Products · Product
Drupal
Raised as a usability problem by 81 people on Hacker News over 20 years (2007–2026), in 62 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Admin interface is hard for ordinary people to learnUnreviewed
20072026- Writers hated the admin interface, which felt half-baked and worse than their old specialized tools2026-10-21
- Admin and editor interface is decades behind modern headless CMSes, confusing for typical users2022-08-31
- Too much configuration requires clicking around the admin interface2015-10-08
Building sites by clicking takes longer than codingUnreviewed
20072026- Takes years to learn; easy-looking modules lead to buggy, slow sites unless you write custom code2021-01-24
- Building sites through clicking modules and settings takes longer than coding in a framework2015-11-21
- Drupal modules add so many boxes and navigation options that sites feel complex2010-11-20
Hard to code and debug, and API docs are hard to findUnreviewed
20072026- Docs cover basics but nothing on complicated usage, and API reference is hard to use2024-10-20
- Hard to code for and debug; API docs hard to find2012-10-04
- Developer APIs are obstructive and documentation is nearly nonexistent, hard to work with2011-09-11
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Writers hated the admin interface, which felt half-baked and worse than their old specialized tools2026-10-21
- Hard to get right; search results return outdated advice from older versions2026-10-20
- Windows download gave a white screen of death instead of working2026-10-20
- Setup needs SSH and command line, plus registration and a confusing trial download2026-10-20
- Same actions work in 3-4 different ways depending on location, feels clumsy2026-10-19
- Described as a collection of developer wish-lists unusable by anyone2026-04-01
- Confusing at first, with unfamiliar concepts like nodes and entities and poor documentation2025-01-12
- Docs cover basics but nothing on complicated usage, and API reference is hard to use2024-10-20
- Editor experience is horribly slow and the UX is poor for end-users2024-10-16
- Huge learning curve; takes lots of manpower to understand architecture2023-12-04
- Quiet switch from tar.gz downloads to Composer assumed users knew it2023-12-01
- Switching to Composer didn't fit the commenter's workflow on cheap shared hosting without shell access2023-12-01
- Commenter found the UI terrible and could never get past it2023-12-01
- Software is laid out like a database schema with nested configs, hard for editors to use2023-12-01
- Everything buried layers deep; UI atrocious and slow to work with2023-12-01
- Later versions became too complex for small sites and upgrades were nearly impossible2022-12-17
- Config export to YAML has many gotchas and usually causes problems2022-12-13
- Creating simple pages is hard because Drupal's modular architecture adds too much complexity2022-12-13
- Admin and editor interface is decades behind modern headless CMSes, confusing for typical users2022-08-31
- Drupal's Entity and Field APIs are overengineered, making entity interaction more complicated than needed2022-02-02
- Takes years to learn; easy-looking modules lead to buggy, slow sites unless you write custom code2021-01-24
- Simple tasks require pages of boilerplate, EventSubscribers and YML config2020-10-23
- Documentation is poorly organised and pages load slowly2020-08-20
- Keeping comments free of spam is hard, so most blogs disable comments2020-06-01
- Drupal is hard to navigate and its WYSIWYG editor has kinks2020-04-24
- Installing now requires learning Composer, far more complicated than unzipping a file2018-12-07
- Setting up Drupal 8 is almost impossible without being a serious developer2018-08-11
- Drupal's dynamic calls make IDE stepping through functions impractical and wasteful2018-03-07
- Data gets spread across many tables, so the database can't be read directly from outside Drupal2017-09-04
- Customizing views and content types is ugly and complicated, forcing the Drupal way2017-04-08
- Needs hardcore developers to maintain; upgrades break plugins and lose functionality2016-06-30
- Drupal 7 site takes 3-5 seconds to serve pages despite optimization2016-02-26
- Staff found the Drupal site so complex that nobody used it2016-01-25
- Panels, Views and Blocks look and act differently; save buttons move around and some save via AJAX2015-12-14
- Drupal's incredibly complex abstractions make casual contribution hard to get going2015-11-29
- Hard to tell how a page is built since behavior is split across code, Views, and database2015-11-29
- Building sites through clicking modules and settings takes longer than coding in a framework2015-11-21
- Too much configuration requires clicking around the admin interface2015-10-08
- Hard to find documentation for achieving simple tasks and linking things together2015-08-16
- No way to move existing Drupal 6 data into Drupal 7 modules2015-08-13
- Major upgrades break modules and code, with no usable upgrade path for many modules2015-08-13
- Admin interface is too complex, requiring lots of upfront configuration for users2015-05-21
- Drupal is hard for non-technical clients to manage and use2015-03-02
- Upgrading Drupal core is so complicated and error-prone that a migration takes months2015-02-28
- Upgrading core was not intuitive and official site gave no guidance2014-10-29
- Making everything configurable through the UI produces very complex, overwhelming end-user experiences needing heavy training2014-09-01
- Confusing to decide whether content belongs in menus, tags, or both2014-05-13
- Admin tools and complex menu system are barely usable and unpleasant for users and developers2014-05-11
- Front end is horrible to work with, even after heavy customisation2014-05-10
- System is overly complicated, confusing and counter-intuitive for users and implementers2014-05-10