) lack fo support, so having Acquia as an option opens up many new doors.
Lev Tsypin
ThinkShout, Inc.
thinkshout.com | twitter.com/levelos
For smaller projects and
For smaller projects and beginners I think it gives one a good head start. Many shops set up an internal Drupal install with a bunch of commonly used modules and they use this central install as a starting point for all their projects. They then keep the central install up-to-date and remove any files they don't want to affect, and then sometimes use version control software like SVN to keep all of their test sites up-to-date with a single command, or some other method. Either way it seems to me that it's a good shortcut and the Acquia install can serve the exact same purpose, especially on low/moderate traffic sites where having modules you don't use matters little. Further, for beginners their base install includes a lot of good modules, some that they would struggle to find and others that they might never think to try, like Administration Menus. Plus it greatly simplifies upgrades. It's a good head start and it's easier to work with. Seems like it could become common usage to use their base install and then turn the Acquia modules off. I could be wrong as I've only just started to play with it, but that's the way it seems.
Sala kahle,
Grant