I recently installed wordpress and drupal on my two websites.
Wordpress on http://alrishachen.com
Drupal on http://alrisha.ca
I'd compare those two popular CMS based on my own experience.
* installation. Both are easy to install/deploy on your hosting server. You just need to untar the tarball and setup database, usually MySQL based on the document. Then, you run the install page and input necessary data and you are done! I'd say wordpress is easier than drupal. The installation of wordpress is faster, with less to worry.
* administration. Once you installed the system, you'd login as the administrator and to configure your website and add contents. As wordpress is generally regarded as a blog system, I used it for a blog. The default administration interface of wordpress is both easy and powerful. Drupal is targeting a more generic website, thus, the administration is more complicated with a lot of settings. It should be intimidating for a small website admin to learn to use Drupal. But, I can see that Drupal provided more controls, especially role based user permission management. I would say this point, they are even. Although the wordpress interface is more intuitive for beginners.
* theme. Wordpress is a winner in terms of themes. There are a lot of themes provided by the community for wordpress. The preview of the themes looks good and it is easier to apply the themes. On the other hand, the themes provided by Drupal seemed providing more control over the layout/block of the website to designers. For admin like me, without too much designer background, I love the beautiful themes in wordpress.
* module/plugin. Both of them have a huge amount of modules/plugins available. Modules for Wordpress are easy to install, but with FTP permission only.
* overall. I'd love to use wordpress for small website, especially blog like style websites. Drupal seemed more flexible in configuring website and provided more controls. If you spend more time on website design and are willing to learn Drupal, you may choose Drupal. If you just need a quick website setup for a certain purpose, I'd recommend Wordpress.
Anyway, the comparison is based on my limited experience of using those two CMS and personal preference. I may have some different opinion later on with more use and requirement. I'd like to try other popular CMS as well, such as Joomla. More reviews may come later.
