Though the move from Drupal to WordPress is generally thought of as a step towards greater simplicity, for experienced Drupal users it represents some initial confusion about how to replace elements of everyday functionality. Fortunately, WordPress has a vast library of plugins that can quickly and easily replace all of your tried and true functionality.
Custom Post Types
The ability to fully customize your content types is baked into Drupal’s core, but a similar level of functionality is not available in vanilla WordPress. It can be quickly replicated, however. The top plugin options for doing this are CustomPress, Custom Post Type UI and Custom Post Type Maker, though there are literally dozens of similar options to choose from. Custom Post Type UI is the most popular of the free options. However, if your more technically inclined and prefer to write a bit of code over clicking buttons, like us, we recommend adding Post Types with a custom plugin.
Custom Fields
Another area where Drupal is inherently very strong is in allowing you to create highly customized fields with little technical knowledge. WordPress doesn’t have the same level of flexibility baked in, but you can add it with the Advanced Custom Fields plugin. The free version allows for multiple input types, multiple edit pages, and a very wide range of field types. The paid professional version includes a revamped UI, faster database calls, repeating subfields, image galleries and options pages.
Text Entry Forms For Users
Some good free contact form plugins for WordPress that are suitable for beginners include WPForms, Formidable Pro and Ninja Forms. Each of these are “freemium” options that provide a basic version at no cost and add features and ability to integrate with other services (like Basecamp and MailChimp) with the paid upgrade. One good plugin that is completely free is Pirate Forms, but it is limited to simple forms that aren’t suitable for things like payments.
Spam Management
If you’re currently using Captcha or ReCaptcha with Drupal, WordPress has very simple and straightforward plugins for each of these. If you don’t want to employ Captchas, WP-SpamShield does a very good job of blocking automated spam. The go-to post comparison plugin for WordPress is Akismet, which checks text against a huge database of known spam that is reported by users. Comments can be automatically deleted or queued up for moderation.
eCommerce
The WP eCommerce plugin is a fairly robust free option that offers SSL secure checkout, order and catalog management, and the ability to connect additional modules. A paid upgrade is required to integrate with certain types of payment gateways, however. WooCommerce is another very popular free solution, estimated to be used by almost one-third of all online stores.
Layout / Page Builders
The WordPress equivalent of the popular Drupal module Panels is the plugin called Layouts. This gives you drag-and-drop Bootstrap functionality minus the need to use any HTML code. This can also integrate with any theme based on Bootstrap.
Access Control
The WordPress plugin Advanced Access Manager replicates the user security features provided in Drupal’s core. This enables you to set custom privileges for both subordinates and visitors, either as a class grouping or on an individual user level. It also allows you to set a custom 404 page replacement to display when a user attempts to access content they don’t have permission to read, allows read access control down to individual pages and integrate with admin options in WooCommerce.
Fonts
The simplest solution by far is to install the WP Google Fonts plugin, which gives you instant integrated access to the Google Fonts Directory and its 800+ font families. Fonts can be assigned either through your theme’s stylesheet or through the WordPress admin CSS elements. It’s completely free, and Google generally updates at least once or twice a year with bundles of new fonts.
How to Migrate
We could write a whole series on this most likely, but assuming you are looking to simply pull your content from Drupal over to WordPress Ndevr recommends you start with CMS2CMS.
