Why one projects become more and more popular whilst others are not?

Here I’d like to look at this question from non-technical point of view and compare two widely used CMS: WordPress and Drupal.

Checking many sites daily ‘from inner side’ my conclusion is clear: Drupal is outsider, and loses its position. Let’s see at gtrends:

So, why?

TL;DR
WP is more user (noob) -friendly AND its community is more user-friendly too.

Details:
I admit that out-of-the-box Drupal can do more, it’s more flexible and offers more features, perhaps is faster but a project receives real driving force when it has fans not only in geek community but among average people in target audience. Housewives of that consumer area, if you like.

Perhaps Drupal was developed keeping web studios in mind as the TA, who knows. On the other side, WP was developed (or at least it looks like) for non tech-savvy people. Just see at ‘Thank you for creating with WordPress.’ Just compare update system from a user standpoint or look at admin page of a new setup like a noob. It is much easier to use WP. Its UI won.

Second but perhaps more important, from my experience WP community is much more user-friendly. Troubleshooting Drupal projects after cumbersome and tricky migration I googled errors and too often saw something like ‘RTFM‘. Well, this approach has its own place to live, and sometimes it’s very useful but this is not a way to make friends.

Of course, there are many other ways how you can kill your OpenSource Project with ease (as well as many other ways to win the race), nevertheless it definitely makes sense to keep in mind the community mood.

May OpenSource Force be with you, Luke!

p.s. At gtrends we see interest to WP decreases too, perhaps something new coming or it’s just because of blogspot and others like that? Share your thoughts!