Backdrop
Hosting

Backdrop CMS is the most underrated content management system on our installer. When Drupal made the jump from version 7 to version 8 back in 2015 it threw out the old hook-based architecture, switched to Symfony, and effectively abandoned the small-organisation market that Drupal 7 had served well. Backdrop forked at that moment and quietly carried on doing what Drupal 7 did, with bug fixes, security patches, and steady minor releases.

The result is a CMS that gives you Drupal-style content types, views, taxonomies, and field flexibility, without needing the cloud-server-grade hosting that Drupal 10 needs. Backdrop happily runs on shared hosting and feels familiar to anyone who built sites in Drupal 7. If you're sitting on a Drupal 7 site that's now end-of-life, Backdrop is the most direct migration path that keeps your content model intact.

What works well: the install is small, the codebase is readable, and the upgrade path from Drupal 7 is well-documented and supported by the Backdrop team. The configuration management system is genuinely good, you commit JSON config files alongside your code and deploy changes from staging to production cleanly. Performance on PHP 8.1+ is respectable.

"Backdrop is the right answer for small organisations who got priced out of Drupal in 2015 and have been waiting for someone to pick up the torch. We host more Backdrop sites in a quiet way than most agencies realise, mostly small charities and local government departments who want serious content modelling without a five-figure rebuild."

Mark McNeece, Founder, 365i Hosting

What's annoying: the module ecosystem is significantly smaller than Drupal's. If you depend on a niche Drupal 7 module that nobody has ported to Backdrop, you'll either need to port it yourself, pay someone to, or do without. Theme choice is also limited. The admin UI is the Drupal 7 admin UI, which has aged but still works.

Hosting-wise, Backdrop sits comfortably on our shared hosting from £5.99/mo for sites under 50,000 visits a month. PHP memory at 256MB is enough for most setups. We'd suggest enabling the cache module straight away, configuring it to write to a dedicated cache directory, and including that directory in your backup but clearing it monthly. Cron is needed and we support it. MySQL 8 handles the schema fine.

For organisations on Drupal 7 who are facing end-of-life pressure, the migration path is clearer than to Drupal 10. We'll do the move free as part of our migration service, run the official Backdrop upgrade scripts, port what we can of your modules, and flag anything that needs developer attention. Most Drupal 7 to Backdrop migrations take us between half a day and two days depending on module count and customisation.

Backdrop is not the answer for everything. If you're running a content operation big enough to justify a full Drupal 10 stack on a dedicated server, stay on Drupal. If you've grown into the Symfony architecture and need that flexibility, stay on Drupal. But for everyone else, especially small charities, local interest sites, and small to medium businesses, Backdrop is exactly the right size.