Drupal's Walk of Fame: 10 Most Famous Drupal Websites 

TWITTER, TESLA MOTORS, WHITE HOUSE, LE FIGARO, EMMYS, these are all former Drupal web projects now turned into worldwide known success stories. Into some of the most famous Drupal websites!

And Drupal's own "Hall of fame" includes many other leading global brands, high standard setting government websites and high education sites. Each one of them “speaks” of some of Drupal's “luring” features that turned it into their CMS:

• some speak of Drupal's unmatched capability of handling “truckloads” of traffic and huge amount data
• some speak of Drupal as a robust content management system enabling content creation (content ranging from videos, text, blogs, polls, real time stats) with such an ease and flexibility that no other CMS can rival it
• others speak of governments' high standards on security that only the Drupal CMS supports
• other speak of its “legendary” flexibility and modularity, of the unlimited freedom of customization that its users can leverage
• others have become the most reliable advocates of Drupal's scalability
• while others have been “seduced” by Drupal's limitless integration with other solutions and third-party services (part of its unmatched flexibility) and by the freedom that one can enjoy for creating user-based, highly customized UI's

Needless to add that this list doesn't end here!

Now, if we are to pick 4 of Drupal's features that each one of the websites that will be “stealing the spotlight” on the “red carpet” unrolled below, have been powered with, these would be:

SCALABILITY + FLEXIBILITY + SECURITY + INNOVATIVE POTENTIAL

1. HARVARD SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

This specific Harvard department has been one of the most valuable websites from Drupal community's portfolio since 2007.

What does this “Drupal success story” look like today?

Well, it turned into an easy-to-read site displaying large images linking to current stories, with articles listed underneath, accompanied, each, by a photo and a snippet, along with sidebars listing all the department resources.

Tasteful, easily readable: overall an efficiently structured content-driven website that even today earns shiniest “star” on Drupal's walk of fame!

2. THE ECONOMIST

Launched in 1843, this magazine looking-like newspaper (in fact), has chosen Drupal to power its online version due to some key reasons:

• Drupal's active global community and its whole “constellation” of modules have been another reasons that weighted heavily in their decision-making
• from all the CMSs out there, Drupal turned out to be the only providing a solid-enough “foundation” for quick and easily writing, publishing and delivering news to millions of visitors on a daily basis
• it was Drupal that was capable to upgrade the ECONOMIST's site with a custom subscription system
• since the team behind was facing the challenge of adding many social tools to their website in the future to come, Drupal provided them with the flexibility and the freedom of customization they were looking for

3. LE FIGARO

Here's another name that honours the Drupal community!

LE FIGARO's the second largest newspaper in France, a prestigious one “boasting” with a tradition of almost 2 centuries now.

Why Drupal for powering this reputed newspaper's online version?

Well, you should know that Drupal's powering this site's social features (it still uses the old content management system for its main content), such as the article comment feature. Therefore, it's Drupal's extensive social features that influenced the Le Figaro decisional team, no to mention the reduced costs involved, compared to other CMSs that they've analyzed.

Go Drupal!

4. EMMYS, One of the Most Famous Drupal Websites

Powering the website of one of the most renowned television awards in the world is no “child's game”, that's for sure!

It calls for incredible scalability in order to ope with the huge influxes of visitors around the Emmy Awards time of the year! Luckily, “scalability” is just another word for “Drupal”!

Drupal's now turned the Emmys website into one “powerful beast” capable to handle truckloads of users at the same time and heavy loads of content (multiple multimedia here included), all this without compromising performance.

Handling high traffic at high speed, now that's one achievement that none of Drupal's traditional rivals (Joomla, WordPress) can't “boast” of yet.

5. WHITE HOUSE, By Far One of the Most Famous Drupal Websites

This sure has been a major boost in Drupal's whole evolution as a web technology: year 2008 when, during president Obama's presidency, aligning with this one's costs reducing strategy, Drupal played a decisive role in revamping and rethinking the White House's website.

