Drupal Gardens has moved into private beta, so private that I haven’t been lucky enough to get in the door yet. But this new, hosted CMS, built on the forthcoming Drupal version 7, promises to be an interesting alternative for sites needing rapid deployment and a strong set of user-friendly features.
Drupal founder Dries Buytaert announced the launch on his blog, noting,
Drupal Gardens is a hosted version of Drupal so you don’t have to worry about installation, hosting or upgrading. Think of it as WordPress.com or Ning, except that it comes with the power of Drupal. Equipped with multi-user blogging, commenting, forums, custom content types, and advanced user management, Drupal Gardens should be a great tool for organizations that want to build social sites.
A post over at Contented Management provides a helpful, early review of this new Drupal service. I’m looking forward to the chance to give it a test run – should come late winter or early spring.
