Drupal for multi-site brand platforms

What exactly is the difference between a website and a multi-site platform? Well, here's the explanation. 

A website is a collection of content under a single domain name (e.g., iodigital.com) that provides information to various users on the internet. They come in all shapes and sizes and are an essential part of conducting business online in 2024. 

For comprehensive enterprise websites, Drupal is an excellent choice as well. 

A multi-site platform is a collection of websites that share certain features or functionalities. Consider, for example, a large multinational corporation that requires a separate website for each sub-brand or market. Multi-site platforms can be centrally managed, significantly reducing financial overhead and the amount of labour-intensive development. 

What are the advantages of a multi-site platform? 

Unlike a standard website, a multi-site platform makes it easier for developers to adhere to the well-known DRY principle — Don’t Repeat Yourself. Because updates are sent out centrally, you spend much less time and energy on them, leaving more time for other tasks with a greater impact. This is much more efficient, and at the end of the day, it's also good for the annual balance sheet. 

For medium to large organisations, a multi-site platform is not only more efficient than a website, but it's also easier to apply your branding consistently. Whether you have sub-brands for different products, target audiences, or company departments: with a multi-site platform, you only need to implement your style guide once and can update it across all sub-brands as needed. 

In essence, a multi-site platform often turns out to be cheaper and more efficient than managing all your brand's websites separately. You only use one tech stack, which also means new colleagues can be trained more quickly. 

Why is Drupal the right solution? 

Those looking for a CMS for a multi-site platform have many options. Depending on your exact needs, you can choose the one that best fits your project. 

At iO, we often work with Drupal, an open-source CMS with Belgian origins. For multi-site platforms, Drupal is an excellent choice: 

• Scalability: Thanks to its built-in performance features and modular construction, Drupal is highly scalable — suitable for small organisations, large multinationals, and everything in between. 

• Multi-language: If you're considering a multi-site platform, chances are you'll need to manage content in several languages. Conveniently, this is a breeze with Drupal 10. 

• Content creation, editing, and management: Thanks to headless Drupal, it is the perfect CMS for multichannel solutions: wherever your content needs to appear, Drupal makes it possible. 

In other words: Drupal is the CMS par excellence for organisations ready for the future.