It's not without reason that Drupal won the CMS's “election for the White House”:

• it's been built with government-sized security standards in the very first place (login security: password length, characters to be used, time-limited passwords etc.)
• it can power large websites, heavy content-driven ones made of multiple dynamic components
• it comes with all the needed social features enabling participation and ensuring open communication (features crucial for any government website “praising” transparency and the community's active participation)
• it easily incorporates proprietary systems and third-party services, making it a highly flexible platform to work with
• being an open source technology and thanks to to its modularity, it involved lower costs than other CMSs “candidating” for the White House and it implied less time

For more insights on building secure and compliant Drupal websites specifically for government agencies, you can refer to our detailed guide on the subject.

How does the White House website look now?

1. its navigation is much more visible
2. the front page's now “dominated” by a large photo aimed at impacting and capturing visitors' attention

6. TESLA MOTORS

Is it still necessary to add an introductory short presentation for this company? 

It would go something like this: “Silicon Valley-based company designing, manufacturing and selling electric vehicles and power-train components.” 

But we're sure this is no news for you...

What you may not have known, till now, is that the TESLA MOTORS' website runs on Drupal! 

Visiting it you'll land on a:
 

• site featuring a minimalist, beautiful design (not that simple to develop as it is for the user to navigate on)
   
• a site made of efficiently structured web pages, each one with its own infrastructure, with its own set of infographs, multiple icons and maps
   
• a site “equipped” with social features encouraging customer community
   
• a news delivery tool, showcasing new product details and news that administrators can add and deliver to the site's audience on the fly
   

A clean design with an emphasis on visually-engaging videos showcasing jaw-dropping Tesla cars in motion, completed by efficiently structured content on each web page. Impactful simplicity!

This is what you get when two highly innovative brands, Drupal and Tesla Motors, meet!

7. WARNER BRO.S RECORDS

Stepping on Drupal's “walk of fame” now and stealing all the spotlights is the WARNER BROS. RECORDS' website. Undoubtedly one of the most famous Drupal websites

The reputed US label (with celebs such as Madonna, the White Stripes, Neil Young, R.E.M and many more as its advocates), with a dedicated Technology Department of its own, has chosen Drupal for redesigning its new site.

And his is what you'll find on their Drupal-powered website (a multi-site setup in fact):
 

• a visually stunning artist slider
   
• draggable node panel
   
• attention-grabbing pictures
   
• multiple clicking details
   
• visible icons
   

What you won't “see”, as a visitor, is that each artist's mini-site shares the same Drupal codebase.

“Stylish” is the right name to describe this Drupal website!

8. FRENCH GOVERNMENT

The French Government's website along with the Official Website for the Mayor of London and, of course, the White House's site, is but one more proof that: Drupal's turned into a gold web development standard when it comes to government websites.

Is there any need that we list here, once again, all the key factors that convinced national governments to run their websites on this CMS? To stress, once more, Drupal's high security standards, unmatched scalability and the rest of its array of features that makes it not just the perfect choice, but the only choice for this type of websites?
 

9. TWITTER's DEVELOPER COMMUNITY

TWITTER's developer-exclusive website's another former Drupal web project turned into a success story that still honors the community.

Back then, when Drupal was selected for this “mission”, TWITTER was facing the challenge of handling an enormous community of registered users: developers working on more than 1 million apps. The need for a solid infrastructure and a highly robust web content management (there were walk-throughs, various documentation, forum discussions, blog content etc.) was critical!

And it's in this context that Drupal developers stepped in! 

What did they manage to do, you say? Well, put in just a few words: a Drupal-powered website where content can be added, edited, updated, published and easily accesses by thousands of developers hassle-free, on a regular basis!

10. OPTASY

Surprised? Don't be! Our team's striving to deserve its own star on Drupal's “walk of fame”, as well, you know!

How? 

• by getting constantly inspired and stimulated by Drupal's amazing innovative potential
   
• by fostering a customer-oriented mindset within our company
   
• and, overall: by striving to leverage Drupal's incredible potential and our own expertise, creativity and passion for our work for delivering precisely those digital results capable to fuel our client's websites/apps for success!

I'm sure your own list of “10 most famous Drupal websites” can't be identical to ours. We're quite curious which are the first 3 names listed there!